Deathgasm

After his meth-addict mum is sent to a mental asylum, teenage metal-head Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) moves to the suburban town of Greypoint to live with his bible-bashing Uncle Albert (Colin Moy), Aunt Mary (Jodie Rimmer), and obnoxious cousin David (Nick Hoskins-Smith). There he befriends role playing game-nerds Dion and Giles (Sam Berkley and Daniel Cresswell) and wild rocker Zakk (James Blake), with whom he forms a band, Deathgasm.

When the guys chance upon and perform a song written by Satanic metal star Ricky Daggers (Stephen Ure), they unwittingly unleash a plague of demons that possess the locals and kill the living in order to pave the way for the coming of an ancient evil known as Aeloth, The Blind One. With the help of axe-wielding blonde hottie Medina (Kimberley Crossman), the metal-heads try to find a way to prevent Hell on Earth.

Is there anything more sublime in this world than a heavy metal horror movie? The world's foremost form of music fused with the greatest genre of film known to man to create an exquisite elysian experience for connoisseurs of peerless audio visual entertainment. If I'm brutally honest, the script for Deathgasm is a bit of a mess, the action lurching awkwardly from one scene to the next, but its combination of metal mayhem and outrageous splatter is so irresistible that a completely coherent narrative is of little consequence. The riffs are heavy and the gore is very gory (with the graphic dismemberment achieved through the use of practical effects), which is what matters most with this type of flick.

Directed by Jason Lei Howden, who clearly knows his music and his horror, Deathgasm owes a lot to the splatter classics of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, his film possessing a similarly energetic and madcap style. When the demons attack, anything and everything becomes a weapon: an angle grinder, an engine block, a chainsaw, an axe, a weed whacker, a big, black, double-ended dildo, some love beads, and a pair of vibrators. That's right… Deathgasm features a fight scene in which the heroes are armed with sex toys, which should give you some idea of just how demented the film really is.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

This hilariously disgusting, twisted, insane little gem from New Zealand is a must for fans of Evil Dead 2, Braindead and similarly gory low-budget horror comedies. If you're into those kinds of films AND you're into Metal, don't miss out on this one: it's a blast. And it was obviously made by very talented people; especially the camera work is fantastic. The gore effects are good, most of the jokes are funny (depending on your sense of humor), and the actors may not win any Oscars any time soon but they seem perfectly well suited for their parts.

Writer/director Jason Lei Howden has a background in effects work and it shows: despite the low budget, the production values are much higher than what you'd normally expect in this kind of film. The direction is wildly inventive and reminded me a lot of the early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson (mark my words: Howden is a director to watch in the future). A warning, though: even a film like Braindead looks almost sophisticated and tame compared to Deathgasm; a lot of the humor in this film is very, very (did I mention: VERY!!!) rude or downright sick. Do NOT watch this if, say, you have a problem watching genital (and rectal) mutilations in graphic detail.

My verdict: This is a splat-fest of the first order for gore-hounds with a twisted sense of humor, a love for Metal and a very high tolerance for some really cringe inducing nastiness. It's a very well made film - especially for a first-time-director - and I absolutely adored every minute of it. 7 stars out of 10.

Favorite films: http://www.IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/

Lesser-Known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/

Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054808375/

Four teenage boys unwittingly summon an ancient evil entity known as The Blind One by delving into black magic while trying to escape their mundane lives.

One part "Dead Alive", one part "Evil Dead 2", and a heaping scoop of "Todd and the Book of Pure Evil"... you have "Deathgasm", a movie that is both dark and hilarious, with over-the-top gore and some questionable sexual references (but never offensive, just uproarious).

New Zealand has really taken off as far as their film industry goes. I don't know if Peter Jackson injected them somehow or just got more people to notice the great things happening there... but whichever, there are some films from the last few years that are among the best in the horror genre.

There is no doubt that this will strike more of a chord (see what I did there?) with metalheads, though anyone faintly aware of its existence will be able to enjoy this non-stop gore-fest. Put simply, a group of friends find some old music on tattered paper. Its title is in Latin. When they play it, it sounds like a classic Black Sabbath doom song, only darker. The song is so heavy that everyone who hears it begins to leak blood from every orifice as they turn into demons.

The rest of the movie features these four friends decapitating and castrating demons. And here, anything goes and no one is safe. Can't find a weapon? Use a dildo, or some anal beads. The humour is great as there are many funny moments within the carnage, and only a few are 'inside-jokes' for metal fans.

The makers of this film must have spent half their budget on the special effects, as some of the kills are brutal and leave the victims in a state that David Cronenberg would be proud of. I'm not usually a fan of slasher flicks but there were some pretty gruesome moments once the foursome go on their rampage.

It's obvious the filmmakers had a blast making this, so watch it now and have a blast yourself!!

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In the intro we are told that all the gruesome stuff metal bands sing about is actually true.

Some geeky metalhead named Brodie ends up living with his uncle who is Christian. His cousin is a bully and gives him a hard time. He's good at drawing gruesome stuff. One day at a record store he runs into an older and truer metalhead, the kind that chain smokes, chain drinks and doesn't care. This guy, Zakk, plays bass, Brodie plays guitar and he gets two other geeky friends to play keyboard (?) and drums. They end up calling the band Deathgasm.

One day Zakk takes Brodie along and they break into a house. Turns out it's the home of some metal legend of decades ago. They find the guy clutching some album. Suddenly some guy in a suit arrives and attacks them. The metal legend throws to album to the kids who escape. It's a crappy album but also inside the cover are a bunch of papers in Latin with some musical tabs.

Brodie translates the stuff, which reads something like 'summoning such and such a demon to get power and fortune.' They start playing the tune and everyone in the small town turns into demons without eyes who go after them.

Brodie also met the most gorgeous girl in school, Medina, who likes him even though she's his cousin's girlfriend. But Zakk is a backstabbing jerk and through deception hooks up with her.

Now the kids sort of join forces to defeat the demons and to find out how to reverse the situation. We also learn that some rich evil guy wants to take hold of the pages in Latin so he can control this demon.

Extreme metal and horror movies make a good pair, not that Hollywood would understand or care. So it's up to low budget independent producers to work on this, and the guys from Brain Damage have released some movies. Now comes Deathgasm from New Zealand, a very gory movie, although some of the gore is repetitive. But because Deathgasm also aims to be a teen comedy it's unnecessarily juvenile and gross. There is some nudity but not enough. While it has the horror part covered, and it could have gone even darker had it focused more on the occult stuff and the evil cabal, it surprisingly fails when it comes to metal. They get the band posters right, the CDs right, the occasional metal-related dialogue is right, Brodie's guitar, a BC Rich Warlock, is right, but the music is off. A movie called "Deathgasm" should have settled for straightforward death metal, instead we get some really lousy stuff. The music the band plays is terrible and so is most of the soundtrack.

As most movies from New Zealand this one too maintains some of the charming Kiwi innocence. You do empathize a bit with our heroes but not enough. Zakk is well cast and goodness is Kimberley Crossman gorgeous, but our lead is missing something. It appears they were going more for looks, someone to remind us of Death's Chuck Schuldiner. Overall a good effort in a much neglected potential subgenre.