By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Metalheads will certainly love the pointed stab at which bands truly belong to this musical subgenre in the movie Deathgasm. This film is now out on Video on Demand (VOD) in select markets, and it’s worth checking out for the absurdities that goes on. I had to laugh when Poison‘s Look What the Cat Dragged In is hurriedly put back in the record stacks in favour of one of Autopsy‘s albums when this film’s hero Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) meets Zakk (James Blake) for the first time.
From bashing glam metal to loving death metal, that’s a detail few will pick up on and I have to praise that kind of attention to detail by writer/director Jason Lei Howden in a movie that’s truly dedicated to the music. From its Frank Frazetta-style cut scenes of the heroes posing powerfully atop a mountain to the anime-inspired gore-fest that goes on, this movie is a gem coming out of Kiwi-land that also unleashed the vampire mockumentary What We Do In Shadows last year. I suppose more tentacles could be used, but I’m glad this film did not go down that vein.