Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – Deathgasm
Written by Gaz Tidey
Saturday, 31 October 2015 03:00
Deathgasm (2015 Metalheads/Timpson Films/Dark Sky Films/NZ Film Commission)
“You know that evil heavy metal that your parents hate you listening to? What if I told you it’s all real?”
Jason Lei Howden’s Deathgasm is the coolest metal/horror mash-up since 1986’s Trick Or Treat. Other rock-influenced shock flicks have come and gone since, many so bad that they are good, but this low budget love letter to the extremities of both Eighties gore and dark metal is so badass it’s…. great!
Howden (who wrote and directed) has created a film that screams along at a blood-curdling pace, tongue firmly in cheek, that plays like the bastard offspring of Peter Jackson’s finest moment, 1987 debut Bad Taste, and pays homage to the horn-throwing, head-banging world of heavy metal in a way that only a true believer could muster.
Eschewing the trappings of modern horror cinema for the splatter of three decades ago, Deathgasm is awash with the glorious fake claret, characters spewing it and shitting it, with practical make-up effects the order of the day 99% of the (running) time. With demonic possession FX that look like a cross between The Evil Dead and Demons, ludicrous scenes of bloodletting, and enough metal knowledge to satiate the denim ‘n’ leather requirements of any hard rockin’ viewer, this film is THE cult music flick of the foreseeable future.
Brodie, our main protagonist, is sent to live with his uncle (an uncle “balls deep into Jesus”) after his mother is sent to a mental institution after trying to suck off a Father Christmas in a shopping mall. He teams up with a pair of geeks from school and Zakk, a cooler-than-thou metalhead who once stabbed a kid for stepping on his King Diamond tape, to form Deathgasm, a godawful garage band that, unwittingly, summons up a shitstorm of malevolent forces.
Locating a seemingly (and soon to be) dead metal band frontman results in Brodie and Zakk being in possession of a piece of music that, when played, turns the residents of the shitty New Zealand town that they reside in into blood-spewing demon fucks. What’s more, a Satanic cult is desperate to locate the music so that one of its members can be the host when the mothertrucker of all demons comes to town to have his wicked way with us all.
There’s a stunningly insane animated title sequence that involves Flying Vs, ejaculating penises, skulls, the shitting out of intestines, etc., a legion of gore-drenched practical FX that reek of Eighties latex, a thumping soundtrack, some fine performances from a cast of unknowns and, yes, the greatest demon versus sex toy face-off I’ve ever seen on a big screen.
Mixing horror and comedy has always been a dangerous game – you can count the ones who have truly pulled it off on the fingers of two severed hands – but Deathgasm nails it. In fact, in amongst the outrageousness there is a beheading gag that is simply sublime: Howden’s film is suitably OTT, yet intelligent in a knowing way.
Like the title didn’t give it away immediately – if you love horror, love metal and don’t take yourself too seriously, then this flick is your next favourite thing.
