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Duuuuuuude. Dude. Dude. I was super sad, I thought I`d missed my only chance to see this as it played the one weekend of Fantasia I was out of town. Luckily, they added a showing on closing night!

I`d watched the trailer early on, and it promised metal shenanigans, axe wielding ladies and gory fun. And guys, it fucking delivered.

This is a New Zealand film, written and directed by Jason Lei Howden. Unlike, the Hobbit and the LoTR franchises, it does not feature the mind blowing landscapes of incomparable beauty, instead focusing on a small shit town and it`s even smaller population of metaheads.

And it`s brilliant! This is the story of Brodie and his friend Zakk. They unknowingly get a hold of music pages for “The Black Hymn”, which if played, summons a demon and all kinds of badness. The guys have no clue, so of course they play the fucking song with their geeky garage band friends.

They realize what they`ve done, and together embark on a quest to kill the multitude of demons now possessing the town, and reverse the spell before it`s too late! Along the way, he meets sweet girl Medina and introduces her to metal music. She`s nice and very ‘girl next door’, but holy hell does she ever step up when it comes down to axing demons! No hesitation, no bog deal, just, wham! ‘ok guys it`s dead.’

Fucking adorable and badass. I think she`s my favorite character in the whole movie now that I think about it…

Sees what she likes, goes for it, open to new experiences, and not afraid to split a demon in two when it comes down to it.

All in all, this movie is wicked fun. The script is really witty and the actors do a great job portraying these kids. The DnD geeks and metal-kids mixing it up awkwardly was hilarious and produced the best Black Metal Music Video ever made.

The make up and SFX were as good as can be for a gore film, and there was enough blood going around to make Edward Cullen cry. Enough throats slashed to bring Sarah Michelle Gellar back to TV and not get cancelled. Enough guts spilled to make the Sesame Street Count lose count. You get my meaning.

This may not have been a midnight screening, but the crowd was cheering and shouting as if it was. I will definitely see this again with a bunch of friends and a few beers, and I hope to see next Comic Con with a bunch of little Deathgasm cosplayers all about.

Go see this movie, it is an epic tale of Demons and Metal wrapped in awesome.