You can enjoy a free version of Bill Zebub’s black metal documentary on Tubi https://tubitv.com/movies/714342/black-metal-and-other-dark-music
It is still long (at over 2.5 hours) but shorter than the 7-hour version on Bluray (BLACK METAL: THE ULTIMATE DOCUMENTARY). Perhaps you can consider this as a try-before-you-buy, and when you DO purchase the Blu(e)ray, then you will get many more hours of new content.
I expected to hate this movie for a number of reasons, chiefly because I have seen bad movies that centered around underground metal, seemingly to cash in on a built-in audience. Such movies had boring content, except for an occasional breast on the screen. The stories were hollow and poorly written, like the lyrics of some of the bands.
Death metal is not simply one style. If this movie used death metal as a strong ingredient, my hesitation to watch was because the creators might have been outsiders, or they might have been trendfags.
Some bad lyrics are actually what make the songs much funnier, as in the case of BATHTUB SHITTER. The band is Japanese, with a grasp of the English language that is entertaining, especially with songs like “Shit and Re-shit” which were written as a novelty. I love that band.
Some death metal bands have bad lyrics because the members are uneducated. Grammar is embarrassingly flawed. It makes me think that the writers hate reading. Bands with such members play mediocre death metal and appeal to the same kind of stupidity level as people who love Pantera.
Contrast this with bands like IMMOLATION that chose a literary path. Their early anti-christian lyrics were not vulgar and crude. They often criticized christianity with its own teachings rather than ejaculating on the face of jesus.
There are bands who write so well that their lyrics are veritable poems. I know that I have strayed from the review a bit, but if “death metal” is in the title of the movie, I want to supply some background as well as my worry that I was going to waste my time, unless there were breasts in the movie.
In the beginning, I was worried that I was in for cheese and mediocrity. Some of the characters were outside of metal, like people who had those gay plugs in their earlobes, which is pure gayness and totally alien to real metal. Another negative point is the women who had short hair and looked like they belonged in the hardcore or goth scene rather than death metal.
This gripe is personal taste. Unfortunately, hardcore, punk, and other gay trendy scenes have infiltrated metal, and I suppose that the movie represented the scene as it is today. In the past, promoters booked hardcore bands with metal bands because they thought that they could double the audience, even if it meant that there would be violence. These scenes usually did not mix well. Perhaps it’s like borderlands between two populations that hate each other. The border people sometimes mix, and that is better than fighting each other.
Now onto the positive. The movie completely surprised me. After the initial revulsion, I found myself enjoying the experience.
This was shot well. It wasn’t a lazy effort.
If you loved NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, you might detect that same essence in some of the dialogue scenes, which in my opinion is a compliment.
As for the story, it centers around an overzealous priest who gains some extraordinary abilities after coming into contact with pollutants, which would be cheesy if the movie were serious, but this sort of transformation is more of a nod to movies like THE TOXIC AVENGER as well as the lyrical content of some songs. By the time this occurs in the movie, you will have already decided that you accept all of the stylistic decisions that were made in the writing. Prior to that, there really wasn’t anything absurd.
The mentally ill priest has a specific reason for hating death metal, which you will have to see for yourself. After his transformation into the kind of villain you see in slasher movies, his hatred leads to violence. This is the horror aspect of the movie, and I will refrain from mentioning anything else of that aspect because you simply must enjoy discovering this yourself.
On the metal side of things, there is a rich world of characters in a particular metal scene. The relationships and situations were well-developed. There is a style and flavor that was well-crafted.
If you are acquainted with death metal, then you will enjoy some extra insight and you will laugh more than an average viewer, but this movie is not an inside joke. Anyone outside of metal can enjoy this.
I feel ashamed that I had pre-judged this, but that made me love the movie even more after it redeemed itself, and the redemption was fast, as in, less than ten minutes.
DEATH TO METAL is highly recommended for many reasons. It’s creative. The scenes sometimes masterfully mislead you toward the wrong predictions and then delight you with unexpected developments. It’s hard for me to refrain from giving you examples, but trust me, it’s for your benefit. The things I want to describe should be experienced by you when you see the movie for the first time.
This was very well done, and I wish great success to this remarkable film.
I have the Bluray, but the movie is available for streaming if you don’t mind contributing to the death of physical media.
I first became aware of Astron 6 when I saw their movie “Father’s Day” which I loudly proclaimed as being the best indie movie I had ever seen. The creators didn’t shy away from nudity, which is still of note because video merchants cater to imbeciles who are baffled by boobs.
I had purchased The Editor as soon as it was available, but I was distracted by other tasks that required my attention, and days turned into years. I finally experienced a viewing, and I must again crown Astron 6 as kings of indie film.
I will not mention the story. You will have to find out for yourself. What I will share is that the movie is outstanding. I found myself dazzled. Being that I know that these are indie directors, I wondered how the hell they accomplished what I saw. You might feel the same awe.
There is a sense of parody, but if you have never seen movies that get a bit of a nod, it won’t diminish your enjoyment. The dialogue at times made me howl because it was surprising and refreshingly clever.
Some of the actions on screen were unexpected, and at times, made me laugh so loudly that I even startled myself. I had to rewind because I was stuck admiring the comical creativity and replayed the hilarity in my mind instead of catching up to what was on screen.
Of course, this movie is not really a comedy, or at least not a comedy meant for a simple-minded American audience. When the laughter was evoked from me, it felt like an involuntary act. I laughed hard, almost as if I were vomiting the unfun parts of my psyche. It was a pleasure to watch this masterpiece.
Speaking of pleasure, there is a fair amount of nudity, of the highest quality beauty.
I was surprised to see celebrities, most notably Paz de la Huerta, whom I first saw in Enter the Void, and then drooled again in Boardwalk Empire. She also is part of the behind-the-scenes, and her personality therein makes me love her even more.
Paz De La Huerta
The making-of chapter made me aware of some of the hassles that the creators experienced, but they did not let obstacles destroy them. Bravo!
This is an exceptional movie that excites on many levels. It is HIGHLY recommended, even if you are stupid.
I regret that I saw the movie MEDIEVAL. Visually, the color was desaturated, making it almost gray for many parts, and many shots were blown out, which made me wonder if the camera operator was drunk. Was it a stylistic choice? If so, it sucks. Shoot it properly next time you get work.
The scenes were composed of shots that rarely lasted more than five seconds. Most shots were close-ups, with an occasional longer shot to show that people changed position. It was ridiculous.
Three of the characters looked exactly alike, so for half the movie I thought they were the same person.
Some of the Europeans were played by other ethnicities, so that blew away any chance of this being seen as a historical tale, even though it was based on a historical figure. Yes, I said it. As soon as the first non-European appeared, it stopped being a serious movie and instead became a commercial product without artistic merit. Even a bad historical fiction movie makes me wonder about the period of the tale, and seeing things that should not be there blast me out of the story.
The dialogue was ridiculous and had a lot of modern slang and modern sayings.
I felt deceived, but prior to my purchase, I knew that it was probably garbage because it was a new movie and probably targeted for “modern audiences” which makes me wonder if I will find an exception.
Although this is a Tiawanese movie, some of the characters speak some English. I like the subtitles when they appear because I try to guess which sounds match the translated words, and I try to remember them.
The movie reminds me of how I felt when I saw HOSTEL. It’s not the same story and it is by no means an imitation.
Before I continue, I must get through the most important characteristic. Yes, there are boobs, specifically, those of Maria Ozawa. Why do I state this? It’s because the absence of boobs means that the movie is a cop-out. I don’t want to see PG-rated horror, and if a movie gets an R-rating because someone said “fuck” more than seven times, it’s still a PG-rated movie in my eyes. If viewers are too squeamish to see boobs, then everything else is going to suck too. Being afraid of nudity means the filmmaker is afraid, not bold, no matter how much blood is seen. So bravo, Kevin Ko!
I also want to mention that the boobs are actually touched, which is a natural thing to do yet it remains absent from most cash-grab movies.
I don’t give away story or plot because the only thing that I want to know before watching a movie is if it is worth the investment of my time to watch it, but I will say that for the most part, I found myself interested in the tale, specifically of the protagonist. Of course, this is a horror movie, so bad decisions get made by characters, some coincidences occur that seem like plot points rather than story points (yes, there is a difference), but this is not a realistic set of situations. It’s for entertainment.
Yes, there is gore. There was a scene in which a mouse was going to be subjected to torture, to show what will happen to the human. I had to turn my eyes away. I didn’t want to hate the director in case this was a real death of an animal. I didn’t look back at the screen until after the audio indicated that the shots were over.
There was an interesting twist on the prejudices between classes of wealth and poverty, which I will let you discover on your own. It’s refreshing to see a writer who revamps common themes.
Returning to the gore, I will only say that this movie contains ample amounts, but the entertainment value comes from the tension of the scenes.
This was a fun ride, and I found myself thinking about the movie even a few days after watching it. It’s horror, so I can’t object to some of the things that would raise a few questions if the genre were different.
This isn’t one of the movies that are made for “modern audiences” so a girl that is barely over a hundred pounds does not beat up a dozen men. There is no bending of physics in this movie. The only superhuman element of any character may perhaps be the level of bravery, or even level-headed thinking in a dire situation, that you root for. There is no propaganda, not even in the aforementioned differences between social classes. There is no idealism; just a fun romp in a movie that satisfies in tension-building, great characters, gore, and a good pair of tits that are actually fondled.
I heard that the movie begins with a kid being killed after his mom gets raped for five minutes. This set my expectations high.
What really happened was that a chainsaw came close to what was very obviously a plastic or rubber doll. I wasn’t sure if this was cheesy on purpose or if the people who made the movie really thought that this was shocking. There was no gore in that shot, just blood. Grisly images were not depicted.
The rape was also shot as something that was implied. There was no nudity.
In the first ten minutes of most movies, you see enough to decide whether you accept the deal or if you stop watching. If you continue, it’s after you accept the rules that the moviemaker set. In this movie, it seemed that the rules were that there was going to be no nudity, and if there was going to be any gore, it would be cheesy.
Adding to the difficulty of accepting the boundaries of the movie, what at first seemed like bad color correction turned out to be a visual choice. I found it distracting. Instead of establishing a mood, it made me wonder if the quality of the footage was bad, and the bad color was a way to distract the viewer.
The characters speak Norwegian, which is interesting to hear. There are some sites that show the country and the architecture.
The main characters are in scenes that seem mundane, but some horror movies do the same. It might be that you are supposed to become familiar with the victims before they get abused so that you react more strongly, but I have often complained about this because we humans are a social species. We do not need to know a person in order to feel pity.
When I saw the bonus material, I wondered if I had seen the same movie that people were gushing over.
People were talking about how affected they were by the brutality. Did none of these people ever see a horror movie before?
The rape scene in the movie “Irreversible” is hard to watch. The rape scenes in “Christmas Cruelty” are like Disney in comparison, feeling like the filmmakers were afraid to depict such things. The scenes should have been left out because they were disappointing. Their omission would definitely improve the movie because the comical gore is like something in a Troma flick, but the bad rape scenes just seem like a cop-out.
The behind-the-scenes make the creators look like cool people, except that they seem delusional about what they made. I don’t know if their region of Norway is so secluded that “Christmas Cruelty” is considered over-the-top, but I don’t consider any of the content to be extreme. It works as a comedy-horror, to some extent, but I can’t enjoy a movie that seems to be afraid of its ideas. It’s like me making a movie about rabbits, but due to my irrational fear of those creatures, no actual rabbits are filmed.
I will watch ANY movie by M. Night Shyamalan, and when I saw this Blu(e)ray on a store shelf, I bought it without needing to read the synopsis or anything else.
I do not regret having purchased this, but I do have questions and criticism, but before I delve into the dark, I want to repeat that I enjoyed watching the movie. The bonus material was also enjoyable, especially the exploration into Shyamalan’s filming style for this movie.
Before I get to the spoilers, let me state that there were some interesting situations that were created by the aging process, and there were some compelling group dynamics. I won’t spoil those.
SPOILERS
The more I thought about the movie, the more I poked at some holes. When I watch a movie, I want to be immersed in the world. I make a deal with the movie, as a viewer, to believe the rules of the story world. I do not watch as a critic.
The people who are on the beach are unable to leave, but wouldn’t that barrier make them unable to enter? I will watch the movie again to see if I missed an explanation, but I suspect that if there is one, it will be cheesy. For the story to work, people can only leave via a tunnel, an exit that will likely result in drowning.
The premise of the movie is that evil pharmaceutical people are experimenting upon unwilling recipients, which would never be allowed in the real world because of ethics (not a philosophy – it’s a part of the design of an experiment). Maybe there has been a fake story of how a medicine was discovered (that hides how a person being raped by an elephant produced the particular form of adrenaline… but the official reported story is that elephants that were rescued from poachers had blood tests, and the adrenaline that was produced while having a tusk removed proved to be an incredible medicine for humans).
The beach ages people very quickly. This is used to test medicine on a fast track, rather than waiting decades to see the result. In real life, experiments are performed on creatures that have short life spans because of the quicker results, but this more has to do with seeing many generations, like if you make a pill that increases dick size, would that altering of genetics have results down the lineage of the big-dicked creature?
Each doomed person (experimental rat) is given only ONE dose, disguised in an alcoholic beverage. Isn’t this silly? “Wow, we can examine what happens to a person throughout his entire life span from just a single dose.” In this movie, a woman was cured of epilepsy from a single dose. Well, relatively cured. I think she was estimated to have been cured for sixteen years.
The more I thought about the movie, the more I suspected that plot-points were forced and weak justifications were put into place to make the story flow according to the main ideas, with everything stitched up in a neat bow at the end of the movie, which came off as “contrived.”
I eventually came to the conclusion that this, like many works by the director (and others in science fiction) were enveloping their ideas in story-situations that expressed the personal idea (of the creator). Much material in movies in unrealistic, like fiery explosions in space, or blood spurts from a gun shot. Fiction can be realistic, but fiction is not meant to be a newscast of a real event. It is meant for the reader or viewer (or listener) to enter the world of the creator.
Changing my perspective made me look at the movie the right way – to enjoy the dream of Shyamalan, a dream experienced at Night. (Get it?)
When I was a teen, I saw BARBARIAN QUEEN for the first time on VHS. I was heavily into Dungeons & Dragons, so any movie that remotely had to do with Medieval fantasy was either rented or purchased. In this case, I rented it, because in those days, new tapes cost $80.
Being that young made me forgive a lot of cheese. I wish that I could shed the critic in me, but even now, I try to enjoy what I see rather than critique it, but I can’t always do so.
In my adulthood, the DVD of this movie came out, but to my extreme disappointment, some scenes were censored. I could not understand why those would be deleted.
When I went to horror conventions, I begged bootleggers to find a version of the movie with all the scenes intact. They told me that they had never seen a laser disc for it, nor could they find a digital file.
A decade or so later, another DVD version came out, still censored, but it contained the deleted scenes in a bonus chapter. Unfortunately, these were VHS quality.
A few weeks ago, SCREAM FACTORY announced a Blu(e)ray version, and I pre-ordered it with the hope that I would not only see the deleted scenes restored, but also to see a full, uncut version with footage that I had not seen before, which SCREAM FACTORY sometimes offers.
It was not to be. This is the censored cut, and the deleted scenes are still VHS quality. I would have been appeased if the excised content were as crisp and vibrant as the main movie. It angers me that the footage was removed.
Let’s say that the footage was removed because of sexuality. Why is that a terrifying no-no? Whenever I hear someone ask the question “Is this porn?” I never regard that person as worth talking to. It’s stupid. There were actually people who criticized “Game of Thrones” for having nudity. It’s ridiculous.
Getting back to “sexuality” being the reason for the scene being gutted. Why not scrap the whole movie? The leggy outfits of the women, and the bountiful shots of naked breasts should result in the entire movie being burned. I am joking, of course. But I am not joking when I state that I despise squeamish people. They shouldn’t be allowed to watch movies unless they sign a contact that forbids them to ever give an opinion about movies or music. Fuck them.
I joined a couple of Facebook groups for fantasy writers, but I had to quite because I was horrified by the extreme stupidity of the members. It’s like they only want to write baby-stories for retards. How can characters who carry swords and daggers encounter conflict and be expected to behave in a way that would be approved by a human resources manager? Seriously, some of those idiots actually asked how to write trigger warnings in their garbage books.
It seems that even metal has been infiltrated by the brainwashed assholes. I hate this era. We are living in a period when stupidity is rewarded.
Returning to the movie, it’s not high art that would be degraded it the sex scenes were returned. Honestly, it’s a stupid movie. I like it for nostalgia, and for the boobs – but it’s idiotic, and I wonder why I loved it so much as a teen. Well, I couldn’t have loved it much because the only thing I remembered was boobs.
There was no consistent speech style. Some character talked like they were in a bible movie, while a couple talked in a New York accent with New York slang. I don’t know why that was allowed.
Watching the movie from start to finish was not easy because it was bad, and on top of that, I was furious that it was censored. But it was a fun trip down memory lane, and it was nice to see the parts that I did remember in this pristine form.
The other movie on this double feature is “Amazons” which I also saw in my early life. I didn’t remember a thing about this story either, other than boobs, but now that I am an adult, I don’t find the boobs in this movie attractive because almost all of them are fake. When I was a teen, I don’t think that I even knew that implants existed.
This story is ten times more stupid than “Barbarian Queen” and I had to take breaks from it for that that reason. Both movies have an ultra simple plot of evil warriors trashing a village, followed by a promise of revenge, and then a resolution. Barbarian Queen provides a lot of boobage along the way, but it doesn’t get as retarded as “Amazons” (the ending to that one is too infuriatingly stupid for me to write anything). While both movies could only be loved by a teen, Barbarian Queen at least was shot in the spirit of exploitation film.
Although this review is harsh, I purchased this Blu(e)ray and have no intention of re-selling it. The movies are part of my past. I’d love to get a fully restored “Barbarian Queen” but it seems like the movie industry is more interested in appeasing simple-minded people rather than providing a variety. There are some people who love offensive content, and some people like to see nudity when there are sex scenes. (Do you remember “The Last House on the Left” remake that showed a rape scene with the victim still in bra and panties? That must have been some pointy penis to have poked through the undergarment. But it’s not the only modern horror to water down shocking footage. )
Bill Zebub has stitched together an astounding 6 hours of interviews for the ultimate black metal documentary which will be available on Blu(e)ray.
There was a crowdfunder for this that offered limited, hand-numbered artwork, and a very rare early cut that is 7 hours long. Die-hard supporters of Bill Zebub quickly obtained their prized discs.
This is the tentative cover for the retail version.
Bill Zebub is working on the ultimate documentary about black metal. Currently it is 7 hours long!!! Due to this length, the footage must be provided on Blu(e)ray. It is still too long for that, so Bill Zebub is going to run a crowdfunding campaign that will offer the deleted footage (might be up to 2 hours) on a birded disc (A BD-R is like a DVD-R, except for blu(e)ray).
This will be for a limited time, and of course, the factory-replicated actual documentary will have a different cover – hand-numbered and autographed. If only 20 people participate, then only 20 such discs will exist, and thereby will be super collectible. But even if 100 people participate, owning one out of 100 discs is something to boast.
If you want to be notified when this campaign will launch, Email bill@billzebub.com. You can also check back here.
