Bill Zebub is offering three movies on a BD-R, with each disc hand-numbered and signed. It’s $35 in the USA, and all others add $20 for shipping. Email bill@billzebub.com to receive ordering instructions.
The movies are METALHEADS (from 2001), DOLLA MORTE, and FRANKENSTEIN THE RAPIST. These are early movies, so you should only get this disc if you are a big fan. The reason why these older titles are being offered on a disc is that fans have begged Bill Zebub to re-release these, but it is highly unlikely that these will ever appear on any factory-replicated disc again, being that they are only of value to the devoted fans who want to devour every piece of cinema in Bill Zebub’s history. The reason why there is no packaging is that there are fans who own the movies, some in mint condition, who should be able to sell theirs for $200 or more. Yes, when Bill Zebub’s movies go out of print, they drastically increase in value. Some have sold for $700 or more. No, these will not be available on any streaming platform.
Also, be warned that FRANKENSTEIN THE RAPIST is not actually a movie. Bill Zebub filmed test-footage to see what works and what doesn’t. It turned out that there was over an hour of finished scenes, so they were pieced together and were made available in a limited run of 1,000, with an honest synopsis that made it clear that this was not meant to be released. It DOES contain nudity because Bill Zebub really did want to see what worked, and his ideas of a Frankenstein movie had nude scenes. Some of that footage later was used in other movies because Sativa Verte and Nikki Sebastion were too amazing to be relegated to lost footage. You get to see more of those shots here.
Also, the 2001 version of METALHEADS was a practice movie that Bill Zebub shot so that when he was going to pitch his first-ever script to producers, they could see a demo movie so they could see some of the visual ideas. Bill Zebub paid the actresses even though this was just to be used as a visual example because he took the project seriously. Spending no money is equivalent to saying that you don’t respect what you are doing, and you don’t respect actresses. Speaking of actresses, Suzi Lorraine and Darian Caine participated in this. Again, Email bill@billzebub.com to order your copy.
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 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.
You might be excited about the 400_ page picture book, which will be 8.5 x 11 with each page bearing one huge fullcolor photo. Every household needs one of these.
DICKSHARK, THE ULTIMATE EDITION will contian at least 2 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, plus the longest possible cut, which might be 7 hours log (but at least 5)
If you do not have a Bluray player, you can enjoy a 2.5 hour version of the massive 6-hour BLACK METAL: THE ULTIMATE DOCUMENTARY here https://vimeo.com/ondemand/blackmetal
The interviews are conducted in the Grimore style, but that also means that there are some insightful questions amid the absurdity.
If you are the kind of person who just expects everything for free then ignore this.
Bill Zebub is now on Sunday nights from Midnight-3am on 89.3 FM in the Dallas area, and also streamed live at KNON.org. You can hear his debut show hear via the stream of intense pleasure – https://spinitron.com/KNON/pl/16076609/The-Vortex-of-Chaos?sp=325895410 for the next two weeks. Share this instead of AIDS and you will help mankind.
You can opt for the autographed Blu(e)ray that will cost exactly the same as the retail version later on. Of course, you can get the limited-art version as a true collector.
There are tons of other items. Make some coffee and watch Bill Zebub’s sexiness in the pitch video. Try not to wear too many clothes during this process.
Share the hell out of this every hour until you die.