Deathgasm (2015)

Dir: Jason Lei Howden

When his mum goes mental, teenage metal head Brodie (Milo Cawthorne BLOOD PUNCH) moves in with his seemingly straight laced aunt and uncle and their bully of a son David (Nick Hoskins-Smith). New to town and the school, Brodie settles for hanging out with the Dungeons & Dragons obsessed Dion (Sam Berkley) and his friend Giles (Daniel Cresswell). It's not until he stumbles across an indie record shop that he meets another metal head, Zakk (James Blake). The two hit it off, with Zakk steering them towards petty crime, acts of vandalism and forming a garage band that includes Dion and Giles.

Upon learning that the lead singer, Ricky Daggers (Stephen Ure PERFECT CREATURE), of their favourite old school metal band lives in town, Zakk and Brodie break into his dilapidated home. Among the trash and debris they find a dirty, crazed Ricky and try to steal a limited edition record from him. Curiously, Ricky gives them the album; pleaing that they protect it. Later they discover the record jacket contains sheet music to a song called The Black Hymn and their garage band attempts to play it thinking it is an unrecorded song. Unknown to them, it is a summoning ritual to bring the ancient Aeloth The Blind One unto this plane of existence.

Medina as a Valkyrie

In-between garage sessions with his mates, Brodie develops a crush on class mate Medina (Kimberly Crossman A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO SNUFF), who is dating this cousin David. Jock David doesn't take kindly to a metal head talking with his woman and puts the beat down on Brodie. The callous act drives Medina closer to Brodie and the relationship is clinched when Medina listens to power metal for the first time (an excellently done orgiastic visual).

After successfully playing The Black Hymn and unleashing chaos and zombie mayhem on the neighbourhood, it is up to the group of misfits + hottie to fight the demonic forces and revert the spell they cast.

Writer / director Jason Lei Howden (visual effects artist on many big budget films including THE HOBBIT) has created a metal up your arse Kiwi horror comedy. There's a lot of love evident for the music and subculture even as it parodies them. I must admit that I didn't recognise any of the bands performing on the original soundtrack as I'm more of a classic metal (Sabbath!) metal head. But all of them were great accompaniments to the gory practical FX on display throughout the film. This film is a blast.

All hail DEATHGASM!

*** out of ****


Official site


Curiously, Walmart is selling a re-titled version of the film with different DVD artwork. Were they scared off by the 'gasm' in the title?