Horror Movie Review: Deathgasm (2015)

“Two teenage boys unwittingly summon an ancient evil entity known as The Blind One by delving into black magic while trying to escape their mundane lives”

Deathgasm has enough in that name to make you want to give the film a try while simultaneously letting you know not to hold too many high expectations. This film is not made for those looking for something deep and meaningful. It is meant to be silly, gory fun and it really is. With blood, gore, demons and heavy metal throughout it would surely be the perfect fit for GBHBL.

Deathgasm is a comedy/horror released in 2015. It is a New Zealand made film and is the directorial debut of Jason Lei Howden who wrote and produced it. It mainly stars Milo Cawthorne (Brodie), Kimberley Crossman (Medina) and James Blake (Zakk) with Brodie and Zakk being the misfit metal heads and Medina being the cheerleader type love interest who has no interest in them until she hears a metal song and falls in love with it.

The film starts with Brodie though and we quickly learn that his dad has died, his mother has been institutionalized and he has had to move to a small town called Greypoint to live with his Uncle, Aunt and cousin. Things don’t go well though as Brodie is a heavy metal fan and his new family are a solid Christian family who believe that heavy metal music is devil worshipping. The cousin, David, also happens to be the school jock/bully who spends his time picking on Brodie and the other school nerds. David also happens to be going out with the hottest girl at school, Medina.

Brodie, having no one else to hang with, eventually starts knocking about with a couple school nerds who spend their time with role playing board games. Not too long after this. Brodie runs in to Zaak at a record store and the two hit it off, probably because they appear to be the only heavy metal fans in town. Around this same time, Medina starts to show an interest in Brodie originally through sympathy but shortly after through attraction. Brodie is awkward and fumbles it all struggling to even get a word out. Brodie, Zaak and the two nerds decide to form a metal band which they call Deathgasm and they are pretty terrible.

The film kicks it up a notch when Zaak convinces Brodie to help him out with a burglary. The break into a house, find an old man clutching an ancient looking album and steal it from him. The man wakes up but ends up being killed by a mysterious stranger while Zaak and Brodie run for their lives. Back in the garage with their band mates, they find some really old sheet music in the album cover and it is this music that the film revolves around.

It turns out that the music is actually an ancient song used to call forth a demon. Deathgasm, the band, eventually get round to playing the song resulting in all their friends and neighbours turning into zombies/demons or something sent forth to pave the way for Aeloth, the head demon. Amidst this, a secretive cult are also hunting for the music as they worship the demon it summons and hope to wield its power (of course). The music sheets get swiped by the cult not long after Brodie decides that playing the track backwards should reverse their problems and so the band with Medina attempt to recover the pages while seeing off hordes of possessed people and an evil cult to regain the sheet music, get the girl and save the world.

So that is the main plot and yes, it is as silly and predictable as you would expect but it is in the telling of the story that the film shines through. If you are a fan of heavy metal, then the soundtrack is pretty neat with tracks from the likes of Emperor, Ihsahn, Beastwars and Skull Fist being used very often throughout the movie as backing to action scenes and more. Musically it definitely stays to the heavy, death and black side of metal though oddly, there are loads of moments where Trivium posters are shoved in your face. It almost feels like product placement but I can see no link between the film and Trivium. It just seems a little out of place to be playing Emperor but showing Trivium images as they represent such different subgenres. Still, they are all metal so it’s all good.

The film makers also love a bit of fake blood and gore with some pretty cool and pretty gruesome deaths. There are pools of blood being vomited everywhere by the newly possessed hordes and we get heads along with connected spines ripped straight out of bodies in close up and we even get demons being bludgeoned to death with sex toys and how about a demon who gouges out his own eyes and then points them at you to watch what you are doing. The makers were nothing if not inventive with how they killed people off.

In regards to comedy, that is probably the most lacking and while there are moments of humour, they are few and far between with Brodie’s smart one liners being more cringe worthy than any of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ever were – “Let off some steam, Bennett” becomes deep and intelligent next to some of these. That aside, there are moments and I must admit I did laugh at seeing Brodie and Zakk stuck in a parent’s room fighting off 2 demons and the only weapons they find in the room are a huge black vibrator and a set of anal beads which results in them just whacking the demons over and over again with them creating another couple of gory deaths. It does also have one of the most hilarious scenes that the still image below barely does justice to. Yep, goth in the sun with ice cream!

Overall though, the lack of comedy is probably for the best as while the film is never meant to be serious, it manages to stay enjoyable without becoming overly cheesy. It is fast paced, slightly humorous, gory and rammed full of heavy metal – what’s not to like?

Even the actors do a decent job with the script they have.

A good fun, bloody and gory journey that is smothered in heavy metal references and solid music. Rammed full of gore and inventive deaths and a few moments to chuckle at too. One for the fans of B movies though and definitely not to be taken too seriously.

This is kind of like the horror version of Airheads or maybe the heavy metal version of Evil Dead’s The Army of Darkness and is well worth a watch though probably only just once. I don’t think you could take the one liners a second time around.