Got my hands on a review copy of LoC - the dramatised examination of seminal Norwegian black metal band Mayhem - released last week on DVD.
As a lifelong metal fan I’m well acquainted with the story of these church-burning nutjobs (while never having got round to reading the eponymous book) so to finally see a filmic representation of what went down was certainly an eye opener, and not wholly in a positive way.
I thought I’d fire off some thoughts on the movie and its cast/director, what was good about it but mainly where it all went a bit wrong. The former can be summed up in its being visually decent - slickly produced and edited – which is no surprise considering director Jonas Åkerlund’s history of music videos for the likes of Rammstein, Ozzy and Metallica (not to mention J-Lo, Pink and Lady Gaga!).
There were also some genuine lols punctuating the film, derived chiefly from the middle-class suburban situations of these cod-Satanic black metallers, like the little sis peeping and guffawing at the band rehearsing in the family home basement.