Apparently Sam Raimi’s horror movies made it down to New Zealand. Jason Lei Howden takes a page out of the low budget horror master’s playbook to deliver his take on the horror comedy. If this is the new evolution of that genre, I approve! In fact, I think we need a little more heavy metal in every horror movie going forward. Gives it a nice eff you edge.
We start out in heavy metal’s version of Cinderella. High schooler Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) is rendered parentless, forced to live with his ultra religious uptight uncle and dickish bullying cousin. Perennially frustrated, Brodie finds a few brief moments of solace: the prettiest girl in school Medina (Kimberley Crossman) takes a liking to him, so they bond over metalcore. Most importantly, he befriends Zakk (James Blake), the local metal badass, at the record store. The pair get into petty mischief and form a band, where they play old lyrics they found that, um, inadvertently summon the devil to their small town.
The hardest part about horror comedies is finding the right tonal blend of the two: if you’re too funny, people don’t take the scares seriously; if you’re too scary, the jokes are hella distracting. Howden lays the groundwork smartly, using the natural abrasive look of metal rocker and making Brodie a sweet, earnest poser, with Medina as his opposite: porcelain in appearance, fierce when the going gets tough, making their courtship just inherently funny. While the violence is crazy over the top, the story’s context makes the violence at least make sense, so we’re scared that a demon is attacking, but laughing when we learn what weapons might be available in a repressed Christian household. Scenes sometimes linger too long on gags and jokes, but for the most part, this movie finds that tonal balance with a horror story that has moments of humor here and there.
The minute that the devil gets summoned, the movie shifts more into a crazed frenzy of ultraviolence. Howden, out of necessity, uses the Raimi playbook of gross out gore and gags too, selling the grossness with aplomb. There’s almost every great iteration of demonic murder, or murdering a demon that you can think of on the cheap: endless entrails, spines ripped out, paintball guns and RPG dice, chainsaws (another Evil Dead homage). But those kills are grounded by a story of a kid who just wants people to care about him. One big beating heart…obviously ready to be ripped out of someone’s chest, Kano style.
“New Zealand heavy metal band brings upon a demonic apocalypse.” Audacious hook, for sure. But Jason Lei Howden never wavers from that modus operandai, giving the people the hook, the line, and the sinker. And Skullfist, Nunslaughter, Pathology, and all sorts of heavy metal songs that will melt your brain, before it gets eaten by demons.