“Deathgasm” 2015. Directed by Jason Lei Howden. Starring Milo Cawthorne, Kimberely Crossman and James Blake. Death metal loving teens seek to escape their mundane suburban hell by summoning the demon known as The Blind One. All hell breaks loose, (ha) as their neighbors and family members are possessed by demons and they have to fight for their lives, and the right to listen to heavy metal.
No doubt you are sitting there thinking “I want to see a 2-foot long black dildo and anal beads used as deadly weapons against hordes of the demonically possessed.”
Have I got a movie for you.
Here we have a charming horror comedy from New Zealand in the vein of Lucky McKee’s “All Cheerleaders Die”; a bit of social commentary, a lot of gruesome and effective practical bloodshed and some silliness. And of course, huge dildos.
After metal head loner Brody’s mom is institutionalized for publicly performing oral sex on an unsuspecting department store Santa, he moves in with his bland suburban Aunt Mary and Uncle Albert and their bullying moron of a son Terry in the dreadfully boring small town of Greypoint. After a few weeks of alienation and misery, he meets another headbanger named Zakk and with fellow misfits Dion and Giles, forms a garage band they name Deathgasm.
At the local vinyl shop Alien Records, Brody meets a psychic woman named Abigail who reads coffee grinds and tea leaves while her husband runs the shop. We find out that Brody worships the band Haxan Sword, led by the freaky lead singer Rikki Daggers.
Brody falls for his cousin’s girlfriend Medina. He gives her a bunch of metal records to listen to, which cause her to have hilarious fantasies of being a Thor-like badass on a mountain top with a huge battle-axe and writhing wenches at her feet.
Zakk leads Brody to a desolate house where they discover Rikki Daggers, whom gives them a special vinyl record and tells them to flee. After they escape, Daggers is killed by a clean-cut man with a straight razor. He’s a member of an evil cult seeking to curry favor with demons in exchange for power.
Inside the cover of the Haxan Sword album they find pages of ancient parchment inscribed with the “Black Hymn,” a piece of music that opens the Gates of Hell.
Naturally, they play it.
It transforms Brody’s uncle into a vomiting monstrosity for a few minutes before Deathgasm hits a false note in the tune, saving Greypoint from evil damnation. At school, Brody translates the Latin lyrics and finds out that the “Black Hymn” grants the player fantastic powers.
After being savagely beaten by his cousin over the attention of Medina, Brody decides to play the “Black Hymn” again in its entirety and gain awesome power over the world.
It works… kinda.
The town becomes infested by possessed, eyeless demons seeking to kill and resurrect the living. They worship the powerful demon The Blind One.
You rang?
At the record shop, the bloodied Abigail warns Brody that The Blind One will rise at 3 am on the Night of the Blood Moon, which is this very night! Then her heart gets ripped out and eaten. Tough luck.
Faced with the demonic apocalypse, Dion and Giles arm themselves with boxing gloves and paintball guns, both of which prove totally useless. They are saved by Medina and her axe. Has the beautiful blonde shed the trappings of being defined and objectified as the popular douchebag’s girlfriend and embraced her inner asskicker? Hell yeah she has!
During a bloody battle with Brody’s possessed aunt and uncle, Zakk and Brody find a box marked Church Stuff in Uncle Albert’s closet. Hoping for holy water and crosses, they instead discover a cache of sex toys including a massive double-headed dildo and black anal beads.
The boys are separated during the fight. Zakk battles Albert with a dildo while Brody takes on Mary with two vibrators and a chainsaw. The gore and cinematography in this scene alone is straight out of the Sam Raimi playbook. Pure “Evil Dead.”
Brody discovers that Zakk has designs on Medina and the bromance is over. They fight, and Zakk flees angrily.
Cue fast driving, smoking and pounding music.
After running afoul of the Satanic cult the clean cut assassin worked for Dion, Medina, Giles and Brody are captured. They find out that an acolyte of The Blind One named Shanna seeks incredible power, which becomes available during the 3 am rising of the demon.
Can Zakk save them all?
Before all is said and done, we see heroes torn apart by rampaging demons, guitars tipped with drill bits doling out death to monsters, brother turned against brother, bitchin’ riffs, a sweet scene in which Zakk simultaneously decapitates five demons and the shocking rise of the Blind One himself.
