Lords of Chaos, a film based on the 1998 book Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, has been controversial for many metalheads, especially for Norwegian black metallers Mayhem. However, the film directed by Jonas Akerlund, is premiering at Sundance this week, and has receiving positive early feedback from film critics and IMDB users.
Rolling Stone summed it up by saying:
“What Culkin, Åkerlund & co. deliver is less a biopic than a horror movie. As the story of a band run amok, it’s decent enough. But as a true-crime case study that happens to involve headbanging, upside-down crosses, vandalism, delinquency and some bitchin’ concert t-shirts, Chaos reigns.”
Tracking-Board gave it a B+ rating:
“I admire the way the film plays with the conventions of the “rise and fall of a rock band” movie, and it’s well-cast across the board. More than anything, I admire the way it deflates the mythology that somehow always attaches itself to death. Euronymous wanted to use death, to ride death, to cloak himself in it so he could be famous, but he underestimated its hunger, and in the end, the scene was too outrageous to persist. It depended on a sense of one-upsmanship that was dangerous and, in the end, fatally destructive. It is a hard film, and many audiences will not be able to handle the unflinching honesty of the violence, but it is a clear-eyed film, and a huge step forward from his debut film Spun.”
We’ll update this with additional ratings, but it seems like it will be a gripping film for metalheads and non-metalheads alike.
