Lords Of Chaos

Euronymous. Faust. Hellhammer. Dead. Necrobutcher. Varg Vikernes. Names don't get more metal than that do they.  These young men were the leading lights of the Norwegian Black Metal scene (The Black Circle) of the late 80's and early 90's. They were also responsible for a story that would seem far fetched if it was fictional. But sadly what you see play out on screen is nearly all true.

The year is 1987. The place is Oslo. The band is Mayhem, a metal trio led by a young man called Øystein Aarseth aka Euronymous. He has a lot to prove to himself and others. He wants to be seen as the real thing, pure evil but inside he's an insecure young man. Band life is fun but he wants more. The introduction of Per "Dead" Yngve Ohlin to the band as their first full time vocalist raises the stakes. Dead is a genuinely dark chap, a man taken to sniffing rotting animals before shows to play with the scent of death in his nostrils and slicing his arms during them to spray the audience with his blood. Euronymous feels like a poseur beside him and takes his inadequacies out on a newcomer to the music circle called Varg Vikernes. Varg in turn creates a masterpiece of an album called Burzum and to show how hardcore he is he starts a trend of church burnings that set the country on edge. Euronymous once again feels like a child beside him. This tit for tat competitiveness soon infects the group and before long blood starts being spilled. A lot of blood.

I really liked this. It's a dramatization of a story I first read about in Metal Hammer over 20 years ago and it's screen adaption doesn't disappoint. Yes, there's no denying it takes some liberties with the story and it's tone is seriously bizarre in places but everything that happened is up there on the screen and director Jonas Åkerlund ( who was once a metal drummer himself) doesn't hold back in depicting just how messes up things got before the whole scene caved in on itself. Crucially he glamourises none of it. In fact he goes out of his way to ensure we know this is a story of silly little boys playing in the deep end.

At first it's funny. Euronymous's every attempt at looking like a metal god is hamstrung by amateur silliness. His kind and loving family, the ultimate black metal accessory. A pair of drumsticks stuck in a ceiling. His metal manifesto being interrupted by his kebab order. Little sisters interrupting band practice. A bunch of very out of place flowers. The sheer ridiculousness of bullet belts and viking weaponry wielded during photo shoots. There's stuff here that wouldn't be out of place in This Is Spinal Tap. Then things start going very wrong. The cat bit. A brutal suicide (a moment so gruelling the the British Board of Film Classification had to have a team of specialists watch the scene before the film could be released uncut. Be wary, it's genuinely horrifying) splits friendships apart and from there everything goes downhill culminating in a couple of moments of nearly unwatchable brutality. Once again nothing is glamourised. The sheer effort involved in taking a human life is shown in full. This is a movie that will cause walk outs.

Because of the collision of comedic elements and brutality the tone does get rather jarring at times but a solid cast helps carry the film through it's more uneven patches. Rory Culkin (Macaulay's lil brother) makes Euronymous into a sympathetic character, a young man rapidly finding himself out of his depth. The moments where he's not trying to impress anyone and his true personality peeks through are affecting making later scenes all the harder to stomach. Emory Cohen as Varg lets us know exactly how much of a fucking idiot this chap was. An interview with a journalist will have you watching from behind your hands. He nails the cringe of a young man going all out to fit in perfectly, his alienation growing until it becomes something far worse, like an early prototype of the rage filled idiots that fill the news everyday with the racial attacks and school shootings. In the smaller role of Dead, Mayhem's vocalist, Jack Kilmer (son of Val) impresses mightily. His character Dead is almost an ethereal presence. I'd have liked to have seen more of him but true life put a stop to that.

This definitely isn't a film for all but as a band biopic it's really worth a watch. There's a lot here for everyone but metal fans will get the most out of it, tidbits for them including a knowing Kerrang cameo, the grim staging of a notorious album cover, those hideous pieces of jewellery and a look inside Helvete, the infamous music shop that was a breeding ground for Norwegian Black Metal. I find it hard to believe that Jonas Åkerlund could direct a film as good as this and a film as bad as Polar in the same year.