Metal Inquisition's favorite horror movie: Death Metal Zombies

When you write for one of the leading blogs in the world, as I do, you are often asked questions by people on the street such as:

"Hey, since you write about metal, you must be an expert on really scary things...like listening to an entire Benediction album, or smelling the inside of King Diamond's top hat. Since you know so much about scary things, what is your favorite scary movie to watch around Halloween?

When I'm asked such things on the street, my first response is "Who are you? Get away from me. Let me get into my limo!"




After that, I think about it and only one answer comes to mind. Death Metal Zombies. Although halloween has just passed, there's still time to watch one of the most unbelievable pieces of horror ever put down on consumer-grade VHS tape. If you haven't seen this movie, you might be thinking to yourself that based on the name, it must be a good-ish movie, or that it's so bad, it might be good. Neither is true. The plot of the movie sounds good enough: two idiots who can't act win a tape of what is supposed to be a death metal band (when in reality its just some awful band that the guys who made the movie were friends with, I'm sure), upon listening to one song on the tape, they become zombies. That's it.

Anyway, while the movie does feature multiple bands from the Relapse Records roster (circa 1995) on the soundtrack, the movie is extremely long, the storyline moves at a glacial pace, the acting will make you cringe for such long periods of time that you'll end up with a headache, and the one girl they convinced to get topless will make you dry-heave for days. Having said that, there are just a couple of gems of awfulness hidden in the movie, amidst a sea of boring scenes that go nowhere and aren't scary or funny.

In keeping with Metal Inquisition's ongoing quest for giving our readers only the very best, I've picked out the following choice moments that are sure to delight our readers. I must warn you though, do not be fooled by thinking that the humor levels exemplified in these clips are any indication of what the rest of the movie is like. You will be very disappointed, particularly because the DVD version of this horrible movie is the unedited version. Holy mother of god! If ever there was a movie that could have used MORE editing, it would be this one.


Some of the most memorable quotes in the movie are in this first clip. Please note what might be the absolute best example ever of Metal Mama Jeans®. Note how the pants are up so high, that most of the printing in the Relapse Records t-shirt is hidden under the 16" zipper. There are way too many other great things to point out about this clip. Just watch it.








Pungent Stench reference, awful acting, and the girl uttering the term "pusswad". It's comedy gold, gold I tell you!





Again, too many things to even begin to point out. Check out yet another pair of Metal Mama Jeans®. This girl is a real seductress! Also, an Apple IIe in 1995? What the hell was he doing on that machine, playing Oregon Trail?






I don't know where to begin. Just watch.




If you're not exhausted yet after having watched those clips, I will leave you with one last bit of information. The protagonist of the film, and Ms. Metal Mama Jeans® are still an item. At least it appears that way from his Facebook picture.

The Great Heavy Metal Horror Show

I have posted in the past about heavy metal horror movies, a true love of mine, but I worry that no one is going out and renting these films. Tragic, simply tragic. I'd feel like I wasn't doing my job unless people witness the true beauty of these films. I’m talkin’ bout the hack metal songs from these movies. Not soundtrack songs like Dokken’s awesome “Dream Warriors” from Nightmare on Elm Street 3, but songs normally written by some dudes whose only claim to fame is this tiny, little credit.

---

5. Solid Gold “Blood Tracks” (from Blood Tracks)



This is more of a video shoot that a live performance. I can’t figure out if this is good, I just like the chorus. Ok? The chorus.

---

4. Holy Moses "Cassie” (from Hard Rock Zombies)



I don’t even know. So awesome. I am glad it is called "Hard Rock Zombies" and not "Brutal Guttural Underground Zombies", because then they can get away with such an emotionally touching song. The movie makes very little sense, but the band makes it all worthwhile.

---

3. Black Roses “Rock Invasion” (from Black Roses)



You knew Fabio couldn’t contain the evil for too long. From Whitesnake to all out thrash attack, this is what happens when the parents leave the show.

---

2. Spastic Colon "Virgin Girl" (from Shock 'Em Dead)



I find it hard to believe that the singer knows anything about virgin girls. I really do. Really. But the popish song with just an absurd guitar solo allows me to look past it. You can check out a past post featuring Martin’s wicked audition here. This only loses out because there is no blood and too much spandex.

---

1. Rocktober Blood "Killer on the Loose" (from Rocktober Blood)



A true classic. A long unnecessary guitar solo opening and on stage killings. Who wouldn’t love to see a decapitation and a disembowelment at a metal show! Also, imdb just told me the original music was written by “Smokey Huff”. That's the stuff.

Video Retroview: Megadeth's "Hangar 18"

A candid shot of yours truly (circa 1990) enjoying the premiere airing of the Hangar 18 video on Headbanger's Ball.

I can remember it like it was yesterday. The world premiere of the new Megadeth video was set to air during Headbanger's Ball, and I couldn't wait. My memories are just as vivid of those of earlier generations who gathered around the television to watch The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. It was a momentous occasion. At the time, I was not a huge Megadeth fan, but much had been made in earlier episodes of The Ball about the large budget and special effects that would surely make this video a classic. Mustaine had talked about the video basically being a sci-fi short movie. As a young man, the thought of a cool sci-fi/metal short film must have been intoxicating. Then again, what the hell did I know...I wore Brut cologne in a misguided attempt to attract the opposite sex. Anyway, an entire episode was actually devoted to a behind the scenes look at the making of the video, so this was a big deal. The video for Holy Wars was already out, and although not as heavy as some of the music I listened to at the time, the high rifforama factor of the tune was certainly pleasing to my ears.

So, about the video...I'm not sure why, but in the early 90s metal bands started a trend that would later take over hip-hop videos all together, that of making us believe that their video was more like a full motion picture than a simple video clip for their latest single. Yes, Michael Jackson's Thriller came many years before this, but that lineage was broken and thus not influential to the bloated production that was Metallica's "The Unforgiven" (unequivocally the champion of pseudo artistic video-as-film garbage, especially the uncut 12 minute version). In any case, much like anything that Mustaine has ever done, the introduction in the Hangar 18 video is ridiculous and unnecesary. Sadly, it also plays second fiddle to Metallica's attempt at the very same thing (that being, The Unforgiven's 10 minute video intro). Simply not as lengthy or retarded as Metallica's, the intro nevertheless kicks things off strongly and leads us down a path of stupidity that only Dave Mustaine and the Nike AIR hightop wearing gang could bring us.


Highlights to look out for:

Vic, Megadeth's rip-off of Iron Maiden's Eddie, makes an appearance and speaks for the first time in history. Turns out, his voice is simply that of a production assistant through a cheap vocal harmonizer. Though we all thought that Vic was down with Megadeth, and he was a rebel at heart, here we see him wearing a suit, and leading an army of third rate actors in a campaign against Megadeth. Also note that he's getting help from other military fat-cats who seem evil since they smoke cigars. Man, the 80s and early 90s were all about military and political fat-cats. I don't know if I want Vic to be the guy to pick up the phone at 3am in the White House, the guy can't even see due to his permanently riveted sunglasses. Note his awful skeleton hands, which are constantly fused in the same position throughout the video, and clearly being held by the actor in his sleeves. They remind me of the hooks that kids wear with pirate costumes.



The large budget that Mustaine had talked about in multiple interviews is nowhere to be seen. Rather than spending a few hundred bucks to get an exterior shot of a field, they used the director's HO scale model. This screenshot may be dark, but when you watch the video (below) you'll see what I mean. Perhaps Mustaine got an advance for the video, and it magically went up his nose.



Much in the way that George Lucas employed Ewoks as lighthearted, Muppet-like characters in the Star Wars triology, here too we encounter this lil' guy, a budget E.T. made out of silly putty. Unlike the other monsters we are about to encounter, this fun loving alien means us no harm. Word to the wise, don't get attached...you'll see what the US government (under Vic's control) has in store for him.



Ed Wood would have been so proud. Clearly, the production staff raided storage warehouses at multiple studios and "borrowed" costumes for the shoot. Here we see an extra from Mos Eisley's cantina scene.



This alien was so embarrassed to be featured in this video that he put his fins over his eyes in order to not have to watch.




Just look at his mouth! Mustaine does a killer Rambo impression. During the Clash Of The Titans tour, he would have Kerry King and Scott Ian in stitches for hours. He'd grab a Megadeth bandana from the boxes of unsold merchandise, roll it up and put it around his head....then he'd repeat the following endlessly doing his best Rambo: "Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you!"





Look closely, you'll see the most anti-semitic moment in video history. Right as Marty Friedman is playing a solo, an alien with exactly the same hair as Marty is escorted by authorities. Perhaps most insulting is the gigantic nose that the alien has. Honestly, this is the sort of thing that should be investigated. Mustaine can be such a prick. This is totally uncalled for. No wonder Marty left the band. Can you blame him?




Throughout the whole video we see brief shots of this shirtless girl (with her back to the camera) being walked through the maze that is Vic's top-secret Airforce base. The director chose to use her as an ongoing theme that is woven through the video's fabric in an Ingmar Bergman-like fashion. Toward the very end of the video, the girl finally turns around, and rather than seeing what every male watching Headbanger's Ball wanted to see...we are confronted with a half-robot, half-lady creature wearing leather pants. Booooo! She's a robot? I thought this facility held aliens? The video's treatment really should have been scrutinized a bit more. This was the biggest disappointment in the whole video, even bigger of a disappointment than Vic's skeleton hands.




Look, I warned you not to get attached to the little muppet. The special effects team created only one alien creature that is not a human in a suit. As such, they had to get their milage out of this sucker...so if one creature was gonna get the Dremel drill, it had to be this one.





They seriously must have paid a fortune to rent this crane, because it's shown in like every other godamned shot. You'll see.





Again, the director's passion for HO-scale model trains pays off big. I've never understood why on earth the members of Megadeth were being taken out in these containers at the end of the video. They were just playing to the entire workforce at the base, and the aliens, but now they are captured and frozen? Are they aliens? I'm so confused.


This video was of substantial importance at the time to Megadeth, not only because it showed the depth that the band was capable of, not only because it featured more guitar solos than Mustaine's failed stints in rehab, but also because of the following events:

Inspired by the subject of this song and its video, Nick Menza and subsequent Megadeth drummers decided to convert their once humble drum kits into replicas of the spaceship that was rumored to have crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Note the floating bass drums, which mimic the propulsion mechanisms of the the craft.


In this picture, Dave Mustaine accepts the prestigious "Horrible Production Values In A Rock Video" award from Singapore's President Sellapan Rama.

And now, the masterpiece that made it all possible.

When will you ever learn?

How about we start with this?



This kind of sets the tone for this post.

But then again, I am not really sure how to write about this movie. You see, it is kind of a favorite of mine. The sort of real 80s metal in “film” type of crap that sends dorks like me to the basement to watch on a shitty VCR. So why is it so awesome? Well, one reason and one reason only, THOR! Normally I would say he is a turd, but this is the only thing he has ever done that people actually like, and I am not counting his music because only Seth Putnam likes that. (That last part is true, Seth used to bid big, and by big I mean $1 on many Thor items on Ebay back in the late 90s/early 00s, lucho remembers I am sure.)

So, overall the theme of the movie is giving Thor a place to act. That is really all there is too it. He wrote a little of it and stars in it as an archangel. This makes me think that Putnam wrote it because only he could think of Thor as some heavenly figure.

Now...on to the battle.



Seems innocent enough. Kind of like a weird midwestern boy trapped in Canada.



Women are truly evil. Here is proof. Or they might be puppets. I am not sure what this means.



A knife and a cigarette? Maybe these are scary to Canadians. I don’t know. I am not a fan.



He is just so pissed off. This is like telling a retarded kid to make an angry face.



Well, cometh the man, cometh the scared puppets.



Director: “Give it a good hug, because we ran out of glue. The key grip was too busy huffing.”



I have no words. Is the devil taking advantage of Thor?



Fight is almost over, or is this a dance?


All that aside, you need to watch this. It is a good representation of what was so completely awesome about the 80s. A time when anything was truly possible. Shitty puppet Satan. Some odd fraggle rock puppets that are supposed to be demons? Ghouls? Who knows. The one has a pretty good smokers cough. Hair and then some really creepy bare-chested man vs. puppet action.



When will we ever learn?

"I know Satan, I know evil...for Nicolas Cage is my father"

Call me elitist, but when I think of all the types of upbringings that could contribute to someone getting deeply into metal...growing up in a mansion in the Hollywood hills doesn't exactly come to mind. Yes, this is indeed Nicolas Cage's son, and his band Eyes Of Noctum will be putting out an album in early 2009. Watch the video below and you'll see a future stage banter all-star in the making. I think he took lessons in stage banter at a wrestling school, and his look is basically a complete lift from Phil Anselmo's black metal years, which itself was a stolen look from more legit black metalers. As such, this kid's entire life and look amounts to a game of black metal telephone...and by the time things got to him, they were sadly distorted. I mean just look at all those damn rings on his fingers. The guy is like the pseudo-black metal Liberace.


Also, note that rather than giving himself a metal name, he uses his "real" name....Weston Cage. I say "real" because Cage is a last name his father made up early in his life as an actor in order to not be automatically recognized as being Francis Ford Coppola's nephew. Weston, seems to have no issue with this. Still, I'm sure he wishes his dad had given him a cool first name like "Satano-Destructo"...why not? He just named his last kid Kal-El.

I think its nice that his parents paid for him to get that chinese hair straightening. Also note that at the end of the video, he gets in a limo with his mom. Very metal.

This is what happens when your parents pay to have your publicity photo taken. Evil, yet brooding and sexy. Nice mix champ.

Canada's Anvil Makes A Documentary

I know what you're saying "There's a documentary about Anvil? Oh hell to the no...I was with you when you posted about the Overkill documentary, but this is too much!" Look, I too thought this movie would be a huge waste of time (and it probably still is) but this clip proves that when metal is involved, comedy is ALWAYS around the corner. Wait for the fat dude towards the end rocking out while sitting on a La-Z-Boy.

Amazing Moments In Black Metal Video Hisotry Part 2

Thanks to one of our readers, Andrew, for pointing out this black metal gem. This clip is from Austria's equivalent to American Idol (itself a version of a British show). I love how the kid's make-up is wearing off, from waiting in line since five in the morning, and how it looks like he might throw up at times during his performance. Amazingly enough, the kid made it into the show, or at least he appeared in a later episode, which you can see here.

Some might argue that this doesn't count as a "black metal video", since the person featured is an amateur. But I challenge you to watch the Maniac Butcher video and tell me they're not amateurs as well. Come on now.

Amazing Moments In Black Metal Video Hisotry

Most people have probably already seen this Immortal video for the song "Call Of The Wintermoon", but much like National Lampoon's Vacation, everytime it's on...I have to watch it. My personal favorite detail in the video is the grumpy guy with the witch hat from the dollar store. Check it.





Another classic, this time from the Czech band Maniac Butcher. Once you get past the very long fire intro, you will see unbelievable things. How many black metal videos feature air-guitar playing? This one does. How many black metal videos feature street construction cones covered with black pillow cases to hold up tiki torches? This one does. You can just picture the families trying to have a picnic in the park running into these two fools. I feel embarrassed just watching the video.

Me and my band are going places...

Traci Lords was impressed and so was I. Pulling off the wicked lead to "Hairy Cherry" is not some easy task that any guy can do, and I say guy because girls can't play guitar. It also took real creativity and drive to not just play it, but to reinvent it.

If you have ever wondered what being in a band was like, it is a lot like this. Girls in your practice space and the color turquoise...all standard.

From the movie Shock 'em Dead.