News

Mayhem have announced the cancellation of their Fall North American 40th anniversary tour due a medical emergency within the band.

The news comes just under a week before the trek was set to launch on November 12th in Montreal. All six of the planned North American tour dates, running through November 23rd, have been nixed; however, Mayhem’s European dates in December will proceed as planned (get tickets here).

The Norwegian black metal legends shared the unfortunate development in a Facebook post, promising US and Canadian fans a surprise sometime next year:

“Mayhem regrets to inform fans that the upcoming 40th anniversary performances in North America are cancelled due to a member of the band having a medical emergency that requires immediate surgery, which will result in a prolonged recovery period. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase.

Fret not, American and Canadian legion, as Mayhem will have something...

Legendary Norwegian black metal band Mayhem have announced a select North American 40th anniversary tour set for this November.

The outing will see Mayhem playing only six dates across Canada and the United States, kicking off with a November 12th show in Montreal, and wrapping up November 23rd in Denver. Along the way, the extreme metal veterans will hit Toronto; Queens, New York; Chicago; and Los Angeles.

Get Mayhem Tickets Here

A Live Nation pre-sale for select dates go on sale Thursday (August 29th) at 10 a.m. local time using the code Create, while a general onsale starts Friday (August 30th) at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster. Fans can also look for deals or get tickets to sold-out dates via StubHub, where your purchase is 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s Fan Protect program.

Mayhem formed in 1984, and are one of the most influential black metal bands of all time. Their...

If there’s one defining feature of seemingly every Kanye West album rollout, it’s gotta be chaos. In the past, it was usually good chaos — oh, how we yearn for the days of first-week sales competitions, Good Friday drops, and music videos projected on buildings. But these days, it’s often grim chaos, and the rollout for Vultures 1, West’s new collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign, has been another exhibition in the form: delays upon delays, sample issues, diatribes of various kinds, and an alternate album cover based...

Last month, Kanye West began teasing his upcoming album, Vultures, the artist’s first release since a string of controversies in which the Grammy-winning musician aligned himself with far-right ideologues and was booted from Twitter (now called X) after declaring that he intended to go “death con 3 On Jewish People.”

Kanye spent much of 2023 out of the public eye, reportedly recording the album in various locations alongside collaborator Ty Dolla $ign. In addition to Ty, Vultures reportedly includes features from Lil Baby, Bad Bunny, Nicki Minaj, James Blake, Kodak Black,...

Despite what popular perception might be, a lot of horror fans watch scary movies to get away from life’s harsh realities. So in a way, basing a horror on something that actually happened defeats the point. But the fact is it’s all in the telling. We’ve been quite strict about not including things that were just loosely inspired by a real event, with the majority of the story a fiction. So no Psycho or Texas Chain Saw Massacre (both inspired by Ed Gein) and no The Exorcist (the book was inspired by a real boy) etc.

Without further ado, here are our favourite horrors based on real events.

Dead Ringers (1988)

Arguably the last flat-out masterpiece of David Cronenberg’s exceptional mid-1970s/late-1980s run of films, Dead Ringers also marked a transitional moment for the filmmaker as he ventured beyond the visceral body horror he was...

In response to the trailer for Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings series, there has been a negative reaction based on the fact that not everyone in the series is a white man. Sure, there have been other negative reactions too, but they’ve been trampled by review bombing rage. In particular, a lot of people have been posting a Tolkien quote to highlight their disgust: “Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good”

Which is, frankly, colossally lacking in self-awareness.

The Rings of Power is an adaptation of the written word into a visual medium made in the third decade of the twenty-first century. It is not going to match books written in the middle of the twentieth century in the same way as Peter Jackson’s films do not match the books.

Update (11/3): Holden Matthews was sentenced to 25 years in prison, plus three years of supervised released after pleading guilty to burning several historically black churches in Louisiana. Matthews was also ordered to pay $2.6 million to three churches in restitution, $590,246 to St. Mary Baptist Church, $970,213.30 to Greater Union, and $1,100,000 to Mt. Pleasant. “There are not enough words in the English language to say how sorry I am,” Matthews said at his sentencing, per The Acadiana Advocate. “If I could go back and change it I would…I not only have hurt...

On Wednesday evening, it was reported that Holden Matthews, the 21-year-old son of a Louisiana sheriff’s deputy, had been arrested in connection with a series of church fires in Louisiana’s St. Landry Parish. Matthews has been charged with three counts of arson of a religious building, which carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison per charge.

Although police have yet to reveal a motive, all three of the fires were at historically black churches, which led the NAACP to classify them as hate crimes earlier this week.

Writer/director (and former Bathory drummer) Jonas Åkerlund’s new black metal murder dramedy Lords of Chaos has really stuck with this critic since I first saw it two weeks ago. The controversial true crime tale has plenty to say about the lives of fringe musicians, the dangers of toxic masculinity and groupthink, and the tenuous nature of friendships amidst creative partnerships — all wrapped up in an irresistible tragicomic package. Chaos is currently available on demand and in limited theatrical release stateside.

Lords of Chaos, adapted from the 1998 nonfiction book Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground from authors Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind, unpacks an insane true story that has become legend in extreme metal lore: the church-burning, murder- and suicide-filled misadventures of a group of angry young Norwegian men that nicknamed themselves “The Black Circle.”

Three of the central musical figures in this grisly...

“I think you know this,” Emperor frontman Ihsahn told a German audience in 2006 with a look of stoic pride on his face. After a burst of feedback, he launched into the rigid, darkly symphonic riffs of “I Am the Black Wizards,” one of the standouts on the Norwegian black-metal band’s 1994 full-length, In the Nightside Eclipse, a record that turns 25 today. The concert, at the Wacken Open Air festival, was one of the group’s biggest-ever sets, and it came on the heels of their 2005 reunion, four years after they...

A new UK trailer has been released for Jonas Akerlund’s ‘Lord of Chaos’ based on Black Metal founders Mayhem.

Related: Exclusive Extended Interview: Lords of Chaos Director Jonas Åkerlund & Stars Rory Culkin & Emory Cohen

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund the film is based Black Metal’s most notorious practitioners – the band Mayhem. The founders of the Norwegian black metal scene and their music strongly influenced the black metal genre. Mayhem’s early career was highly controversial, primarily due to their notorious live performances, the 1991 suicide of vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin and the 1993 murder of guitarist Øystein Aarseth by former member Varg Vikernes, of Burzum.

Also in trailers – Nicholas Hoult is ‘Tolkien’ in first teaser trailer

The film is released in UK cinemas March 29th

Lords of Chaos Synopsis

Oslo, 1987: Seventeen-year-old Euronymous (Rory Culkin) is determined to escape his idyllic Scandinavian hometown and create “true Norwegian black metal” with his band,...

With two weekends to go until the Oscars, the indie box office saw the annual release of this year’s nominated short films by Magnolia Pictures and ShortsTV. With a release on 265 screens, it is the widest opening for the shorts showcase since Magnolia Pictures began distributing the nominees in 2005.

This weekend, screenings for the live action, animated and documentary categories combined for a total of $912,000. It’s the largest total in the history of the Oscar shorts showcase, and represents a per screen average consistent with years past with $3,442 per screen.

Also Read: Liam Neeson Frozen Out at Box Office With Worst Opening Since 2010 for 'Cold Pursuit'

Elsewhere, the largest per screen average of the weekend went to the Chinese sci-fi blockbuster “The Wandering Earth,” which was brought to 70 screens by China Media Capital. The film takes place in a distant future where advanced technology has been...

Nearly every travel guide of Norway bears at least a passing reference to the wave of church burnings that swept the country in the early Nineties. Frommer’s even names one of the arsonists, Varg Vikernes, adding that he was a Satanist who went to jail for murder. To many Norwegians, Vikernes is the country’s Charles Manson, the ultimate boogieman.

That’s because he was at the center of the nation’s most terrifying wave of homegrown terrorism, which filmmaker Jonas Åkerlund (Spun) has dramatized in his new movie,...

Black metal has never been a purely musical phenomenon, nor was it meant to be. Even the most ardent of Mayhem, Darkthrone, or Gorgoroth fans would concede that its practitioners aren’t virtuosos so much as vessels for an anti-establishment worldview that demonizes Christianity the way punk rock savaged Reagan and Thatcher. If you know anything at all about the genre, it probably isn’t that “Transilvanian Hunger” is a pretty solid album — it’s that, back in the early ‘90s, a group of disaffected Norwegians earned notoriety by burning down centuries-old churches and committing grisly murders.

So don’t be surprised that “Lords of Chaos” offers less insight into Mayhem’s songwriting process than it does into the relationship between Øystein Aarseth and Varg Vikernes (Emory Cohen). The friends-turned-rivals, who performed in the foundational band Mayhem together, have emerged as the most infamous figures from that era — especially because...

Talk to “true” Norwegian black metal fans and they’ll tell you Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind’s book about the scene’s origins and criminality is a bunch of baloney (but in much harsher words). It’s interesting because the facts behind a series of church burnings, the suicide of a lead singer, and two subsequently high profile murders are indisputable. Those who were tried and found guilty before serving their time in prison don’t dispute the acts themselves, but merely the way in which they are presented. And who are we to defy them? These are convicted monsters that continue making music today for a rabid fan-base reveling in their no-holds-barred demonic creed. They’ve got their reputations to uphold and this story works to question their mettle let alone sanity.

So they of course hate the idea of director Jonas Åkerlund’s adaptation of said book alongside co-writer Dennis Magnusson.

A new trailer has debuted for Jonas Akerlund’s ‘Lord of Chaos’ based on the Black Metal founders Mayhem.

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund the film is based Black Metal’s most notorious practitioners – the band Mayhem. The founders of the Norwegian black metal scene and their music strongly influenced the black metal genre. Mayhem’s early career was highly controversial, primarily due to their notorious live performances, the 1991 suicide of vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin and the 1993 murder of guitarist Øystein Aarseth by former member Varg Vikernes, of Burzum.

The cast includes Rory Culkin, Emory Cohen, Jack Kilmer, Sky Ferreira, Valter Skarsgård.

Also in trailers – Steven Soderbergh’s basketball drama ‘High Flying Bird’ debuts a new trailer

The film will open in cinemas on February 8th followed by an On Demand release on February 22nd.

Lords of Chaos Synopsis

A teenager’s quest to launch Norwegian Black Metal in Oslo in...

When most people think about black metal from Europe, they image goth-style clothing, thrashing live shows and endless, deep-throated screaming. Intimidating on the surface but mostly all in the name of performance, things got really hairy at the beginning of the craze in the early 90s, when musician Varg Vikernes (Emory Cohen) took things down a violent and destructive path in Norway. The new trailer…...

The influential black-metal band Mayhem will reissue their second album, 2000’s Grand Declaration of War, later this fall. The album, which came six years after their celebrated first LP, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, found the group incorporating elements of prog and art-rock into its typically grim sound.

Drummer Hellhammer and the band’s guitarist on the album – Blasphemer, who departed the group in 2008 – oversaw the remix and remastering, which was done by Paradise Lost producer Jaime Gomez Arellano. The record, due out December 7th, also features new artwork by Glyn Smyth.

Our own Heather Wixson loved Lords of Chaos when she saw it at Sundance earlier this year. Now, those attending Fantasia will have a chance to check it out next week, as the movie was just announced as the festival's "Tba Screening":

Montreal's long-running Fantasia International Film Festival announced earlier today that its "Tba Screening", an annual tradition in which one hotly-anticipated film screened at the end of the festival, which is not announced until shortly before it premieres, will be Jonas Åkerlund's critically-acclaimed Sundance darling Lords Of Chaos.

Fantasia thrilled to showcase the film's Canadian Premiere as an eleventh-hour addition to their lineup, with the screening taking place on Thursday August 2nd at 9:45. As a bonus to attendees, this will likely be the last time the film’s original unrated version, which shocked audiences at the film's Park City World Premiere, will be projected in a cinema.

Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund may be most celebrated for his extensive music video and concert film output, collaborating with everyone from Madonna to Metallica, Roxette to Rammstein, the Smashing Pumpkins to the Prodigy. His movies, however, brim with an equally intense aesthetic and off-the-cuff kineticism: Spun, Åkerlund's delirious 2002 debut feature, is now widely considered a pinnacle of drug-culture–cinema epics; Small Apartments, his 2012 movie about an outsider searching for his place in the world, would probably attain similar cult status if only it'd reached a larger audience. (In between, he also made the crime-thriller Horsemen,...

Let me start off this review by saying that in no way do I consider myself any kind of expert on black metal. In fact, most of my knowledge of metal music begins and ends with the artists who made a name for themselves here in the states. So, while I can’t really judge Lords of Chaos on its accuracy and authenticity in terms of the black metal movement of the 1980s and ’90s, what I can say is that in terms of creating an explosively unforgettable narrative brimming with a sense of bedlam and anarchy, director Jonas Åkerlund has done a helluva job with Lords of Chaos, which feels a bit more like a horror movie about the destructive patterns of youth than it does a straight-up biopic (and that works for me—for others, results may vary).

Lords of Chaos begins by letting audiences know that its...

Deadline reports that frequently photographed person and actually really good dance-popper Sky Ferreira has joined Lords Of Chaos, an adaptation of Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind’s non-fiction account of Norway’s early ‘90s black metal scene, co-produced by Vice films. The project, which was initially announced last year, will reportedly focus on the 1993 murder of Mayhem guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth at the hands of Varg Vikernes, better known as the black metal one-man band Burzum.

The film will be directed by music video veteran Jonas Åkerlund, who, once upon a time, was the original drummer for the pioneering Swedish first-wave black metal band Bathory. (He also directed Spun, which isn’t very good, but you can’t have everything.) Jack Kilmer and Brooklyn’s Emory Cohen have also recently joined the cast, which includes Rory Culkin. Before Åkerlund took over the project, Lords Of Chaos was developed as ...

The company will finance with Insurgent Media, 20th Century Fox and Chimney Pot the sensational story of Norwegian black metal band Mayhem.

Jonas Åkerlund, the Swedish music video director and former drummer with heavy metal band Bathory, will direct the film from a screenplay he co-wrote.

Rory Culkin (pictured) will play Euronymous aka Øystein Aarseth, the leader of the band that popularised the True Norwegian Black Metal movement who was stabbed to death by fellow band member Varg Vikernes in 1993.

The murder was the final act of in a history of notorious antics that saw the band linked to a church burning in 1992 that sparked a wave of arson attacks on churches across Norway.

Emory Cohen will portray Vikernes, while Jack Kilmer plays ‘Dead,’ Valter Skarsgård ‘Faust’ and Sky Ferreira ‘Ann-Marit’.

Fox has come on board to handle North America, the UK, Scandinavia and Brazil. Protagonist handles international sales. Fox and Vice Media launched the joint venture...

Varg Vikernes and his wife, Marie Cachet, have been released from French jail. The two weren’t officially charged with a crime after being nabbed earlier this week by police who suspected them of planning a massacre. Norwegian TV station Nrk said, “Police were unable to identify specific terrorist plans or a terrorist target.” The Burzum frontman (who occasionally also goes by the name Louis Cachet) will still be required to appear in court to face accusations that he breeched French racism laws by making hateful comments about Jews and Muslims online. Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, of course ...

Burzum frontman and Euronymous killer Varg Vikernes has been arrested in France for allegedly plotting a massacre. Vikernes was pinched at his farm near Salon-la-Tour, France, and the police are currently in the process of searching his farm for weapons. Motives for the alleged murder plot are unclear, but numerous French sources are pointing readers to an open letter he wrote in 2011 to Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Oslo that same year. This is, of course, not Vikernes’ first brush with Johnny Law. He stabbed Mayhem guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth to death in 1993, receiving a sentence ...

Today sees the limited release of Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem, which means we've reached part five of this five-part retrospective which began with Zombie's 2003 feature House of 1000 Corpses. I hope you've enjoyed this look back at Zombie's career as much as I enjoyed interviewing him and writing about it. If you haven't already, please give the previous installments in this series a look, I've included all the links at the bottom of this final post. The Lords of Salem Zombie's newest film is The Lords of Salem, an exceedingly moody slice of psychedelic blasphemy. Never one to make the same film twice, Zombie's latest opus represents an evolution toward more cerebral, yet equally visceral scares. Relying less on hulking or twisted degenerates to deliver the shocks, Lords has a decidedly feminine bent to its particular brand of creeping menace. It also is his first film to...

Iceage is a punk band from Copenhagen, Denmark, and for a while, that’s all they were. They received some good buzz from their first full length, New Brigade, and were then later signed to Matador Records, one of America’s largest independent labels. Their most recent release, You’re Nothing, released back in February, has been showing up in ‘Best New Music’ lists all over the place, bringing a ton of exposure to such a young band (the members are all around 18-19 years of age).

But with all this exposure comes scrutiny. The band has been known to sell knives at its shows, their guitarist has a Death in June tattoo, a band often related – fairly or not – with neo-nazism, and the members of Iceage have been known to wear buttons for the metal band Burzum, whose frontman, Varg Vikernes, is a known murderer, church burner, and white supremacist.

In what feels like a perfectly fitting match of star and helmer, Ezra Miller, when speaking to Vulture (via ThePlaylist), announced that he’s looking toward a collaboration with Shion Sono, the controversial Japanese filmmaker who most recently helmed the graphic horror film Cold Fish. Needless to say, the combination of a relatively un-mainstream young actor and an extremely un-mainstream director could bring forth some interesting, shocking results.

The actual project, though untitled, would revolve around the Norwegian rock band Mayhem, a group perhaps best known for a sordid history that mixed plenty of murder in with the typical bad behavior. (They were never really a top-40 kind of sound.) Here’s what Miller said about it:

“I’m talking with Shion Sono about doing a movie together. He’s this Japanese director who is just a madman. He did Guilty of Romance. He’s making a film about the...

In only a few short years, 19-year-old Ezra Miller has become something of a poster child for American independent film. The young actor has had his flirtations with the mainstream -- he appeared on "Californication" and on "Royal Pains," and was courted by Warner Bros for "Akira" before the project fell apart. But for the most part, since his breakthrough in Antonio Campos' "Afterschool," he's been leaning on the independent side of the fence, with projects including "City Island," "We Need To Talk About Kevin" and the upcoming duo of "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" and "Madame Bovary." And he looks to continue in that vein, announcing that he's in discussions with one of international cinema's most uncompromising filmmakers for a picture with fascinating subject matter.

In an interview with Vulture, Miller says that he's met with Japanese helmer Shion Sono ("Love Exposure," "Cold Fish") about the possibility of collaborating on a project.

I hope you guys have been doing your English homework -- and no, CliffsNotes do not count.

Jackson Rathbone and Erika Christensen have signed on the dotted line to star in "The Idiot," based on the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Rathbone's most famous for being creepy Jasper Hale in the "Twilight" franchise, so tackling the lead role (we're assuming) of Prince Myshkin in Dostoyevsky's tome is definitely a big switcheroo for the young actor. Myshkin is described as a Christ-like figure, too innocent for the high society of St. Petersburg and its debauched sexytimes and social wheelings and dealings.

He's caught in a bizarre love triangle between two women, one young and innocent and one a naughty lady indeed. Which will Christensen play? We're gunning for Nastasya, a stunner who does whatever the eff she wants and drives all the men cuckoo with lust.

Variety...

Last week, My Morning Jacket released "Holdin' on to Black Metal," the second tease from the band's forthcoming sixth LP, Circuital. The song feels like soul music of the strangest sort, with a gnarled guitar line that jumps and swivels and horns that splash at the most surprising moments. In a falsetto coo, frontman Jim James sings like he's vying for a lover's attention, a sentiment that seems even more urgent when both an all-female choir and a distant baritone double his melody.

But this isn't a love song. Rather, James sings about catching waves and getting sustenance on "Lucifer's beach," images that make sense when considered alongside the title. Black metal, the vicious and infamous form of extreme metal that took root in Scandinavia more than 20 years ago, has often been considered an outlet for young, adolescent aggression, much like hardcore punk and hip-hop. Remember, Burzum's Varg Vikernes was...

Above is a cropped section of a "Thor" bus stop ad posted to BuzzFeed. You can see that someone has taped a religious flyer to it. Intentional? Is there a minor protest going on against the polytheistic themes of the upcoming comic book movie? Does "Thor" have a soundtrack consisting of Varg Vikernes and other infamous neopagan black metal bands? Is there any other reason for people to worry it preaches anti-Christian messages? I sincerely hope this is just a chance occurrence. Still, apparently some people are seeing too much in a flashy, potentially campy summer blockbuster. Star Foster at…...

Hailing from the frostbitten and legendary black metal scene of Norway, Enslaved were part of what kvltists refer to as “The Second Wave” of the infamous subgenre. Hanging out as youngsters at the now-mythical Helvette Records, run by the late Euronymous of Mayhem (who was murdered by the recently released Varg Vikernes, the man behind the elite Bm project Burzum), they lived through and contributed to what is now inarguably part of rock history, along with the two aforementioned bands as well as neighbors and fellow countrymen Darkthrone, Immortal and Emperor.

I recently had the opportunity to interview the directors of a very insightful documentary concerning the Norwegian Black Metal scene. Having a very healthy interest in this genre myself, it was amazing to get the chance to conduct an interview.

Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites took their interest in a niche musical genre to Norway itself in order to gain access to some of the leading figures of the industry.

Until The Light Takes Us is a fantastic look at a fantastical event. One that never has, and likely never will be, repeated. You meet the front runners of the scene and hear their personal accounts of the events that unfolded in the early 90′s black metal arena. Ewell and Aites explain here how the project came about and how it felt to interview some of the most infamous characters in modern music history.

FilmShaft: How did the film come...

Until The Light Takes Us

DVD | 2-Disc DVD | Blu-Ray

Directed by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell

Starring Gylve "Fenriz" Nagell, Varg Vikernes, Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg, Kjetil "Frost" Haraldstad

Factory 25

Released: October 19, 2010

It was the early 1990s, and for metalheads, change was in the air. "Alternative" was the buzz word being bandied about by music marketing, Grunge had taken over the charts, new bands and new sounds were coming... but among metal fans there was a desire to search and find something new and something different -- and many were looking for more extreme and brutal movements.

Enter the Norwegian Black Metal movement. A lot of metal fans were first introduced to this scene when news hit international media of Varg Vikernes (Burzum) being arrested and tried for burning a number of churches across Norway. The media across the world had a field day with the story, labeling the initially...

New documentary Until The Light Takes Us shows that, while pop was eating itself, Norway's black metal stars were busy burning churches and killing one another

"It's like New Zealand … only grimmer." Darkthrone's Fenriz is attempting to explain why the tranquil, prosperous surroundings of Norway gave birth to one of the most extreme musical movements in history. The brooding drummer provides the focus for Until The Light Takes Us, a new documentary that picks over the short life and long aftermath of Norway's black metal scene.

Black metal can be roughly traced to the early-90s when Sweden's Bathory parlayed the cartoon satanism of Venom and death metal of Cannibal Corpse into an epic form glorifying Scandinavia's pre-Christian past. The Norwegians then pushed this idea even further, with a tiny scene coalescing around Mayhem, Burzum and Darkthrone. Sporting corpse paint and weaponry, spouting anti-Christian rhetoric and releasing badly recorded, ear-splitting anti-music,...

If you think bands such as Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Slayer or the Jonas Brothers are the zenith of musical depravity, you’ve never heard of the black metal scene predominant in early 1990s Norway. There were no masks and no melodic yet harsh rock music with killer riffs. There was make-up, silly names and killers sans riffs. At the time, the movement caused a national sensation and an international one, too. Why? Well, it wasn’t the music and more to do with the murderous rivalry and church burnings.

Until The Light Takes Us is an exploration of a forgotten era that fused musical theory and production design with larger issues of nationalism and anti-religious stances that became erroneously called “Satanic” by the world’s media.

The name Burzum may not mean much to anybody but the man behind it, Varg Vikernes, was sentenced to 21 years in prison in 1993 for...

Black metal, the movie.

Before The Light Takes Us

Photo: Variance Films

My favorite Norwegian black-metal story, well-known by now to connoisseurs of the demented, is the one about the singer called — prophetically, as it turned out — Dead. Per Yngve Ohlin was his real-world name, and he fronted the influential black-metal band Mayhem. One day in the spring of 1991, at a house the group shared not far from Oslo, Dead blew his brains out with a shotgun. ("Excuse all the blood," his suicide note said.) His body was discovered by the band's guitarist, Euronymous, who of course realized the police would have to be called. Before doing so, though, Euronymous scurried out to buy a cheap camera, returned to the house, arranged the death scene a little more photogenically — the shotgun carefully positioned next to the corpse, with its frontal lobe still slopping out of the cranium — and snapped some pictures.

The Alamo Guide

for November 19th, 2009

It’s totally fall, you guys! I know this, because my allergies have exploded with this cold front, it was 40 something degrees last night, And I Get To Eat Turkey Next Thursday! Oh so much turkey will I eat! With extra dressing and gravy. I will be doing this with my biological family, which, if you consider the other options we have at the Alamo, actually sounds pretty boring. While I’ll be way too full falling asleep staring at the football game that I don’t really care about on my grandparents couch, You can be way too full, falling asleep, staring at the Ut vs A&M football game that you probably Do care about at the Alamo Ritz! Or you can be watching any movie at any of our theaters, because our annual tradition still stands. We’ll be your second...

Stunning black metal documentary Until The Light Takes Us opens Friday!

Controversial, beautiful mindwrecker Antichrist opens Friday too!

This weekend, The Alamo Ritz will unveil two of the most masterfully made and potentially disturbing films of the decade!

Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist has already cemented a reputation for crowd-pleasing and stomach-turning from One Single Screening at Fantastic Fest ‘09. It is explicit, it is challenging, it is grotesque, it has been called offensive, misogynistic and dangerous…but it has also been called a masterpiece and perhaps the Danish auteur’s finest work.

Charlotte Gainsbourg (who won best Actress for the role at Cannes) and Willem Defoe star as an unnamed couple seeking comfort in their country home after the sudden death of their child. While in their forest retreat, as summed up by the unofficial slogan of Fantastic fest ‘09, “chaos reigns.”

Antichrist tickets are Here!

On the all-too-real side of the coin,...

Even with big marquee names like Kjetil Haraldstad, Kristoffer Rygg and Varg Vikernes on board, it’s unlikely Until the Light Takes Us will overshadow too many of this winter’s blockbuster movies. And in terms of cultural relevance, that’s a damn shame. The documentary, which will see the very limited light of day this winter, tells the story of how Norway’s burgeoning black-metal scene exploded into European consciousness with misunderstood violence, Satanism, arson and, yes, corpsepaint....

With the recent success of such docs as Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Heavy Metal in Baghdad and Anvil! The Story of Anvil, it seems that heavy metal is a pretty popular topic in the world of non-fiction right now. In Sam Dunn’s Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, one of the most fascinating (and creepy) segments was the stuff involving the Norwegian Black Metal bands, who were also featured in a short doc that was included on the DVD release of the film. Well, if you wanted to know more about this disturbing and violent subculture of musicians who supposedly burn churches and commit murder in the name of their music, you probably should check out Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s feature-length film Until The Light Takes Us. The filmmakers supposedly moved to Norway and lived with the various band members for several years in order to gain...

There is no shortage of documentaries on the infamous Norwegian black metal scene, but it seems until now there has yet to be one that gathered together the figures that truly mattered on film, and got the key players in the movement to speak without censoring themselves. Filmmakers Audrey Ewell and Aaron Aites have pulled off the nearly impossible task of penetrating the inner circle of a very secular scene with their new documentary, Until The Light Takes Us. Moving from their homebase of New York city to Norway for two years, Ewell and Aites have not only put together what looks to be the most cohesive and fleshed out documentary on the subject, but have also made something that is much more beautiful to look at than it’s counterparts, which all seem to suffer from a Vh-1 Behind The Music asthetic.

The fact that Varg Vikernes, of the one man band Burzum,...

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from the documentary Until the Light Takes Us, which will enjoy its premiere at the upcoming 2008 AFI Fest in Los Angeles. And for those interested in learning a bit more about this flick -- which was just featured as one of La Weekly's Critics Picks -- then I have three words for you: Norwegian Death Metal. Gotta be honest and say this ain't exactly the type of music I rock out to on a daily basis, but the doc itself looks pretty interesting.

From the synopsis: This riveting documentary provides a voyeuristic glimpse into the world of Norwegian Black Metal - an extreme sub genre of heavy metal, which has been met with considerable hostility from mainstream culture, mainly due to the misanthropic and anti-Christian ideology of many bands as well as its sound. The founders of this morbid branch of heavy metal...