Country: UK, Sweden, US
Year: 2018
Lords of Chaos? Every metalhead on Earth waited so long to make some movie about Mayhem or Gorgoroth or Varg Vikkernes, even me. Of course, I have seen it but here is a little information for new headbangers.
This is a story about the history and beginnings of the very first Norwegian black metal band called Mayhem. Young fellas twenty years old made a band heavier than Venom and rougher then Slayer. Mister Oystein Arseth, A.K.A. Euronimous made a guitar riff that will be the base of playing black metal. Rough sound, from the darkest parts of hell and a drum beat that is so fast even thrashers in that period didn’t have it. They are now even more popular not just because of their music but things this band made because of promotion.
You can see there was no internet, facebook, bandcamp ect. Some way of promoting the album must exist; they chose the worst one. There was one event that happened in 1993 in Oslo, Norway. Some guy blew off his head with a shotgun and another kid burned every single church in the path from Bergen to Oslo.
Yeah, it’s a shock event when you read it and yeah it’s cool in the metal world but this went way too far. Lords of chaos are exactly members of Mayhem and the definition of actions they did is really just-chaos. Exactly as their music sounds.
Movie was really long time awaited. First time I saw it I was like “Wooooow“ but after the third or fourth time and also by knowing the real story I am not hiding… I am disappointed. First of all, movie is so much Americanized. By that I mean the same thing-there always should be one fat kid, everyone is drinking Coca-Cola, there is too much “F“ words, they act like they are joking. About the physical look of actors I won’t say anything it’s inexcusable. Scenario is quite alright but as I said with too many obvious sentences and words. I think all of the actors didn’t even look at one video or interview or real Mayhem or just pictures to see who was who. If I didn’t see the scar on Varg’s face I wouldn’t know that mister Cohen was acting at all in the first place.
Varg wasn’t fat, wasn’t so dumb and wasn’t so overreacting. Everything that guy does even today is a great mystery so no one could act his role well. Euronimous wasn’t pretty at all, he didn’t have a girlfriend and too many “wasn’t“. His character was built with so many envy and “rock star“ moments with some glasses and too confused guys, he was just a kid that believed he could win the world with his music that is it.
I am not saying that producer mister Jonas Akerlund made a bad movie but certainly wanted to make a popular movie for low class to Hollywood not a real movie. I believe that he, as a metalhead and a man who made so many better movies, knows this dark and the most popular story of the ’90s metal scene in Norway. I must stop at one character and the guys who made Mayhem a really dark band, that’s Pelle “Dead” Ohlin.
This character is more complex and more developed than was presented here. He wasn’t depressed all the time and also wasn’t chubby. He was the definition of a skinny Swedish boy. Dead really did have some weird interests about the world of death and he had psychological problems but it could be said much better not just in the twenty minutes of the movie. He deserved better.
For the main event that this movie was dedicated to, you will have to watch it and also even you tube videos of Varg’s confession were more detailed than this. Yes, I am a bad guy now. I don’t like the movie and have only bad words for it but it’s not so much like that. Thanks to the producer that made a movie about one madness of youth and ideas that can only be born in cold and a little bit depressed clean North. I like it; I will watch it again but only because of the story about that rock n roll madness and energy.
Movie is not like “The Dirt ” or “Metalhead” but has that one thing that will make him good and “watchable“… If you want to dig more into this story watch documentaries and interviews of members of Mayhem but not this movie. Obviously it wasn’t made to tell the truth.
