For those hording toilet paper

I wanted to watch something that was a bit crazed, over the top, and didn’t take itself seriously, finding all of that in the New Zealand romp, “Deathgasm”, from 2015. Metalheads Zakk and Brodie decide to try a band with fellow boardgame nerds (now, when I use nerds I do so with affection, so I’m not being a fucktard), Dion and Giles in a garage. Brodie’s mom was put away in an asylum and so he’s condemned to his Christian uncle and aunt’s home to be burdened by their bully son (his cousin), David. David’s girlfriend, Medina, actually finds herself attracted to Brodie, but Zakk wants to tap it when she goes looking for his fellow metalhead. Zakk tells Medina that Brodie brushed her off just so he could make out with her (nice bud, right?). This will obviously come back to be a rift between Zakk and Brodie later. So Brodie’s life sucks. He is in a home where he’s not wanted, David gives him constant grief, and the garage band hasn’t quite taken off. So when Zakk locates the home of a former metal guitarist, with Brodie tagging along, they locate a specific album they think might be worth something. But it is the papers inside the album cover that are what produce sick results: summoning the eyeless demon Aeloth, possessing any adults within the sound of their garage amps, DEATHGASM (what Zakk names the band) play Latin “music” called The Black Hymn unleashing a wave of violence upon their town. Possessed suburbia and school leads to hacked limbs, plenty of gushing blood, eyeless adults with mouths full of sharp teeth, and lots of “dildo defense”. I think the illustrations incorporated into the narrative are what make this especially cool. And there is lots of prosthetic gore where heads are split, arms and legs get ripped off or axed, and severed torsos just spew gallons of fake blood. I kept thinking that this would have been a perfect follow up to when I finished Todd & the Book of Pure Evil earlier this year. It just seems like a close relative to that show, with the emphasis on metal music, Satanic iconography, absurd violence, and demon possession. What the Book was for Todd, the Black Hymn is for Zakk and Brodie. I do like to include some demon horror comedy in my Octobers so this fit the bill in that regard. I can see this as a nice companion piece to something like Night of the Demons (1988). The villains that seek to truly summon their King of Demons from Hell offer resistance towards Brodie wanting to correct what he brought upon the town by reading and playing the music backwards, so DEATHGASM won't just return Aeloth back to where he came from without a bit of trouble.