Lords of Chaos

Dean

2019-03-13

⭐ 5

This movie felt more like a comedy/parody than the serious one.

A very well-made thing, in the middle between “lad-film” and “psycho-drama”. However, there’s a layer missing, and I don’t mean “where’s muh black metal soundtrack” or “Varg was right” or “but there was deep philosophy!!!111” or some such. What I mean is the following: in the film “Generation P” (2011), first there’s one moment where the central character eats fly agaric mushrooms in the woods and trips heavily, and then a second moment where he takes acid at home and ancient Sumerian gods start appearing in the walls. If you take these two moments from Generation P, and graft then on…

Stephen Campbell

2019-08-16

⭐ 7

**_Equal parts funny and harrowing; an enjoyable "true story"_** >_Violent torture_ > _Death has arrived_ > _Armageddon_ > _Terror and fright_ > _Bleeding corpses_ > _Rotting decay_ > _Anarchy_ > _Violent torture_ > _Antichrist_ > _Lucifer_ > _Son of Satan_ > _Pure Fucking Armageddon_ > _Pure Fucking Armageddon!_ - Mayhem; "Pure Fucking Armageddon" (written by Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth; Kjetil Manheim; Jørn "Necrobutcher" Stubberud; Sven Erik "Maniac" Kristiansen; Eirik "Messiah" Norheim); from the EP, _Deathcrush_ (1987) Authenticity is perhaps …

Gimly

2020-04-03

⭐ 7

_Lords of Chaos_ is not a Mayhem biopic. If you're looking for that, or if you're looking for a film about the rise of Black Metal in Norway, look entirely elsewhere. This is - at its surface - basically just a film about Euronymous and his relationship with Dead, and then with Varg. But it's really about "edge". About the kvlt of black metal that was arguably more vital to its identity than the actual music. About evil for evil's sake alone. This brutality that from the outside looking in is almost as cartoonish as it is despicable. I was born too late to be in the real thick of the black…

Lords of Chaos makes me channel my inner John Cusack as I wonder, do Norwegians listen to black metal because they are miserable, or are they miserable because they listen to black metal? As for me, I know I was miserable because I was watching this movie. Lords of Chaos is a semi-fictional (though ‘barely-factual’ might be a better description) account of the Norwegian black metal scene of the early 1990s, told from the perspective of seminal band Mayhem co-founder Euronymous (Rory Culkin). The film is directed and co-written by a Swede (Jonas Åkerlund), set in Oslo, has Norwegian characte…