As you may or may not be aware, New Zealanders are rather proud of our sheep. We love to raise them, eat them, shave their fleece for winter jammies … and many an urban legend has sprung up regarding some of the other things we like to do to them. New Zealand’s sheep reputation is so widespread it actually remains one of the few facts outsiders know about our country. “Oh yeah, New Zealand. Full of sheep.”

When I was fifteen, I met a some teens in England who seriously, for real thought that sheep just ran wild around the streets, like a pest, and we all had guns and it was legal to shoot them. (They also thought Maori’s lived in grass huts, which I suppose some of them do).

A local lad by the name of Jonathan King (son of historian Michael King, not to be confused with comedian Mike King) decided to make a comedy-horror film (is there any other kind) about evil, genetically-modified sheep. So he did. And here is my review:

Get Ready for the Violence of the Lambs!

Port O’Call: Black Sheep, filmed in New Zealand in 2007.

Mateys: Directed by Jonathan King, and starring a few NZ actors you never would have heard of, including Tammy Davis, the dude who played Munter on Outrageous Fortune.

Premise: Our hero, Henry, is taking a taxi from the city to his family farm to meet his brother Angus. A traumatic childhood experience, where Angus killed his pet sheep and then dressed himself in its skin and chased Henry around the farm, only to be stopped by the housekeeper, Mrs. Mac, telling them their father has died, has left Henry rather terrified of sheep. He drives to the farmhouse, where Angus is busy practising for the press unveiling of his new breed of sheep – the Oldfield. Angus offers him 2 million dollars to buy his share of the farm. Heny signs, and is about to leave when the housekeeper, old Mrs. Mac, tells him to go up the back of the farm with Tucker, the farmhand, to get some peace over his father’s death. So he does.

Meanwhile, two animal rights activists, Grant and Experience (who is of course a hot, self-righteous blonde), sneak onto the property to collect evidence of Angus’ cruel animal laboratory. Grant, who is a bit of a dimwit, steals a container of waste and runs off. He drops the container, it opens and a demon sheep foetus jumps out and bites him.

On the way up the back of the farm, Henry and Tucker’s ute is intercepted by a sheep with a bite on it’s nose. Experience sneaks up on them, grabs the rifle from the cab, and demands to know where Grant has got to. After making some jokes about her name, they let her climb in and go looking for Grant, only to be distracted by a burning shed. When they go to investigate, they’re attacked by a killer sheep.

Meanwhile, Grant is in the forest, developing a strange, very un-hippiesh taste for meat. He grabs and devours a fluffy bunny rabbit. Awwwww.

And then … it all goes bad for Henry, Grant and Experience … very, very baaaaa-ad.

Why it’s Krieg: You mean, aside from the genetically-modified sheep?

The special effects were handled by our very own WETA workshops, who did an admirable job of producing, among other things, a demonic lamb that reminds a NZ-film connisseur strongly of the demonic monkey in Peter Jackson’s second film, Braindead. But for the horror junkie, there’s lots to appreciate, from the sheep torture chamber at the laboratory to the gory massacre scenes to the humans growing sheep appendages.

A few little bits of trivia. Just before the farmhand is killed, he’s seen reading “A Penguin History of New Zealand” written by none other than Dr. Michael King, the directors father.

Also, Jonathan King appears in a later scene where he is trying to find the keys to his car when he is pulled down and mercilessly slaughtered by a sheep.

Why it’s emo: It’s not going to impress any girls, it’s not going to change the world, and if you’re not a New Zealander, you will probably miss a few jokes. But aside from those minor points, I really can’t find much to dislike about Black Sheep (my opinion, of course, being wholy biased by my love of b-grade horror and my status as probably the worst film critic of all time).

Quote:

Experience: “You’re a Tree.”
Henry: “I’m NOT a tree. I’m a fucking sheep.”

Tucker: “If it wasn’t for my gumboot!”

Henry: What’s that?
Experience: Geranium: aromatherapy for uplift and hormonal balance.
Henry: Do your hormones really need balancing?
Experience: Considering I’ve been attacked by genetically-engineered monsters, jumped off a moving vehicle, been chased across a paddock, dragged into a torture chamber, pulled into a mountain of rotting flesh–yes, my hormones need fucking balancing

Rating: \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ five horns for all the sheep jokes.

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Port O’ Call: Repo! The Genetic Opera, a 2008 American Rock Opera musical about organ repossession.

Mateys: Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw II, III and IV), based on a script and stage show written by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. To coincide with the film’s release, several members of the cast participated in a Repo! Tour across America, performing a live version of the movie. It took the writers six years to whip the original small-time stage play into the awesome piece of cinema we see today.

Premise: In the not-so-distant future, people’s organs begin failing. So Rotti Largo – head of GeneCo, develops organ transplants to keep people alive. Soon, organ transplants and cosmetic surgery become the most popular trends. But people can’t afford all this estravagent surgery. So GeneCo developes an easy-payment plan.

However, if you miss a payment, GeneCo sends the Repo man to recover their property.

Blind Mag

The story centres around Shylo, a seventeen year old girl sequested in her room by her father Nathan, as she inherited a blood disease from her mother Marni, who died on Nathan’s operating table while he attempted to save her. Nathan is has a certain nocturnal surgeons job …

Meanwhile, Rotti Largo, the head of GeneCo and Marni’s scorned lover, has been diagnosed with terminal illness. Looking to leave the GeneCo empire to someone other than one of his three dipshit children, the aggro Luigi Largo, the narcissisti Pavi Largo and the surgery addicted Amber Sweets. So one night he contacts Shylo, and invites her to the Genetic Opera …

Why it’s Krieg: Well, first of all. It’s gory as fuck. Eviscerations aplenty. I can’t help but love that.

A number of strange and wonderful guest appearances and musicians make watching Repo! a continuous discussion of “Oh, it’s him!” My favorite character, Blind Mag, is played by Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton does a fantastic cosmetic-surgary-addicated Amber Sweets, Ogre from Skinny Puppy plays Pavi Largo, Joan Jett makes a fantastic cameo, and some of the musicians include Tommy Clufetos (Ozzy, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper), Daniel Ash (Bauhaus), Richard Patrick (Filter, Army of Anyone), Blasko (Rob Zombie, Ozzy) and Slipknot’s Shawn Crahan.

Despite it’s awesomeness, the film received mixed reviews, though it’s not a cult classic, which I think is exactly what the writers wanted. John Anderson, critics for U.S. trade paper Variety, said: ‘Paris Hilton, who delivers a limited but thoroughly appropriate performance in a movie in which almost everything is inappropriate.’

Paris and the Graverobber. Lordy, but he is HOT.

Many of the songs sound familiar. My favorite character, the Graverobber (played by Terrance Zdunrich – one of the film’s writers) sings several songs that remind me of the goblin king in Labrynth. “Testify” – sung at the Genetic Opera – sounds an awful lot like Rock Me Amadeaus. And a couple of the other songs sound so familiar, but I can’t place them.

The lyrics are super cheesy. You know when you wrote poems in primary school with stanzas like “That cat and the bat sat on the mat with a bat and a hat and another cat”. Yeah, a little like that. The lyrics often rely on puns and poor rhymes, but it’s done with such flair and lavish attention it’s adds, rather than subtracts from the story. The stunning visuals remind me of the movie Sin City.

With a soundtrack that’s part Rocky Horror Picture Show, part industrial, part metal, you cannot help but tap your feet. Repo! Is the musical for every person who swore they didn’t like musicals.

Why it’s Emo: We were hoping the Repo man would go on a murderous rampage or the daughter would pick up his mask and become the new Repo man to avenge his death. But this is

Quote: My favorite song from Repo! The Genetic Opera. (It hardcore reminds me of Magic Dance from Labrynth, for some reason)

Rating: \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ for being a musical about organ repossession.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Port O’ Call: Anvil: The Story of Anvil, a 2008 documentary about Canadian metal band Anvil and their struggle to re-create their past success.

Mateys: Directed by Sasha Gervasi (The Terminal – I loved this movie) and starring Anvil.

Premise: childhood friends Steve “Lips” Kudrow and Robb Reiner, formed Anvil, a Canadian thrash metal act which exploded onto the early 80s metal scene when metal was at the height of awesome. Instant fame and notoriety awaited them, and they played sold-out festivals alongside acts like Bon Jovi, Scorpians and Whitesnake.

While their contemporaries went on to sell millions of records, Anvil took a different path, straight into obscurity. No one knows why, but after their hit album Metal on Metal, everyone – the press, the promoters, the fans – just forgot about Anvil.

But Lips and Robb didn’t forget. They went back to Canada, got wives, got jobs, and kept writing, kept recording albums, kept playing hardout gigs at empty clubs and waiting and hoping for the day the world would remember Anvil.

30 years on, Lips delivers lunches to high schools, and Robb works construction. With their new Swedish manager they found on the internet, they embark on a disaster-ridden and often hilarious European tour, culminating in a highly-publicised Transylvanian festival that sold only 150 tickets.

Will Anvil be able to reclaim their past glory without destroying their friendship. Well, you will have to watch to find out.

Why it’s Krieg: First, Anvil are a really good band – you can’t help but like them. Their lyrics are cheesy and full of awesome, and they can seriously play – it’s a classic thrash sound that just makes you bang your head. Lips makes use of some epic costumes (mainly a bondage harness and big, permed hair) and stage acting, including the infamous dildo – guitar solo.

In his incredibly long-winded bonus interview, Lars Ulrich points out that most bands at the time had a stage act – like Kiss – but the music wasn’t there. Or they had the music – like Iron Maiden – but not the rockstar stories. But Anvil had both – they had everything.

Plus, they’re just plain, ordinary, likeable guys. Lips is the dreamer – the one with the big ideas. You can see, at times, a manic personality – in one sentence he’ll claim he doesn’t care how famous he is or how much recognition he gets as long as he’s playing music with his best mate, but on the other hand he’s mortgaging his house, hounding record execs and old musician buddies for the chance to “make it”. Rob is a bit quieter, a bit of an artist and a grounding force to keep Lip’s ambition in check. When you see them together, you know they’re going to die within hours of each other and be buried in the same flying V-shaped coffin.

Second, we see a lot of docos about bands where everything goes right – sure, their gear might get lost or their groupie might give the ghonorrhea, but generally, you see docos of bands who’ve made it. It was fascinating (and heartbreaking) to see these guys remortgage their houses to play gigs in Europe and Japan, and to worry about things like “how many people show up?”

Also, if you go to the Anvil website, you’ll see the doco has given them the fuel to unleash a second coming, and after watching the DVD, you just want to give them a big hug and say “you did it!” They’ve been touring with ACDC, playing huge festivals in Europe and embarking on decent-sized tours. I think they’ve made their dreams come true.

After the ride these guys take you though, and you’re just sitting on the couch waiting for their record company to get back to them, or to see the size of the crowd at their final show in Japan, you are a mess of “c’mon guys!”

Why it’s Emo: It’s really sad to see these guys pour their heart and soul into this music, only to be constantly met with setbacks and issues. When you watch this you feel as though you’re seeing a part of someone’s life you’re not meant to see.

If you thought “Some Kind of Monster” was ridiculous, you’re not going to like this, because it’s essentially the same format – a reality TV show about a band and their feelings. I think it’s better than Some Kind of Monster only because you can identify with their “never quite made it” a lot more than, say, Lars’ art collection and James’ “I have 30 million dollars, millions of fans worldwide, and the dream career, but dammit, I’m angry”.

Although, I imagine watching Lars make hand gestures while he stares in the corner trying to construct an argument must get awful frustrating.

You won’t learn any lessons about successfully promoting a band. I think one of the reasons (not covered by Lars in his exhaustive interview with lots of hand gestures) Anvil never “made it”, was because they’ve been promoting their music in the same way since they were fifteen, and if it worked in the 1980s, then dammit, it would work again. I think their contemporaries got older, got smarter, and adopted new and better promotion methods once they had more fans. And Anvil got left in the dust.

When you watch Anvil, you follow the story of two fifteen year old boys who never grew up. It’s both beautiful and heartbreaking.

Quote: Anvil’s Swedish manager: “It’s H like Hotel. You understand? H like Hotel, A like… Ass, S like Sodom, S like Sodom… “

Rating: I give this three and a half horns \m/ \m/ \m/ \n It’s great to see music documentaries about bands who didn’t “make it”.

Global Metal

Seven Countries, Three Continents, One Tribe.

Port O’ Call: Filmed around the world – in Brazil, Japan, China, Indonesia, India and the Middle East.

Mateys: Directed by canadian anthropologist metalhead filmaker Sam Dunn (of Metal: a Headbangers Journey and Flight 666 fame) and Scott McFadyen.

The film previews at the Bergen International Film festival in October 2007. in July 2008 a soundtrack was released featuring metal from around the globe.

Premise: In true anthropological style, the film explores the impact of globalisation on the heavy metal scene.

What really happens is Dunn and his crew travel the world talking to metalheads about their local scene … in brazil, jakato, India, Iran, Jerusalam, Japan and China.

Global Metal features interviews with such metal legends as Kerry King, Bruce Dickenson, Max Cavalera, Lars Ulrich and Marty Friedman, as well as lesser-known bands (to me, anyway) – Sigh, Dorsal Atlantica, Kryptos, Ritual Day, Tengkorak, Orphaned Land, Salem and Kahtmayan.

Dunn and McFadyen at a "Camel Crossing" in Dubai

Why it’s Kreig: First, it’s fascinating. CDH and I studied anthropology outselves and, after visiting over 26 countries and experiencing metal in NZ, Australia, the UK, Germany, Norway, Turkey, Syria and Egypt, have our own ideas about the global scene. We saw many of our own ideas expressed, and we learnt a lot about the scene – in Asia and India especially.

Sometimes, we forget how lucky we have it in the west (not that I’d really consider NZ “the west”). We take it for granted we can wear a metal shirt in the street and we won’t be thrown into jail and accused of beng a satanist. We all love metal because of the sense of freedom and power it bestows, but I’ve never experienced real oppression (bullying and assualt, yes. Oppression? no) or real poverty. Not like these guys.

What I loved most about this doco was the sense you got – and this is something I’ve felt for a long time – of how metal unites people who otherwise might never talk to each other. Even in these extreme, poverty-ridden, oppressive enviroments, it didn’t matter what religious or political belief a person held, or their social or racial caste. It really was a global tribe of metalheads – “If you like metal, you’re my friend.” It’s actually rather beautiful.

Second, it’s hilarious. One of my favorite scene was when Dunn talks to metalheads in the middle east about how downloading through the internet has been the only way for them to access metal. The kids speak with such passion about how the internet has changed their lives.

Cut to Lars Ulrich. The look on his face! Fuck, we couldn’t stop laughing. You have to see it.

Thirdly, although some reviewers deride it for not being “definitive” or “all-encompassing”, I think Dunn and McFadyen have done a steller job of expressing a sense of what global metal is, in the short space of time allotted to them. I like that they’ve shown different styles of music – not just focusing on extreme black metal, which – I’ll be honest – I was kind of expecting.

Why it’s emo: We were hoping for an appearance by our favorite Turkish metal band – Mezarkabul, but no such luck. Interesting to note, the more oppressive the country’s regeime, the more extreme the metal.

You don’t hear much actual music in the documentary, which on the one hand was dissapointing, because as a metalhead, we want to hear the music, of course. But on the other hand, this wasn’t a music documentary. It was a documentary about identity and culture and what draws people to embrace metal. It’s easy to find the bands on myspace and listen to their chops.

I would also have liked to see a little about female metal fans in these countries. The only girls in the entire film were the cute Japanese girls throwing the goat. I didn’t see any female fans in the live scenes in India, the Middle east or Jakata. I would have liked knowing what life would be like if I were an Iraqi metal fan. But perhaps that’s a subject for another doco.

Quote:

“We saw album covers of Destruction and they had bullet belts, and we say ‘Bullet belts are totally bad ass. We must have bullet belts or we look stupid.” But we cannot afford bullet belts. So Igor say “If we take AA batteries, and glue them all together, and photograph from far away, they look like bullet belts”. And so that is what we do.” – Max Cavalera (Pantera)

Rating: \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \n four-and-a-half horns for making me laugh, and making me proud. (Losing half a horn because now I have to visit Japan and India, and that will cost me a lot more money than I saved by renting this DVD from the library).

However, when a spread so fantastic, so magnificent, so utterly Steff Metal comes along, I will share with you.

Tim Burton teams up with photographer Tim Walker for Harper’s Bazaar Magical Fashion issue. In Burton’s Tricks and Treats, the models become much-loved characters from Burton’s worlds. Feast your eyes on greatness:

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff

I can hear Euronymous laughing from the grave.

The film starts shooting in Norway in mid-september. Japanese director Sion Sono will make his english-language debut with the film, which is classed as a teen psychological horror.

Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Søderlind. 2003

The Lords of Chaos book, written by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind, attempts to examine and understand the black metal subculture of the early 90s, and the various crimes and notorious figures that resulted from it. First published in 1998 by Feral House, the book was re-released in 2003 with an additional 50 pages of material.

Much of the controversy surrounding the book relates to Moynihan’s supposed right-wing leanings, which he denies.

I’ve read the book and enjoyed it – although I think it started off strong and ended weak, with a sort of cursory attempt at a socialogical explanation.

The black metal community swears it’s all sensationalist lies. It IS sensationalized – I’ll grant that. Boring stuff does not a good book make.

Personally, I think the consternation stems from a desire to legitimize the whole black metal scene and drag it beyond it’s violent, satan-and-fire roots. The music lives on, and the scene continues to grow, but without the notoriety it once had. I think this is a good thing, not helped by the book or impending movie.

Many of those guys have grown up, got married, hard kids, and might be just a teeeny little bit embarrassed by all the goat-sacrificing, corpsepaint nonsense.

In a public statement on his website in 2004, Vikernes slammed the Lords of Chaos book as ”a pile of mud”. He goes on:

“This book serves only one single purpose and that is to create a myth around my name and to mystify me. If that was their objective they have indeed succeeded with their work. Well, the book seems to have served one other purpose too. The authors have managed to fill the heads of a generation of metal fans with lies. What could have been a righteous revolt has been made into some pathetic, embarrassing, brain-dead, impotent and traditional poser-culture best exemplified by bands like Dimmu Borgir – and indeed VENOM!”

Satyr and Frost of Satyricon and numerous other black metal musicians have openly slammed the book and movie. Frost called the tabloid interest in black metal a “parasitic phenomenon” and Satyr had this to say:

“It is sad that such an inaccurate story, written by someone who doesn’t understand black metal, has become a book of reference. And it is sad that someone is willing to go that far to exploit the history of black metal.”

I think everyone should lighten up a little and accept that people are welcome and encouraged to interpret music and ideaology in whatever way they choose. That is all this movie is – one interpretation of a scene.

True Black metal will remain underground, always and forever. It’s too abrasive, too

I’m a huge Burzum fan (not a fan of Varg, just his amazing music) and I will be watching the Lord of Choas movie, because it will make me giggle.

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff

We held a bogan pizza party at our place a few weekends ago and watched this movie. It was a huge hit. Our version had no english dub or subtitles, but it didn’t matter once the intestines started unravelling.

Port O’ Call: Norway

Mateys: Directed by Tommy Wirkola (Kill Buljo – a satire of Tarantino’s Kill Bill), written by Stig Frode Henriksen. Død Snø premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Premise: Eight medical students holiday in a remote log cabin in the Norwegian mountains. Unbeknownst to them, they call forth a horde of frozen Nazi zombies who subsequently kill them all in interesting and hilarious ways.

Why it’s Kreig: Wirkola has gone for comedic horror and succeeded in a way I haven’t seen since films like “Braindead” and “Evil Dead”. The atmospheric lighting, jarring music and slightly unsettling cinematography prevent the comedy being over-the-top, so you’re left with this disturbing feeling that Norwegians have a macabre sense of humor.

Gore, gore and more gore used for giggles. The horror aspects of the film fell flat in the face of the pure awesomeness of the intestines flying everywhere, faces being ripped apart, brain’s falling on the floor, and people having sex on the toilet.

Two scenes made us laugh so hard we couldn’t breathe. One, when the character Martin (Vegar Hoel) is bitten by a Nazi zombie and must chop his own arm off with his chainsaw and cauterize the wound. In a truly Norwegian show of dignity and restraint, he stands triumphant with his bloody stump at his feet, only to have another zombie rise from the snow and bite his testicles.

In the other, two characters are trapped inside the cabin with zombies flailing about outside. The boys make Molotov cocktails, but accidentally throw them against the wall and engulf the entire cabin. Fun times in Norway.

Why it’s emo: IMDB informs me that you can see plastic bits on one of the white snow-suit worn by one of the zombies, meaning it couldn’t have been made in WWII. He could have stolen it off a previous victim, though.

Also, many German grammar Nazis (bad choice of words, perhaps?) point out the tagline should read ‘Eins, Zwei, Die!’. As a burgeoning grammar Nazi myself, I think ‘Ein, Zwei, Die!’ is correct if you look at it in the context of ‘One Zombie, Two Zombies, Die!’

Apart from that, I can’t fault this movie. It’s now one of my favorite zombie films of all time.

Rating: five horns for maximum metal \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses
Steff