In the mid-80's, some young friends started a band. A metal band. By 1993, the singer had committed suicide, the bassist had stabbed the guitarist to death and a whole bunch of churches had been lit on fire.
The real, true story of the early days of Mayhem is absolutely fascinating and one that I've been wanting to see onscreen for ages. Unfortunately, LORDS OF CHAOS (while it is entertaining) is a bizarre and needlessly fictionalized version of the story. I'm kind of torn on the whole thing: on one hand...I'm disappointing in how light-weight the story was. On the other hand...the acting is pretty damn good. I especially liked Rory Culkin as Euronymous.
Completely fictionalized girlfriend; inaccuracies non-stop; awesome metal shirts, posters, flyers and album covers; very little blood; shoehorned topless scene that was pointless; steady pace; DEAD ALIVE and EVIL DEAD on TV; above average acting and most surprisingly: no badass scenes that absolutely rocked! You would think with a movie that is literally about metal that there would be multiple scenes of badass rocking, but nope. The little metal there was was not presented in a bad ass way at all. I was very disappointed. Hell, the hot-rod van/"Master of Puppets" scene in OLD SCHOOL rocked my eyeballs harder than anything in this movie did.
LORDS OF CHAOS is an entertaining movie, but I think the story of Dead, Euronymous and Count Grishnackh would have been better told in a Larry Clark KIDS-style and with waaaay more rocking. If you need me, I'll be in my room listening to "Live in Leipzig".
