DEATHGASM (2015) **

A teenage metalhead (Milo Cawthrone) goes to live with his extended family in a small New Zealand town.  Along with a few likeminded nerds and outcasts, he forms a rock band called Deathgasm.  When they play a forbidden song stolen from an aging rocker, it turns the townsfolk into possessed zombies.   

Peter Jackson pioneered the New Zealand gore movie with the cult classic Bad Taste.  He later made the Lord of the Rings franchise and turned it into the single biggest job market in the country.  Director Jason Lei Howden did special effects work on the Lord of the Rings films, and he definitely stole a few things from Jackson’s playbook.  Not only does he borrow heavily from Jackson, but Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright as well.  Too bad it all comes off feeling like a hollow imitation.

Speaking of imitation, Deathgasm doesn’t do anything Trick or Treat did better back in 1986.  It has a similar premise; just with more gore.  Sometimes, less is more though.

The gore, it should be said, is quite juicy.  We get blood-puking (and shitting) zombies, crushed heads, chainsaws to the stomach, and gut ripping.  However, the fact that the film has not one, but TWO death-by-dildo scenes is the tip-off it’s just trying way too hard.

Sure, the red stuff flies freely, but the characters are annoying, so it all just feels like overkill.  Even worse is the fact they speak in thick, impenetrable accents.  This causes the already cheesy one-liners to land with a thud, mostly because you can’t tell what the hell they’re saying half the time.  I could’ve also done without the sketchpad title cards every time a new (annoying) character was introduced.

In terms of gore, Deathgasm goes to 11, but everything else barely registers.

AKA:  Heavy Metal Apocalypse.