Feeling very much like a feature film spin-off of “Todd And The Book Of Pure Evil”, “Deathgasm” actually owes its greatest debt to Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead”.

When Brodie and his friends form a metal band, they reckon without the power of a cursed album and the black hymn which has the power to summon the demon Aeloth. Faced with the prospect of the newly raised demon running amok, the band must find a way to defeat the demon, return him to Hell and avoid the clutches of his loyal cult of followers.

“Deathgasm” is a twistedly disgusting little gem of a movie and the debut feature of writer/ director Jason Lei Howden. Howden, in addition to drawing inspiration from Raimi, shares the gleeful, gore-filled tastelessness of his fellow Kiwi Peter Jackson’s early output and he puts his experience in effects to great work maximising the impact of the modest budget to great and gruesome effect. Be warned, though, there’s a sick, scatological and sophomoric sense of humour at work here and if a movie where a zombie gets face-fucked to death by a rubber dildo sounds like it may offend, then you might have to give this one a swerve. Now, I’m no metal-head by any stretch but even I can tell that the music in this movie has been toned down somewhat so as not to alienate a wider audience so don’t come at this expecting the heaviest metal thrashing, unless you’re talking about the guts and gore spraying kills.

There’s a wild inventiveness to the direction here and if you haven’t seen it, “Deathgasm” is sure to whet your appetite for the forthcoming “Guns Akimbo” due out later this year.

Nasty, tasteless, hilarious and, underneath it all, fun, “Deathgasm” is a great post-pub midnight movie choice. 🤘

7/10