Metalheads
Directed by Bill Zebub
Starring Bill Zebub, Syn Devil, Darian Caine, Jacqueline Ponder
Music Video Distributors
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The first full-length Hessian comedy from Zebub is not the gross-out shock fest that his follow-up, "Dirtbags", is. Instead, it's a relatively restrained "Slacker" styled day-in-the-life of a (sorta) fictional Version of Bill and his headbangin' pals as they blunder their way through a post-adolescent wasteland of cheap drugs, low-ball hijinx, and masturbation. Mostly masturbation, tho.

Bill's KISS t-shirt-sporting girlfriend Elaine (Elaine O'Domini) takes a buncha LSD, hallucinates about golden sharks, and wanders out of the house with soap in her hair. I know yr waiting for a punchline, but, you know, I just gave it to you. Eventually, after about ten minutes of giggling and dizzy camera angles, Elaine makes out with Bill's buddy, Richard (Richard Vaark), so he storms off in a huff and meets up with a big fella aptly named Ox (played by Ox, naturally), who takes him to some other metal dude's house, where they drink wine and watch skin queen Suzi Lorraine stagger around in her bra and panties, pretending to be a drunken 15 year old. Then a (literal) Nazi cop stops softcore lesbo flick vet Darian Caine for sporting a bumper sticker that says "Fuck You, Cop". As you mighta guessed, she gets out of the ticket (or whatever she was gonna get) by stripping for the goose-stepper. Lessee, what else? Bill's bro jerks off every other scene, and his mom (another 20-something actress in a housedress and granny glasses) keeps busting in on him. Elaine tries internet dating, but the guy shows up at her house and strips down to nothing but a fishing hat before settling into an easy chair to smoke pot and watch cable. Then everybody drinks and watches porno some more. Eventually, Bill almost wins the lottery, but fate has different plans in mind. Cue the creepy computer animation finale. Notch up the grinding metal soundtrack. Roll credits.

I was actually pretty impressed with that acting on this one- in particular, O'Domini and Zebub are both pretty believable in roles that are probably pretty close to their actual personalities- and even though nothing in particular happens, there are moments of genuine humor here. In particular, there's a very funny rooftop scene where Bill is instructed to "Horn the chimney". He does. As with any Zebub production, things scenes are sutured together with plenty of gratuitous-well, semi-nudity, anyway.

Now, I am entirely unsure that this film really does represent the "metal lifestyle", like it claims it does, but it certainly does an accurate job of portraying numbing suburban slackerhood. And hell, it does have a metal soundtrack (Gloomy Grim, Immolation, Mortal Decay, etc), so maybe it an authentic portrait of modern-day metaldom. Watch it with yr fave longhair, and see if he nods in stoney approval or not.
 

-Sleazegrinder