Lords of Chaos

A very well-made thing, in the middle between “lad-film” and “psycho-drama”. However, there’s a layer missing, and I don’t mean “where’s muh black metal soundtrack” or “Varg was right” or “but there was deep philosophy!!!111” or some such. What I mean is the following: in the film “Generation P” (2011), first there’s one moment where the central character eats fly agaric mushrooms in the woods and trips heavily, and then a second moment where he takes acid at home and ancient Sumerian gods start appearing in the walls. If you take these two moments from Generation P, and graft then onto Lords of Chaos—then this would provide an underlying narrative depth behind certain impulses of those involved and the directions taken by them. Otherwise it’s like watching a film about Charles Manson, or Jimi Hendrix, or Black Sabbath, or the Ramones, where people only ever drink beer, and you’ve got this nagging feeling that something’s missing, something’s not quite right here… The very notion, that in the beginning of the 1990’s, a new genre with heavy esoteric leanings could explode in Norway and Sweden, without accompanying psychedelic experiences, can’t be taken really seriously in this day and age. Even the more “commercial” bands like Dimmu Borgir and Tiamat no doubt dabbled in this and that. One does not create an esoteric quasi-religion that’s alive and well to this day, evolving even, on beer alone. And this can be also said of early 1990’s Swedish death metal as well. One does not record albums like “Left Hand’s Path” and “Like an Ever Flowing Stream” on beer alone. All this aside, “Lords of Chaos” is as well made as it could be. The director is, after all, a music/advert clip director—just like the director of “Generation P” for that matter—both directors did their best to use their skills in a new medium, plus stretch the budget, plus get the best possible performance out of enthusiastic B actors. It worked. Keeping in mind how the film was made and on what terms—it works a 100%. And is indeed worth re-watching. Bravo to everyone who made this film the best that it could be!