2015 was a fantastic year for horror movies, and one of the more entertaining ones was writer/director Jason Lei Howden‘s metal/horror/comedy Deathgasm. It’s his debut feature, but you wouldn’t know it by how well it manages the balance between gory horror and big laughs.
The movie recently hit home video from Dark Sky Films, and while it’s fairly light on special features it does include a commentary track from Howden. He’s understandably enthusiastic about his film, his cast & crew, and — of course — heavy metal music, and he delivers an entertaining track while worth a listen from fans.
Keep reading to see what I heard on the Deathgasm commentary.
Deathgasm (2015)
Commentators: Jason Lei Howden (writer/director)
1. The opening black & white sequence was meant to emulate black metal album covers.
2. Producer Ant Timpson‘s “rectal prolapse” graphic is apparently on his business cards now. Hopefully I’ll remember to ask for one next time I spy Timpson carousing at a film festival.
Timpson Films
3. No one in New Zealand apparently used those classic composition notebooks, but Howden went with his gut and featured them anyway.
4. He kept the guitar that Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) plays early on in the film.
5. The D&D die-in-the-nose gag is “based on a true story.”
6. Both Hawthorne and Kimberly Crossman (who plays Medina) are ex-Power Rangers. She was the Red in Power Rangers Samurai, and he was the Green in Power Rangers R.P.M.
7. He recalls how teens used to write band names on their backpacks (Brodie has “Metallica” written on his backpack’s strap), and then he mentions having written “Nirvana” on his own as a teenager. He had spelled it wrong though. “So yeah, stay in school kids, is the moral there.”
8. The math compass attack story is also based on a true story. Howden knew a kid in school with two sets of front teeth — “he was fucked up” — and some bullies stood on his King Diamond tape leading him to attack them with a math compass.
9. When Zakk (James Blake) enter the garage for the first time he was scripted to say “Ladies,” but Howden told him to simply spit instead and gave no warning to the other actors. “So that’s a genuine look of disgust on Sam [Berkley] and Dan’s [Cresswell] faces.”
10. The bit where the characters visually suggest band names sees Zakk offer up “Dethgasm” without the letter “A.” Howden takes full responsibility there, but anyone who read #7 above won’t be surprised by that. “I actually did that graphic at like five in the morning, like a few weeks away from the SXSW deadline.” Timpson pointed it out to him later, but by then it was too late.
Dark Sky Films
11. Several of the main characters are wearing wigs, and Howden praises the makeup department’s Vanessa Hurley for how good they look. Howden’s day job before directing his first feature is in the visual effects field, and he’s “spent a lot of time actually painting out wig lines because they’re so visible.”
12. Crossman enjoyed the script and character so much she paid for her own flights from Los Angeles to New Zealand to work on the film.
13. Stephen Ure, who plays Rikki Daggers, has portrayed multiple characters in Peter Jackson’s J.R.R. Tolkien films including Grishnakh, Gorbag, Fimbul, and Grinnah. These names may or may not mean anything to you.
14. Tim Foley (plays Vadin) was initially cast because he already had his own severed head from a previous project. Happily, he also turned out to be a solid actor too.
Dark Sky Films
15. The brief fight between Daggers and Vadin is done via first-person POV because the first time they tried shooting it more traditionally some of Ure’s “skin came away when he was doing the stunts, and actually just like peeled off.” I feel like this needs more explanation.
16. He was told (by some unnamed fool) to cut out the Dora the Explorer joke, but happily he ignored that request.
17. The small statues on Aeon’s (Andrew Laing) desk were borrowed from the director of photography’s friend, “and they are actually genuine, like thousands of years old, like no shit.” He recalls them being worth more than the film’s budget.
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