The love-in between the movies and metal has been long, fruitful and often drenched in blood. This two-way relationship began long before Tony Iommi sliced off the tips of his fingers in an industrial accident – hell, Black Sabbath even took their name from a schlocky horror movie – but metal’s gonzo aesthetics are firmly embedded in the DNA of Hollywood and beyond.
We could have filled this list of classic movie scenes that bear the scene’s imprint with 50 horror flicks alone, but no, there’s more to metal than gore, guts and death. Well, a little more, as the 50 most metal movie moments show.
1. The Death Ship Arrives (Nosferatu, 1922)
Having slurped his way through the unfortunate crew, the vessel carrying ancient vampire Count Orlok and his undead plague glides into port, its shadow blotting out the light. As a representation of pure doom, it’s hard to beat – no wonder Orlok has become a black metal mascot to rival Lucifer. PH
2. Morricone's Metal Epic (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, 1966)
Since 1983, only one song has featured at every Metallica show. Written for spaghetti western The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy Of Gold serves notice of the Four Horsemen’s impending arrival onstage, invariably accompanied by footage of the movie’s iconic graveyard scene. SC
3. The Beast Appears (The Devil Rides Out, 1966)
Hammer’s Dennis Wheatley adaptation kept occult metal in lyrics and sleeve art concepts for years (its title was pinched by Carcass, Saxon, Demon, Reverend Bizarre and others). However, it was Sir Christopher Lee’s ritualistic summoning of the Goat of Mendes that really stole our metal hearts (it certainly stole Iron Maiden’s – they borrowed it for The Number Of The Beast video). CC
4. A Vulgar Display Of Power (The Exorcist, 1973)
Revelling in blasphemous cruelty, potty-mouthed demon Pazuzu possesses a young child, rotates her head, stabs a crucifix into her crotch, and projects green vomit into a priest’s face like its mission is to generate material for metal lyrics. Pantera nicked the demon’s immortal line (“That’s much too vulgar a display of power”), while countless more owe a debt to this evil Mesopotamian bastard. CC
5. The Mob Rules In Space (Heavy Metal, 1981)
In a movie that’s basically a slideshow of cartoon images straight from fantasy metal album covers, a space barbarian raid riding batlike dragons and firing laser guns, as Ronnie James Dio’s voice kicks in on Black Sabbath’s absurdly kickass The Mob Rules, is its undeniable most metal moment. PH
6. Conan Invents Manowar (Conan The Barbarian, 1982)
It’s hard to pin down just one moment, as Conan is metal as fuck for two hours straight, and notably influenced Manowar’s look and attitude (their debut album emerged shortly after the movie). However, the musclebound hero’s decapitation of Thulsa Doom at the Temple Of Set is a punch-the-air moment of euphoric vengeance. CC
7. "One Louder" (This Is Spinal Tap, 1984)
This immortal mockumentary is surely the most quotable movie ever made. Never more so than in its most memorable scene, when Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel proudly announces that all the band’s amps go up to 11: “‘Most blokes will be playing at 10… Where can you go from there?” Tufnel’s completely baffled look when documentary maker Marty DiBergi suggests making 10 louder is gold. Every band ever can sympathise. RH
8. A Killer Chase Scene (Phenomena, 1985)
Dario Argento’s obscure slice of 80s horror combines multiple tropes with a female student fleeing a faceless killer through the woods and into an abandoned mansion. Iron Maiden’s Flash Of The Blade is masterfully employed to generate white-knuckle tension in a scene that ends with a literal flash of the killer’s blade. JD
9. Samurai Sword Motorcycle Rampage! (Demons, 1985)
A masterpiece of Italian schlock, Demons unleashes gory chaos in a cinema auditorium, and this scene is really one for the history books. Its hero hops on a motorbike, speeds down the aisles swinging a katana, and Accept’s proto-thrash pummeller Fast As A Shark soundtracks the glorious sight. PH
10. Ozzy The Outraged Evangelist (Trick Or Treat, 1986)
Part of a wave of ‘metalsploitation’ movies, Ozzy Osbourne’s cameo in Trick Or Treat is a perfect bit of ironic stunt casting, the preacher shocked at the sexual innuendo in heavy metal lyrics when presented with the album Do It Like A Dog. He also clearly stops himself short of swearing. Can’t take it out of him. PH
11. A Pool, A Lilo & A Bottle Of Vodka (The Decline Of Western Civilisation Part II: The Metal Years, 1988)
Amid this era-defining doc’s parade of rock A-listers and self-deluded bozos, one man stands out: W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes, who conducts an increasingly incoherent interview while floating in a swimming pool on a lilo, glugging straight from a bottle of vodka while his mom looks on with a mix of horror and embarrassment. “I’m a happy camper,” he insists, unconvincingly. A joke at the time, it’s pitiable now. DE
12. Bill & Ted Make The Grade (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, 1989)
Nuno Bettencourt can definitely play Beethoven, but how would Ludwig fare in Extreme? Thankfully, Bill and Ted answered that question for us (sort of) as historical figures like Genghis Khan, Billy The Kid and Abraham Lincoln rampage through a mall, soundtracked by Extreme’s Play With Me, Beethoven putting on a concert for the ages with a bunch of 80s keyboards. RH
13. The Slayer Loving Gremlin (Gremlins 2: The New Batch, 1990)
When the gremlins start to mutate in this nutty sequel, Angel Of Death announces their spindly limbs sprouting. There’s zero connection between freaky spider-monsters and Slayer’s controversial classic, but it says it all that when the filmmakers needed something gnarly to fit the moment, they thought of this. PH
14. The Lawnmower Massacre (Braindead, 1992)
Long before he got serious with The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson rocketed to infamy with gonzoid no-budget zombie splatter comedy Braindead (aka Dead Alive). Amid a series of increasingly inventive methods of dealing with a zombie plague (e.g., liquidising body parts in a blender), the sight of our bloodsoaked hero Lionel taking out a horde of zombies with a petrol-driven lawnmower is both insanely over the top and utterly hilarious. DE
15. "Jim Carey Goes, 'Oh My God, You're Cannibal Corpse!'" (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, 1994)
There are parts of the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective that certainly haven’t stood the test of time. The villain reveal at the end leads to a really homophobic/transphobic sequence that just keeps going and going, and today seems spiteful and unnecessary.
But one thing that has dated well is the cameo by Cannibal Corpse, which sees the death metal kingpins performing their classic 1992 bruiser Hammer Smashed Face while star Jim Carrey gurns and blunders his way through a crowd of windmilling metalheads.
“Jim, at the time, was finding death metal very intriguing,” says Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz. “We were sitting at home in Buffalo and we had a call from [the band’s label] Metal Blade, saying, ‘We just got a call from Jim Carrey. He’s making a movie and wants you to be in it.’ We had to decline at first because we had to be in Europe for a tour. But a day went by and they called again: ‘They want you bad! They are gonna rearrange shooting around your tour.’”
Putting aside any scepticism they may have had, the band flew to Miami for two days to shoot the scene. While the deliberately ripped jeans provided by the wardrobe department suggested the filmmakers didn’t quite understand them, at least Ace Ventura himself did.
“Jim comes over to us wearing his Ace Ventura garb, going, ‘Oh my god! Cannibal Corpse! It’s so great to have you guys here!’” recalls Paul. “Then he starts rattling off lyrics and tells us he wants us to play Hammer Smashed Face. It was insane. He specifically asked for that one… He also rattled off the lyrics to Rancid Amputation, which was on our previous album. So he knew what was going on.”
The band weren’t used to the multiple takes and long waiting times required of a Hollywood production and spent two days miming to Hammer Smashed Face with a room full of extras moshing silently. When they eventually saw the movie, they were a bit underwhelmed, as a bunch of what they’d shot didn’t make it into the theatrical cut.
A deleted scene, reinstated for some TV broadcasts, sees Ace crowdsurf to the stage and do some not-too-shabby growling and particularly impressive gyrating. While Cannibal Corpse were already elbowing their way to the front of the death metal pack, their Ace Ventura: Pet Detective appearance didn’t harm their career any. It happened to come out a couple of months before we released [the next Cannibal Corpse album] The Bleeding and it turned out to be a hit movie,” recalls Paul. “The Bleeding is still our best-selling record.”
16. Morbid Angel Prom Dance (Night Of The Demons 2, 1994)
Where the original Night Of The Demons features a sexy demon dance scene to goth legends Bauhaus, the sequel repeats the trick, swapping it for Morbid Angel. The incongruousness of Rapture crashing the prom captures the moment when death metal took over Hollywood. PH
17. "Wrong, dickhead... Lemmy is God" (Airheads, 1994)
Local metal band The Lone Rangers – played by Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser and Steve Buscemi, no less – hijack a radio station to get their demo played. When a hapless A&R berk attempts to coax them out, they hit him with a question to prove his rock’n’roll bona fides: who would win in arm wrestle, Lemmy or God? The doofus doesn’t get it. The correct answer: Lemmy is God. Obviously. SH
18. Dead Souls (The Crow, 1994)
The perfect 90s rock/goth movie, with doomed star Brandon Lee embodying the comic book hero-as-rock star, also featured one of the all-time greatest soundtracks. Who could forget Nine Inch Nails’ pulsating cover of Joy Division’s Dead Souls accompanying the scene where Eric Draven hops across the rooftops in pursuit of the corvid that gives him his name, showcasing the physical transformation he’s undergone to become the perfect avatar of vengeance? DE
19. GWAR kill Mark (Empire Records, 1995)
1995’s cult alt coming-of-age drama set in a record store is a Gen-X period piece. For metal fans, its high point comes when stoned record store employee Mark hallucinates being invited to join shock rock legends Gwar, playing themselves. His guitar playing with the band is brutally interrupted when he’s sacrificed onstage and fed to Gwar’s infamous World Maggot. SH
20. Turn On, Tune In... Freak Out! (Beavis And Butt-Head Do America, 1996)
Beavis munches a peyote cactus. His ensuing hallucinations - Butt-Head melting into little demons, a TV surrounded by skulls and tentacles, our heroes headbanging so hard their skin flies off - unfold to a pumping White Zombie soundtrack. The luridly deranged animation was even based on designs by Rob Zombie. CC
21. Bloodshed At The Titty Twister (From Dusk 'Til Dawn, 1996)
The point where this Robert Rodriguez-directed, Quentin Tarantino-written fang-fest transforms from a crime thriller into gonzo vampire western. A bar-fight becomes a massacre, as vampires feast on the inhabitants of strip joint the Titty Twister, the band playing psychobilly tunes in the background getting in on the action as they reveal their instruments are actually dismembered corpses. Metal AF. RH
22. Cruising To Dragonaut (Gummo, 1997)
Harmony Korine’s cult classic depicts the bleak reality of smalltown America. The scene where teen protagonists Solomon and Tummler ride bikes through their crumbling hometown, looking for ways to pass the time, while the riff to Sleep’s classic Dragonaut plays in the background is chilling, unsettling and badass all at once. SH
23. The Blood Rave (Blade, 1998)
Sure, there’s techno music playing, but every metalhead recognises the awesomeness of Blade’s opening scene, as an unsuspecting victim looking to get laid is lured onto the floor only for the clubbers to start lapping up the blood gushing from the sprinklers. You can practically taste Slayer’s Bloodline video round the corner. PH
24. "Little boy, you're going to hell!" (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, 1999)
Kenny plunges into the fiery pit, tossed and stretched by skeletal demons over a heavy-riffed soundtrack. It was already metal as hell, but popcorn went flying when an uncredited James Hetfield took the mic to accuse the muffled schoolboy of “not going to church and staring at boobs all day”. CC
25. Rage swallow the red pill (The Matrix, 1999)
Featuring Deftones, The Prodigy, Rammstein, Rob Zombie and more, The Matrix boasts one of the all-time great metal movie soundtracks. But it’s the climactic use of Rage Against The Machine’s Wake Up – do you see what they did there? – as Neo flies away like a goth Superman that is most explosive. SC
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