The 66.6 Most Metal Movie Scenes of All Time: #29 through #20
On June 9th, independent heavy metal book publisher Bazillion Points will release Heavy Metal Movies, the ultimate guidebook to the complete molten musical cinema experience that features lavish illustrations and more than 666 of the most metallic movie moments of all time.
To celebrate, we’ve partnered with the book’s author, Mike “McBeardo” McPadden, to count down the 66.6 most metal movie scenes of all time right here on MetalSucks! Every other day through the book’s release on June 9th we’ll be revealing Mike’s picks along with brief write-ups penned by the author himself. Today we look at #29 through #20 as the countdown continues!
29. Maximum Overdrive (1986)
• AC/DC’s “Chase the Ace” underscores a rise-of-the-machines massacre.
Stephen King’s one-and-done directorial effort, Maximum Overdrive, is a wickedly fun adaptation of the author’s short story “Trucks” that provided horror cinema with an iconic image in the form of the 18-wheeler brandishing a giant Green Goblin head and also gifted metal fans with an all-AC/DC soundtrack. King has long decried his lack of filmmaking experience, but the opening sequence of machines run amok builds slowly to “Chase the Ace”, one of AC/DC’s few instrumentals, and manages to be at once witty and nerve-wracking.
28. The Exorcist (1973)
• Pazuzu-possessed Linda Blair power-pukes pea soup into the open maws of God’s soldiers.
The exorcists of The Exorcist may repeatedly chant “The power of Christ compels you!”, but its J.C.’s cosmic opponent — represented, in this case, by the demon Pazuzu — that truly captivated audiences, turned the ’70s into the Satan Decade, and continues to inspires heavy metal creativity of all shapes and substances to this day. Nowhere in The Exorcist is the taste of Satan more palpable than when possessed Regan (Linda Blair) projectile vomits green sludge smack in the kissers of her spiritual liberators. It is, indeed, pea soup — Anderson’s brand, in fact (the crew deemed Campbell’s not gloppy enough).
27. Jerky Boys (1995)
• Helmet performs at a rock club, managed by Ozzy Osbourne.
For a flashpot image of mid-’90s, post-Nirvana mainstream metal, few instances more completely convey the weirdness of the time than New York alt-metal noise stompers Helmet making a cameo on stage in a rock club during the big-screen showcase of the world’s most famous prank phone-callers. Odder still: Helmet covers Black Sabbath’s “Symptom of the Universe” after being introduced by Ozzy Osbourne.
26. Prince of Darkness (1987)
• The Eyes of Alice Cooper
In fright maestro John Carpenter’s heady, pitch-black sci-fi saga about a bottle of liquefied Satan percolating toward Armageddon, Alice Cooper wordlessly steals the show as a skid row vagrant. Morbid-eyed and possessed by awful forces beyond comprehension, Cooper stares straight into the camera through a gothic metal fence and generates one of the defining images of 1980s horror cinema. Somehow, that deadpan glare of menace comes off even cooler than when, later on, Alice casually shoves an entire bicycle through a passerby’s chest.
Humungus makes a terrifying case for the peaceful people to hand over the precious gasoline and “just walk away”, but his air of invincibility gets punctured by a surprise pop-up by the crust-punk-incarnate Feral Kid (Emil Minty). The kid wings his boomerang mightily, mutilating and slaying a couple of baddies, then catches it and back-flips into the underground tunnel from which he emerged. No gods, no masters!
25. Cremaster 2 (1999)
• Slayer’s Dave Lombardo drums, bee-covered Morbid Angel frontman Steve Tucker makes a phone call.
High art and confidence swindling have long functioned as spiritual bedfellows. With his nonsensical and nonsensically acclaimed Cremaster film cycle created for museums, New York-based (of course) ex-J. Crew model-turned-Björk-husband Matthew Barney proved himself an arch-minister of the snooty set’s most ludicrous hoo-hah. In the plus column, Barney is an extreme metal fan, so for Cremaster 2, the series’ fourth installment (whoooaaaaa!), Slayer’s Dave Lombardo pummels a drum kit, after which Morbid Angel’s Steve Tucker phones in a vocal cameo. It’s a likable oasis of headbanging midnight movie surrealism amidst the swirl of silly avant-garde indulgence. And it rocks.
24. The Dungeonmaster (1984)
aka Ragewar
• W.A.S.P. tear it up on “Tormentor”
Empire Pictures ruled the mid-’80s as one of the last theatrical exploitation movie studios while also establishing a devoted cult via VHS. The Dungeonmaster is an ambitious Empire production, an episodic fantasy/horror adventure with each chapter helmed by a different director from the studio’s stable. The bluntly titled “Heavy Metal” sequence, made by Empire founder Charles Band, showcases W.A.S.P. ripping through “Tormentor” in concert while the hero’s girlfriend writhes and suffers on stage at the rocking whip-hand of vocalist Blackie Lawless.
23. The Road Warrior (1982)
• Feral Kid crashes the heavy duty Lord Humungus speech.
Holed up with ragtag post-nuke survivors in a makeshift desert mini-city, Mad Max (Mel Gibson) lays eye on the source of their torment: hockey-masked, mega-muscled menace the Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson)—aka “the Warrior of the Wasteland” and “the Ayatollah of Rock-‘n’-Rolla”—and his army of punked-up barbarians atop tricked-out death machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_I3-sm9XV8
22. Shock ’Em Dead (1990)
• Voodoo-raised heavy metal Satan transforms a rock nerd into a lycanthropic guitar god.
Mainstream hair metal’s last cinematic gasp is an orgy of mousse-poofs, acid wash jean jackets, and shoulder-padded ex-underage porn legend Traci Lords. After bombing his audition for poodle-noodlers Spastique Colon, dorky pizza boy Martin visits a wildly war-painted voodoo lady, whose whamma-jamma conjures a vision of Lucifer himself shredding and finger-tapping while bustier-popping blondes caress his evil muscles. Martin temporarily goes werewolf, then reemerges as exactly the party-store rocker-wigged axe-slinger to render Spastique Colon flush with big-time success.
21. More Bad News (1988)
• Bad News unites the 1986 Monsters of Rock masses into one angry mob.
Spun off from the UK series The Comic Strip Presents… and comprised of cast members of the uproariously anarchic early-’80s Britcom The Young Ones, Bad News are the Spinal Tap of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Upping Tap by one into the “eleven” of brute reality, Bad News took the stage at Castle Donnington during the 1986 Monsters of Rock festival and filmed their endurance of an ensuing onslaught of garbage, bottles (often filled with urine), and any and all other possible projectiles for their mockumentary, More Bad News. The result was more great comedy, more metal madness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N88N0M5dzEA
20. Trick or Treat (1986)
• Ozzy Osbourne, Televangelist.
Metalsploitation’s highest profile theatrical release Trick or Treat showcases Marc Price (Skippy Henderson from TV’s Family Ties) as a credible ’80s headbanger outcast who resurrects fatally electrocuted evil rocker Sammi Curr by way of a possessed cassette tape given to him by Gene Simmons in the role of a late-night rock radio DJ. Viewed now, Sammi Curr’s power-bolt massacre of a high school dance is Trick Or Treat’s big hoot, but back in the mid-’80s, casting Ozzy Osbourne in a stunt cameo as donation-begging televangelist really got headbangers knee-slapping.
Catch up on the rest of the countdown here:
#66.6 through #60
#59 through #50
#49 through #40
#39 through #30
