Laugh at the devil Black Metal comedies or when devilish music is really funny

Abstract

The devil and rock music form a symbiosis in various films. Satanism in music, especially if we look to the second wave of Black Metal, had a resurgence in the late 1980s. The ideas of LaVey’s Satanism, such as worldly success and maximizing one’s human potential, however, were irrelevant to the proponents of Black Metal in Norway. True Norwegian Black Metal combined a militant, anti-Christian, anti-society attitude. Characteristic elements of Black Metal bands such as corpse paint, provocative artist names, throat singing, and incomprehensible lyrics are often referenced and portrayed in films. The following films addressing this topic were selected for cinematic narrative analysis: Pop Redemption (Happy Metal, Martin Le Gall, FR 2013), Hevi Reissu (Heavy Trip, Juuso Laatio, Jukka Vidgren, FI/NO 2018) and Lord & Schlumpfi (Sabine Schreiber, DE 2020). With irony, inside jokes and a skillful juxtaposition of contrarian characters, the seriousness, darkness, hatred and nihilism of the Black Metal subculture is turned into entertaining films.