Read our exclusive interview with the film's makers here

Murder, Arson, Mayhem! Welcome to the dark world of Scandinavian black metal music, unveiled here in a riveting, low-budget documentary by US filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell.

For those who aren’t familiar with the movement: in the early 1990s a group of anarchistic Norwegian youths deconstructed traditional metal music, creating a noise that sounded like it was spawned in the bowels of Hell, to challenge the masses.

But whatever musical integrity the bands possessed was overshadowed by an orgy of suicide, slaughter, church-burning and media allegations that they were practicing Satanism.

To examine the much maligned and misunderstood principles that led to their revolt against modern society, Aites and Ewell relocated to Norway and lived with some of them for two years.

Focusing on three key players – Dead from the band Mayhem, who lived up to his name by blowing his brains out; Burzum’s Varg Vikernes, (also known as Count Grishnackh), who was convicted for murdering Mayhem’s guitarist Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth; and Darkthrone’s Gylve ‘Fenriz’ Nagell, who acts as the filmmakers’ tour guide – their findings form an intimate, yet ambivalent portrait of a subculture that was doomed from the beginning.

While Aites and Ewell present a historical overview, they also show how black metal has mutated and become embraced as an artform. The tap-dancing footage of film director and all-round black metal nut Harmony Korine (Gummo) is unbelievable.

But the winning stroke in this flick comes when the camera-wielding duo gain access to the then incarcerated (and subsequently released) Vikernes, who unremorsefully recollects the chilling killing that he was slammed up for.

This is a brilliant example of minimalist storytelling that those with a morbid disposition will love.

BILLY CHAINSAW