Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey

The use of the devil horn sign and lots of black clothing is how many would identify the often misunderstood and frequently reviled heavy metal music crowd. But ever since he was 12, fan and co-director Sam Dunn has longed to understand this deep-rooted passion for music that has been stereotyped and condemned by the mainstream. Along with co-directors Scot McFayden and Jessica Joy Wise, Dunn attends the Heavy Metal concerts and festivals that attract rabid fans from around the world. An enthusiastic guide, he can barely contain his glee at being in the presence of so many bands he has idolized for decades, and there is plenty of beer-soaked bonding and candid interviews with fellow metal enthusiasts. Making use of an ingenious chart (which every true fan will want to get their hands on) tracing the emergence of metal genres, the filmmakers flesh out the complicated musical and political history of heavy metal. Insightful interviews with legends such as Bruce Dickinson, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Dee Snider, Vince Neil and many others defend its value as ground-breaking musical expression. Black Sabbath’s Tommy Iommi shares the reasoning behind the band’s use of crucifix imagery and Dunn even meets Satanist and convicted church burner Jorn Tunsberg to help explain the dark world of Norwegian black metal. A rockfest that is part anthropological study and part personal quest, this film is proof that heavy metal is more than mere spectacle to the millions of dedicated headbangers who’ve been raging along with it for years.