Tubi Tuesday: Death to Metal (2019)

Dive into “Death to Metal,” a unique horror-comedy rooted in Dubuque’s real metal scene, blending gore with genuine Midwestern charm.

In my last entry, we looked at a film shot in the American heartland outside Akron, Ohio. Today, we’re heading west even deeper into the middle of the country, across Indiana and Illinois, fording the mighty Mississippi to the shores of Dubuque, Iowa. 

While it might not have quite the cultural impact of Akron, Dubuque, like pretty much every town across this great land, has a creative community all its own. And it’s from that community that we get today’s film, 2019’s Death to Metal.

Directed by Tim Connery and co-written with Kevin Koppes, it’s one of those films that could only have been made in one particular artistic place, in this case, Dubuque’s surprisingly robust metal community.

Like many midsize Midwestern towns, Dubuque’s artsy weirdos frequently find themselves in conflict with its deeply religious roots. Such is the case for Zane (Alex Stein), lead singer of the local metal band Withered Christ, who leaves church for band practice after a fiery sermon from his parish’s overzealous priest, Father Milton (Andrew Jessop) decrying the evils of internet porn, low rise jeans, and heavy metal music, among other things.

But his church’s disapproval is the least of Zane’s problems.

In short order, he’s replaced as lead singer in his band and dumped by his girlfriend Tracey (Gwen Werner), sending him crashing to the floor of his non-metalhead friend Mariah (Grace Melon) for solace. All this on the eve of the Holy Saturday Metal Massacre, a festival that could help put Withered Christ on the map.

But it turns out, Father Milton’s having a pretty rough day, too.

Put on leave from his sacramental duties for his inflammatory rhetoric, Milton delusionally declares himself the true emissary of God’s will, going on a drunken bender that ends with him waist deep in a pond full of toxic sludge dumped there by a couple of yahoos earlier in the film.

This has the unfortunate effect of turning him into a hulking, mutated monster bent on enacting vengeance on those devil-worshipping metalheads.

I have to admit, while I enjoy some metal, I’m not the most well-versed in the intricacies of the genre and its many offshoots. Metal has to have the most sub-sub genres of any musical style, and you’d practically need a PhD to understand the nuances between them. But even with my limited understanding, it’s clear that Death to Metal takes the art form seriously and offers us a more authentic look than most Hollywood productions.

While there are plenty of “heavy metal horror” movies out there, most of them feel phony. They are clearly the product of Hollywood screenwriters and directors who have little inside knowledge of the world they’re depicting.

Death to Metal, on the other hand, is clearly made by people with deep roots in their city’s metal scene. 

Most of the bands in the film are actual Dubuque metal groups, like technical death band Mutilated by Zombies and stoner doom duo Telekinetic Yeti.

Withered Christ is made up for the film, but a couple of its members are in a band called The Rising Plague based in tiny Ledyard, Iowa.

The fest’s headliners, the wonderfully named Grandma Incinerator, are sadly not real, but they’re played by Dubuque film dudes Dean Wellman, Neal Kapp, and Steve Thompson—just another example of the deep artistic well this movie is drawing from. 

I’m listing all this to emphasize the amount of love for this small creative community that went into making DEATH TO METAL.

It’s clear that most of these folks are musicians first and actors second, but their presence gives the film a sense of authenticity that just can’t be faked.

I almost wouldn’t mind if there were no rampaging mutant priest in this movie, because these bands are so fun to hang out with and their world feels so lived-in. But of course, there is that rampaging mutant priest to contend with, and Connery held back enough of the budget for some satisfying gore effects as the Father Formerly Known as Milton slashes and hacks his way through the fest, turning the figurative massacre into a literal one.

One particularly fun sequence sees headbangers and moshers snatched up one by one as the band plays on obliviously.  

The climax ends up being a bit anticlimactic, with the film’s shaggy metalhead comedy side and gruesome horror comedy side not quite coming together. Still, it’s hard to deny the film’s many charms.

Despite the crushing music and gruesome killings, there’s a low-key vibe that could almost be described as wholesome.

While their lyrics may deal with death and mutilation, these metalheads are really just big softies at heart, basically normal people who find a sense of community and fellowship among the deafening riffs. In other words, they’re a lot like the metal dudes I know, and probably the ones you know, too.

I love any movie that takes the kind of pride of place that Death to Metal does in Dubuque. I’ve never been there, but I kind of feel like I have after watching the film.

At the very least, I’ve gotten a primer on the city’s metal offerings, and it’s made me a fan of Telekinetic Yeti; those dudes are friggin’ sick.