A few weeks ago, one November night, I was FaceTiming with my girlfriend. as we were goofing off watching Slipknot compilation videos, a particular thumbnail caught my eye; A video titled “The Darkest Band in History (Mayhem).”

  Long story short, I became enveloped. Almost a month later and I’ve now created a website dedicated to the band. To my dismay, it seems that Mayhem has cultivated a fanbase akin to that of the Dahmer Netflix series or Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. Real person fiction born out of a dramatized, fictionalized retelling of a story, casting attractive people and drawing attention from an audience of younger people. What resulted could no longer be described as the Mayhem fanbase, but the Lords of Chaos fanbase. I’m not so sure that anyone cares about Euronymous, but they certainly care about Rory Culkin’s portrayal of him.

  As of December 22nd, I’ve now watched the movie three and a half times. It was difficult to get through at first. Not a scene went by without one of us facepalming or laughing at the disjointed nature of it all. In the end, my girlfriend’s mother even asked for her money back, all $3.99 in Amazon Prime credits that she spent so we could rent the movie. My main gripes were the directing and dialogue. My immersion in the film would wear off every time someone slipped out of their Scandinavian accent or a random, completely American sounding character began speaking. In my opinion, it should have been done well or not done at all. With Hellhammer as what I presume to be comedic relief, the movie began feeling like Euronymous and Varg LARPing a DnD session with the rest of the Black Circle whilst normal people look on.