Despite what members of Mayhem think on the highly anticipated Lords of Chaos film, it has finally received an official release date. Mayhem and the early nineties black metal scene is the primary subject of the upcoming controversial film that will be released in theaters on February 8th and available on demand on February 22. The film was directed by Jonas Akerlund, former drummer for Bathory and a well known director whose music video credits include, Metallica, Rammstein, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, U2, Blink-182, Pink, Rammstein, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga to name a few, and is being released by Gunpowder and Sky, with co-producers including VICE Studios, 20th Century Fox, Scott Free Productions and Insurgent Media.

The film chronicles the events that transpired in the early 1990’s involving the band Mayhem and it’s founding member Oystein “Euronymous” Aarseth. The movie covers his life and subsequent death as he sets out to create “true” Norwegian black metal with his band. Although Akerlund has directed a number of feature films, he considers this his first real movie. For starters he wrote it and he lived it. He has personal relationships with the subjects and considers this film a close and personal project. He describes the film as a “Terrifying story” that is tonally, “all over the place” but one that “When you see it, it comes together.”

The movie stars Rory Culkin  as Euronymous, Emory Cohen as Varg, Anthony De La Torre as Hellhammer, Sky Ferreira as Ann-Marit, Jack Kilmer (son of Val) as Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin, and Valter Skarsgard as Faust. That cast is joined by Sam Coleman as Metalion, Jonathan Barnwell as Necrobutcher, Wilson Gonzalez Ochsenknecht as Blackthorn, Lucian Charles Collier as Occultus, Andrew Lavelle as Fenriz, and James Edwin as Manheim.

The movie is based on the book entitled, Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise Of The Satanic Metal Underground, which was originally published in 1998.

Check out the trailer below: