Watch Metal: A Headbanger's Journey For Free

Brilliant and touching

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This movie is truly great for what it shows. It gives outsiders a look at what Metal is to people who do not understand it. I am a big metal head and I always thought it was bad that I liked metal, every one around me told me it was bad and it was making me a bad person. But after watching this it explains every thing. If your a metal head who does not understand your self watch this it will change how you think of yourself. If your a metal head who already knows them self watch it just to learn more about it. If your a outsider who hates metal but wants to know why people listen to it watch it. This is by far one of the best documentary I have ever seen I highly suggest it to any one. It covers every thing you need to know about metal and it might just explain more about yourself than you might know. I am truly proud of my self and who I am after watching this. I hardly rate movies 10/10 but this one truly hits a home run in just about every thing. Watch it you wont be disappointed.

When this movie/documentary first hit theatres I loved it and thought that as a huge metal fan, we are finally getting recognised as just the die-hard fans we are, and not the social miscreants. Also the music was getting its voice out there amongst a wider public, that otherwise considers metal as mere noise.However after repeated viewings and looking further into the info provided I found that it has a number of flaws and just doesn't go deep enough into its source material. The initial heavy metal tree at the start, is impressive but also highly flawed. While I love artists such as Dio and Tony Iommi, most of the interviews are predominantly all one- sided. I don't get the repeated crosses to the Slipknot interview, which most true metal fans hate with a passion.The metal fans that get interviewed come off as a bunch of low fore- heads that are into metal for no other reason other than it's seen to be cool or to be deliberately contrary to their friends. I still like the film, but for a documentary it just doesn't go far enough or deep enough. And maybe this is an Australian thing, but I feel little about this so-called feeling of family or brotherhood that metal fans are supposed to share with each other. Most fans you meet at gigs, tend to be over the top, loud for the sake of being loud, and are opinionated beyond all reason. It's a good documentary but I would've love to hear from more serious fans as well as perspectives from the general public of what they believe metal is and what they think of it. Overall the movie does little for people who only know of the genre by way of Metallica etc. and seeing as most people who saw this in cinemas or bought the DVD were already metal fans there is nothing here that we didn't already know.

I've been a fan of metal (the music itself, anyway) for many years now. I had been aware of this documentary's existence for a while, but only decided to watch it recently. Unfortunately, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey was exactly as bad as I feared, and I have to say a very unimpressive attempt to document this vast genre of music.The first issue with the film is that it presents itself as something to appeal to both metal fans and non-metal fans alike. It tries to educate those unfamiliar with the genre, while providing some fan service to those who love it. The film continually presses the issue of metal and its fan base being looked down upon and marginalised by the rest of society, and unfortunately rather than helping the situation, Metal merely ends up re-enforcing all of the worst aspects of the subculture. Amongst the delights we are treated to are some ridiculous interviews with clueless teenagers talking about how awesome they are for liking metal and how everyone else is an idiot. Way to help the cause, guys.The biggest problem with Metal: A Headbanger's Journey comes in the form of the "Definitive Metal Family Tree" penned by director Sam Dunn and referenced frequently throughout the film. To say this "definitve" family tree contains factual inaccuracies would be an understatement. Rather than actually checking his facts as most documentary makers would do, it appears that Dunn has created this document based entirely on his own opinions, and as a result there are some truly bizarre inclusions, omissions and definitions which would be obvious to anyone even moderately knowledgeable about metal. The fact that Dunn has been a metalhead since the mid '80s only makes this tree more puzzling. For instance, did you know that Slade are a glam metal band? It's true according to A Headbanger's Journey. I wasn't aware that they were even considered a metal band, yet there they are, listed in a category apparently derived from "Shock Rock", which includes bands such as Kiss. Never mind the fact that Kiss were formed post-Slade, and considered them to be one of their primary influences. We've also got Children of Bodom labelled thrash, Judas Priest lumped in with power metal rather than in the NWOBHM category, and (rather hilariously) Cradle of Filth in the "Norwegian Black Metal" category, of which they are neither - a classic rookie mistake.Then we have the inclusion of decidedly un-metal categories such as grunge, "Hard Alternative" (including bands such as Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins), "Pop Metal" (all of which would mostly be considered hard rock), and the aforementioned "Norwegian Black Metal" category, which completely fails to take into account all non-Norwegian second wave black metal acts around in both the early '90s and later. Things like nu-metal are also included, which a great many metal fans don't consider "metal" at all. In short, the whole chart is laughable and looks like it was drawn up by a 15 year old kid who'd just purchased his first Slipknot album. There are far too many errors on the chart to talk about here, but go and have a look for yourself to see the true scale of the problem. Granted, it's difficult to get it right 100% of the time with a genre as vast as metal, but the fact that this is being presented as "fact" in a documentary film, coupled with how atrociously wrong a lot of it is, makes you think that Dunn really should have done some research before making his movie.All in all, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey comes off as shallow, ill-informed and self-serving to the Nth degree. I think a lot of people (metalheads included) will find this film at best pointless and at worst downright embarrassing. Dunn's motives were noble but in the end he failed miserably.

This is a solid and interesting documentary which I would recommend to everybody who loves Metal but also to people who are not necessarily fans of the genre but have interest in music or underground culture.What makes this documentary likable and catches the attention is that it combines solid knowledge and research with a personal style. The author declares himself a fan, visits clubs and festival, travels to get interviews and adds his personal touch to the whole story which makes it likable and well documented at the same time.Sure, the fans of different genres and bands may always have complaints to enter because their favorite flavor of metal or their specific band did not get enough screen time or even omitted. I for example may have liked to hear more full acts of music and I am wondering why Gothic rock did not get some coverage. Yet, we find in the film both an historic thread that is well built, as well as a good coverage of specific subjects and messages like sex, death, violence, etc. that traverse the whole history and different styles in a consistent manner. This documentary if both informational and entertaining.