Mike McPadden — Heavy Metal Movies

Here we have a great OTT, campy, and fun celebration of heavy metal in movies. This truly huge tome nears six hundred page mark, and takes in everything from head-banging documentaries & fist pumping concert films. To a host of metal related horror films, onto tacky & lo-rent Mad max rip-offs, through to crazed creature features & monster movies, onto campy muscle-bound barbarian films, and beyond.

The book comes in the form of a bulky paperback- featuring main black & white texts/ stills/ posters, with an eight-page color section. We get a get a colorful cover artwork taking in comic book selection of zombified metal-heads, toxic waste drinking werewolf’s, gimp-mask wearing wrestlers, muscle-bound figures with monster heads, and 3D wearing blobs- all making their way out of a movie theatre.

The books written by Mike “Mcbeardo” McPadden- a Brooklyn born freelance writer, and life long metal-head & movie fan. Through-out the book he has an amusing, readable, and at times informative style. He also mangers to keep a nice balance between his metal & film fandom -  making the book an enjoyable drop in & out read.

The book is mainly made-up of reviews, which are laid-out in an alphabetic order. The reviews run between a quarter of a page- through- to a few pages. And really McPadden jumps all over the place with the type of films covered- for example in A chapter we move from Ace Ventura-Pet Detective (with its live Cannibal Corpse footage), onto a slew of Alice Cooper concert films, through to Apocalypse Now, onto the third Evil Dead film Army Of Darkness, through to Arise- a documentary on Sri Lankan metal. With the titles moving between known, cult, and obscure-  which gives the book a nice balance.

The book opens with a six-page introduction from McPadden-discussing the origin of the project, and his love of both metal & films. After this we get a six-page write-up from none other the shock-rock King Alice Cooper- in this, he discusses some of his favorite metal related films, as well as films he’s appeared in himself. Then for the next five hundred & fifty pages, we jump into the main body of the book- the review section. With the book been topped off with a few shorter lists/ reviews- taking in the 66.6 most metal moments in films, metal moments in non-metal movies, and notable head-banging moments on TV shows.

All told Heavy Metal Movies is enjoyable, never stuffy, and fun guide to the head-banging side of celluloid. So if your either a metal-head or enjoy films connected to the form- this really is a no-brainer.