The first trailer for Jonas Akerlund's Lords of Chaos has been released. We were treated to a poster for the movie at the end of December, which featured Rory Culkin in corpse makeup as Norwegian black metal band Mayhem's guitarist Oystein Aarseth, aka Euronymous. The movie is based on true events from the Norwegian black metal music scene in the early 1990s, and has already been gaining praise after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.

Lords of Chaos centers on a teenager's quest to launch Norwegian black metal in Oslo in the 1980s, which results in some of the most notorious incidents in music history. Lords of Chaos is based on the 1998 book of the same name by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind. The book follows a series of crimes that occurred in Oslo, Norway in the early 1990s surrounding the black metal bands Mayhem and Burzum. The movie is described as "the terrifying story based on real events about a dream-turned-nightmare for a group of teenagers who spiral out of control."

Mayhem's guitarist Oystein Aarseth, aka Euronymous was murdered in 1993 by Burzum member Kristian "Varg" Vikernes (Emory Cohen). Vikernes stabbed Euronymous 23 times, which resulted in a 21-year prison sentence. Before the murder, Euronymous and Varg had planned to blow up Nidaros Cathedral, which appears on the album cover, but the plan was abandoned and the album was delayed after the murder. The subsequent album, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, which is a dog Latin phrase with the loose meaning "About the Mystery of the Lord Satan," came out in 1994 and is considered to be a black metal classic.

Lords of Chaos director Jonas Åkerlund is best-known for his music videos that he has directed over the years, but he was involved in the Norwegian black metal scene back in the day. Akerlund is the original drummer of Bathory, who were one of the first black metal bands to step foot into the scene. Since then, he has directed videos for Madonna, Metallica, and more. He had this to say about the movie.

"I went deeper with this film than any of my other movies. I approached my other films like I did my music videos or commercials, like jobs. But Lords Of Chaos I wrote myself, and it's a close, personal story. I know these people. All my best friends are still in the metal scene. Per was a friend. We were all shocked when he committed suicide. When the news of the church burnings came out, in 1993, I was already living in Los Angeles, but we all knew who was behind them. It took the police a lot longer to find out. I've been trying to get this movie made for a very long time - I've been pitching it around Hollywood for years."

Jonas Akerlund recently revealed that Lords of Chaos has comedy elements and horror elements, but he doesn't think that the movie is either of the aforementioned genres. Instead, he likes to think of it as a "relationship drama," which certainly makes sense considering everything that Mayhem went through. It will be interesting to see how far Akerlund takes the story as far as the murders, suicides, and church burnings are concerned. You can check out the Lords of Chaos trailer below, thanks to Gunpowder Sky.