With their final tour rolling to a standstill, Slayer have unveiled a cinematic event to mark their demise. A two-part show (in what feels like a knowing nod to the Grindhouse cinema that so clearly influences the opening feasture ), The Repentless Killogy avoids at least one of the mistakes of Metallica’s Through The Never folly in separating the live show from the narrative, allowing the spectacular live footage to stand on its own merits. But it also suffers the same issue of attempting to make a movie out of a nebulous plot that, whilst coherent within the context of three necessarily unscripted music videos, fails to bear lengthier examination. Nevertheless, whilst it an be argued that The Repentless Killogy is an over-ambitious appetiser, Slayer fans can hardly fail to thrill to a double feature from a band soon to draw a line underneath a remarkable career in brutality.
The Killogy
Lyrically and visually Slayer have never shied away from the ugly side of life, but even so, The Repentless Killogy takes delight in being a singularly unpleasant piece of film-making. Conceived as a brutal coda to the loosely plotted story of the titular album’s videos (Repentless, You Against You and Pride In Prejudice), the film ladles on the blood and gore, but little else. Although more coherent than Metallica’s attempt to expand into cinema, The Repentless Killogy is little more than a number of bloody tableaux with minimal exposition.
This, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing – after all, it’s not a dissimilar set-up to any number of slasher movies – and the practical effects are top notch; but the sheer calculated cruelty of the death scenes (the brutal murder of not one, but two, pregnant women features heavily) robs the movie of much of its initial sense of fun, whilst the over-the-top deaths found elsewhere similarly rob it of dramatic impetus.
Technically the movie is impressive, being well shot and competently acted, but the lack of coherent narrative allows little in the way of engagement and, whilst it is kinda fun to see what imaginative murder BJ McDonnell and his crew will cook up next, it’s hard to imagine any but the most ardent gore hound watching it more than once. Overall, the Killogy serves as a neat appetiser for the main feature but, for all its ambition, it’s hard not to feel that showing the three clips back-to-back would have sufficed in this regard.
The Live Footage
Fortunately, whilst The Repentless Killogy itself is little more than a curtain raiser, the Wayne Isham-shot concert footage of Slayer live at The Forum, Inglewood, is absolutely electrifying, capturing the band hitting an end-of-career peek as they rampage through twenty songs from across a glorious career. Whilst the forum may not be the largest of venues compared to America’s typical enormodomes, Wayne’s endlessly roaming camera gives the event a suitable sense of occasion, each tracking shot timed to the relentless pulse of the music. It’s undeniably exciting and the shots of the audience going absolutely nuts from the very front to the very back only adds to the sense that Slayer’s loss is a palpable one. Happily, Wayne (who is an old hand at this sort of thing) resists the temptation to mess with any sort of visual effects, letting the band’s peerless performance do the talking and it is a fitting testament to the power of Slayer’s final run of shows.
With a drop cloth lit blood red and adorned with rotating crosses, the eerie intro of Delusions of Saviour immediately puts the crowd on notice for what’s about to happen and, as the band take to the stage for a blistering Repentless, it’s clear that this will be nothing as straightforward as a hits set, the band firmly making the point that they leave the stage as a creative entity and not a self-referential tribute act. That’s not to say the show doesn’t fly around the band’s history and, having dispensed with one of their latest numbers, we head back into the mists of time for a ferocious take on The Antichrist from Show No Mercy. It’s a brief blast of primitive death metal before the band hurtle forward in time once more to unleash a stunning take on Disciple from the underrated God Hates Us All. Having executed one of the heaviest outros in their storied history, the band tip a nod to the finest hour with postmortem before once more referencing the present with the simmering rage of Hate Worldwide.
Following a brief (and surprisingly chirpy) welcome from Tom, the ever-green War Ensemble still manages to detonate like a high-explosive round, neither time nor familiarity conspiring to dull its impact. Impressively, neither When The Stillness Comes nor You Against You sound weak when pitted against the likes of Mandatory Suicide, and it says much about Slayer’s judgement that they decided to call time on their remarkable career whilst on a high. Mandatory Suicide, of course, is an untouchable classic, and the band do it full justice, doing much to capture the aura of evil that permeated the studio version. It dovetails neatly with Hallowed Point, a heavy submission from Seasons In The Abyss.
Keeping the audience well-supplied with classics, Tom introduces the wonderfully unpleasant Dead Skin Mask as a love song (with an evil glint in his eye), whilst Born Of Fire maintains its evil pace. Another digression to the land of repentless via Cast The First Stone keeps things fresh, whilst the band’s most radio-friendly moment, Bloodline puts in an appearance, underscoring the fact that, for all the fury and fire, Slayer are perfectly capable of crafting catchy hooks when the mood takes them. In contrast, Seasons In The Abyss still sounds like Sabbath on a particularly batch of Mandrax, the grinding guitars and dynamic digressions perfectly paced to maximise the song’s dark impact.
And then, as if nearly ninety minutes haven’t already passed, we’re into the endzone. All roads lead here, I suppose, but even so, Slayer make it a finale of epic proportions that, alone, is worth the price of admission. The fiery horror of Hell Awaits, given the production job it deserves, the slow-motion nightmare of South Of Heaven, delivered to a screaming crowd and then, in quick succession, Raining Blood, Chemical Warfare and, of course, Angel Of Death. Tracks that are so much part of the fabric of heavy metal that they’re known the world over, even to people who are not fans of Slayer (it’s hard to imagine, but such people do exist), they bring the curtain down in brutal yet emotional style, closing the chapter on one of the great metal bands of our (or any) time.
Released on CD / Vinyl / Blu Ray & DVD, each boasting suitably gruesome artwork, The Repentless Killogy is an essential purchase for Slayer fans, capturing the sweat, screams and emotion of the pit with crystal clear sound and vision. Whilst the narrative portion of the Killogy is rather more frivolous than fun, the live footage is more-or-less flawless, and it provides the band with the perfect swan song. The only thing to let the package down is the absence of any sort of farewell documentary (consider the exemplary Autopsy DVD), but perhaps that’s further down the line. As it is, this is pretty much as essential as metal gets. 9.5
