Banger Films Official Blog

Our US theatrical premiere was at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. A festival that is a little short on Metal but long on good BBQ and good times. We were more than a little startled to be greeted by a stretch limo courtesy of our US distributors, Warner Bros. Oh well, you only live once eh?

We caught The End Records showcase with Norway’s own Green Carnation – it was good to see Andreas and Adrian from The End out in full force. We also checked out the Relapse Records party and chowed down on some killer Mexican grub with the Relapse and Century Media folks.

But the hands down highlight was the arrival of Eric Bryan, one of the fans who appears in the film. He traveled all the way from Riverside, California to Austin just to see the film’s premiere. His parents paid for his trip for his graduation present! He did the Q&A after the film with us and dropped some hilarious comments about downloading and Metallica. Eric is a young metal fan who really knows his stuff and will have a very bright future in whatever he sets his sights on.

What else did we do? Well, let’s just say that our final night concluded with Scot drinkin’ bourbon out of a glass pistolero, fer chrissakes! Need I say more?

Halifax, Canada – September 22-25, 2005
The Atlantic International Film Festival was our second film fest and let’s just say that Nova Scotians know how to put ‘em back, eh. The “hospitality suite” was certainly that; hospitable. We went hard…
But on a more serious note, we had two screenings of the film, one in downtown Halifax and one in the nearby Dartmouth. A friend from Dartmouth describes it as “Not the end of the world, but you can see it from there”. Ha! The crowds were small but totally metal. I got in touch with some local metalheads through chat rooms before we arrived and it was great to see the Halifax metal community in full effect. At first, we were a little worried about attendance at the Dartmouth screening. In the end we had a good crowd and got excellent feedback.
We also did some generic tourist stuff and got the guards at Citadel Horns to throw the devil horns. I guess they had heard about the film on the radio news that morning. (I think that was the earliest interview I’ve ever done: “That’s interesting what you say about Slayer, Sam, but now let’s look at the local weather forcast…” Pretty surreal.) But the hands down hilight of the Halifax trip was that I got to check out two Relapse Records bands, Undand anb Buried Inside, at the Attic. Buried Inside was killer – Totally gritty, totally lethal. The Attic was a wicked little rock/metal club where i got to hang out with some people who came to the screenings. Seems like Halifax has a cool scene going on…