That’s no easy feat, considering the material.

(Also worth seeking out: “Until the Light Takes Us” and “Metalhead.”) Purists may object to a distinctly Norwegian phenomenon being portrayed by American actors speaking unaccented English and Culkin’s occasionally generic narration (“Here I am - an average teenager, you may think, but you couldn’t be more wrong”), but Åkerlund deserves kudos for going beyond the tabloid-ready scandals and looking for whatever meaning may lie behind them. “Lords of Chaos” is far from a poseur, but neither is it every bit as grvm and kvlt as, say, “True Norwegian Black Metal” - a fellow Vice production that still ranks as the defining cinematic document of this disreputable movement. The film is directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who, having served as drummer for black-metal pioneers Bathory in the early ‘80s and won a Grammy for directing Madonna’s “Ray of Light music video, is uniquely suited for such a task. The friends-turned-rivals, who performed in the foundational band Mayhem together, have emerged as the most infamous figures from that era - especially because only one of them survived it. So don’t be surprised that “ Lords of Chaos” offers less insight into Mayhem’s songwriting process than it does into the relationship between Øystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous, played by Rory Culkin) and Varg Vikernes (Emory Cohen). If you know anything at all about the genre, it probably isn’t that “Transilvanian Hunger” is a pretty solid album - it’s that, back in the early ‘90s, a group of disaffected Norwegians earned notoriety by burning down centuries-old churches and committing grisly murders.

Even the most ardent of Mayhem, Darkthrone, or Gorgoroth fans would concede that its practitioners aren’t virtuosos so much as vessels for an anti-establishment worldview that demonizes Christianity the way punk rock savaged Reagan and Thatcher. Black metal has never been a purely musical phenomenon, nor was it meant to be.

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