"Twilight" star cast in Sion Sono's black metal murder movie "Lords of Chaos"

by Chris MaGee

Back in March it was announced that "Strange Circus" and "Love Exposure" director Sion Sono was going to be making his English-language filmmaking debut with "Lords of Chaos". The film, based on the 2003 non-fiction book "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground" by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind, will tell the story of the 1993 murder of Øystein Aarseth, the guitarist for Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Rival musician Varg Vikernes of the band Burzum (Man, these band names are too much!) was eventually convicted of the crime, but the question for the longest time has been who will be playing who in Sono's screen take on this?

Now, according to Liz Shackelton at Screen Daily "Twlight" star Jason Rathbone (above left) will be playing the role of Varg Vikernes. I've intentionally avoided "Twilight", so I can't say much about Rathbone's work in it, but I can tell you how eager I am to see how this film shapes up. I've always found Sono's work to be pretty darn disturbing, so marrying his twisted aesthetic with the story of murder and Black Metal seems like a perfect fit.

Thanks to Nippon Cinema for pointing the way to this story.