"Black Metal - Voices From Hell" DVD

Not a documentary (as you'd rightfully and logically expect from the packaging), but  a (likely bootleg) combination of scattershot VHS clips, with only tenuous connections to one another. 

This shady set begins with three low-quality VHS transfers of live songs by Mayhem, Venom, and Celtic Frost (some with digital noise/tape glitches intact). Then we get a brief clip called "Consejo Black Metal", which amounts to a Spanish or Mexican guy in corpse paint ranting. There are some priceless (and hopefully tongue-in-cheek) shots of him reading Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in an outhouse. I couldn't figure this out. Finally there are two "photo galleries", one called "Black Metal Girls", and a "Norwegian Black Metal Photo Documentary", both of which contain some curious still images, but they are all unlabeled and unorganized, so who knows what bands are here? No documentation, just raw materials easily accessed online, I'm sure. 

If that weren't enough, the whole deal runs in 20 minutes!  Very, very shameful. This is a simple case of a company preying upon a faithful fan base, and releasing shoddy product. If that's not pure evil, I don't know what is. 

(XXL Releasing)

"Black Metal - The Music Of Satan" DVD (director: Bill Zebub)

Having seen some of Zebub's past "works", this one wasn't exactly a shoe-in for greatness. However, "Black Metal - The Music Of Satan" takes a different tact from the many other black metal documentaries that focus on the same tired motifs and myths (Varg Vikernes, the church burnings, and murders). Zebub interviews a mass of early and present-day black metal (and related) artists, and presents an alternate personality, where the guys (and girls) aren't so serious. Beyond the poses and "evil" headlines are some rather regular people, with (gasp) senses of humor.
Basically, this is a jumbled (and formless) but fun collection of brief interviews where the artists are allowed to smile, make jokes, and have a beer (why do they all drink Heineken?).
Zebub's film dispels the notion that black metal is a humorless, dour, and po-faced assemblage of suicidal, homocidal, misanthropic misfits. Well, mostly. Included are chats with Attila Csihar of Mayhem & Sunn O))), Venom, Gorgoroth, Celtic Frost, King Diamond, Rotting Christ, Voivod, Ulver, and tons more. Good fun! (MVD Visual)