Director: Lucifer Valentine
Released: 2012
i've known a few junkies in my time, and i never liked 'em. well, i did, because we were friends first, but then they got hooked on dope and became huge pieces of shit. basically, they're exactly like the people in this film.
"black metal veins" is a documentary about five heroin addicts. basically, the film consists of them shooting up and smoking crack for 90 minutes. the "black metal" part of the title comes from the fact that these kids (adults? 20somethings) are all really into the genre, and a couple of them have a band together. they talk about black metal, how they like the nihilistic message, it's a perfect genre for the destruction of the human race, blah blah. but, beyond that, the movie's really just about them shooting dope. and man, they shoot a fucking lot of it. inhuman amounts. one guy died during the filming (not an OD, he was shot eight times during a drug deal gone bad, four in the heart, four in the head). raven, one of the "main characters", we'll say, OD's pretty hard and i really, really thought she was dead. main reason being because she took a much bigger hit than she normally takes, and she looked really dead. her friend and boyfriend picked her up, stripped her clothes off and threw her on the bed, face down. the camera looks back on her and there's a giant pool of blood forming where her head is. presumably after some time has passed, the director asks one of her friends where she is, and he says "oh, she's dead." but people on the internet say she's not...? whatever.
there's a lot of sex in this film. none of it is stimulating to watch. in fact, all of it is downright fucking sad. brad (third from the left in the photo, holding the needle) is banging his prostitute friend (furthest to the right in the photo) who just lets him fondle her shit whenever he feels like it. they're laying on the couch, he shoots some dope into her stomach, she takes her tits out, starts touching herself, then she passes out. he flips her over, takes her clothes off, and..... we cut to another scene. apparently, it's revealed in the directors commentary that even though it looks like she was about to be raped, she wasn't. i guess.
bottom line: this is not a feel good documentary. shit, this isn't even like an episode of "intervention" where there might be some semblance of hope shining through by the end. this is a harrowing, up close portrait of what heroin does to you. it destroys you. these people, the ones that are left, at least, have no lives to speak of. they're sad, disgusting, quite-literally-rotting humans with absolutely no reason to live. you don't feel bad for them. you can't feel bad for them. i couldn't, at least.
if there was ever a part of me that wanted to try dope (there wasn't), it's fucking gone now. 6/10.
