DEVOUR Unleashes Heavy Metal, Vampires, Werewolves and Pure Horror Mayhem

Epic Pictures and Dread are getting ready to drop DEVOUR, and this thing sounds like somebody booked a metal show, invited every monster in the building, then locked the doors and let chaos headline.

Directed by Scott B. Hansen, DEVOUR follows an all-girl heavy metal band that gets stranded after a disastrous gig. Bad night already. Then they step in to help a woman in danger and end up trapped in a remote town run by a warlock and packed with cannibals, vampires and a werewolf. At that point, you are way past needing a tow truck.

The cast includes KateLynn E. Newberry, Gus Langley, Alex Lucchesi, Chelsea LeSage, Gaven Wilde and Heidi Shepherd of Butcher Babies. That last name is a smart pull because this movie is clearly trying to merge actual metal energy with horror instead of just throwing a leather jacket on somebody and calling it authentic.

Hansen has the background for it too. Alongside his horror work on Bad Candy and The Possession Experiment, he has directed hundreds of music videos and worked with artists including Meshuggah, Motionless in White, A Day to Remember, Ill Niño and Fear Factory. So when DEVOUR leans into the identity of the band, that part of the movie is coming from somebody who understands the rhythm, attitude and visual language of heavy music.

The practical effects are another reason this one has my attention. Creature designer Wayne Anderson, whose credits include Stranger Things, IT: Chapter One, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Avatar: The Way of Water, led the creature and gore work with the OX FX team. We are talking suits, prosthetics, makeup and animatronics. Give me a monster that can physically stand in the room with the actors every time.

The setup feels like Deathgasm getting tossed into a battle royal with vampire horror, werewolf movies, occult madness and survival flicks. There is a lot going on, but if the movie knows how to control the chaos, that can be the fun of it. Horror is allowed to be loud. Metal definitely is. Putting the two together should not feel polite.

DEVOUR has already been collecting festival attention, including Best Feature, Best Director and Best Vampire Feature at the Freakshow Horror Film Festival. It has also screened at the Atlanta Horror Film Festival and Days of the Dead, with some extra shine coming from Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast. That is a pretty fitting endorsement for a movie built around monsters, metal and mayhem.

The film was written by Desiree Hansen and produced by Ryan Shelor, Desiree Hansen and Scott Hansen. With Dread behind the release, the movie lands with a label that already knows its way around independent horror and audiences who like their genre movies with a little grime still on them.

DEVOUR arrives in select theaters and on digital platforms starting October 13. If you want a horror movie that looks like it came out swinging instead of playing it safe, this one might be worth turning up loud.