It might be easy to assume that a Norwegian Black Metal band could be capable of heinous acts including gruesome murders and church burnings, but it wasn't what Mayhem started out as. Jonas Åkerlund's Lords of Chaos documents the birth, rise, and fall of the band, all based on a true story (which always makes it so much better).

As we wrote in our poster debut, Lords of Chaos -- written by Dennis Magnusson and Jonas Åkerlund and based on the book of the same name -- chronicles the birth of the notorious Norwegian band Mayhem, who wore corpse paint, burned down churches, and were involved in brutal murders. Rory Culkin stars as the group’s leader, Euronymous, who meets his match in Varg (Emory Cohen), a disturbed young man with a taste for extreme violence. In addition to Culkin and Cohen, the film stars Jack Kilmer, Valter Skarsgård, Anthony De La Torre, Wilson Gonzalez, Sam Coleman, Jonathan Barnwell and Sky Ferreira.

Check out the first Lords of Chaos trailer below. The film is be released by Gunpowder and Sky, and is co-produced by VICE Studios, 20th Century Fox, Scott Free Productions and Insurgent Media. Lords of Chaos opens in theaters February 8th and will be available On Demand February 22nd.

The official synopsis for Lords of Chaos:

A teenager's quest to launch Norwegian Black Metal in Oslo in the 1980s results in a very violent outcome. Lords of Chaos tells the true story of True Norwegian Black Metal and its most notorious practitioners - a group of young men with a flair for publicity, church-burning and murder: MAYHEM.