Documentaries featuring Slayer

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
DVD Release: 2006
Directed by: Sam Dunn
Released by: Warner Home Video

"Sam Dunn is a 30-year old anthropologist who wrote his graduate thesis on the plight of Guatemalan refugees. Recenly he has decided to study the plight of a different culture, one he has been a part of since he was a 12-year old: the culture of heavy metal. Sam sets out on a global journey to find out why this music has been consistently stereotyped, dismissed and condemned and yet is loved so passionately by its millions of fans. Along the way, Sam explores metals' obsession with some of life's most provacative subjects - sexuality, religion, violence and death - and discovers some things about the culture that even he can't defend. Shot on location in the UK, Germany, Norway, Canada and the US, this documentary is the first of its kind. It is both a defense of a long-misunderstood art form and a window for the outsider into the spectacle that is heavy metal."

Slayer parts: Tom Araya and Kerry King get interviewed a few times during the movie, also some short live performances are mixed in between.

Global Metal
DVD Release: 2008
Directed by: Sam Dunn
Released by: Warner Home Video

"In Global Metal, directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn set out to discover how the West's most maligned musical genre - heavy metal - has impacted the world's cultures beyond Europe and North America. The film follows metal fan and anthropologist Sam Dunn on a whirlwind journey through Asia, South America and the Middle East as he explores the underbelly of the world's emerging extreme music scenes; from Indonesian death metal to Chinese black metal to Iranian thrash metal. Global Metal reveals a worldwide community of metalheads who aren't just absorbing metal from the West - they're transforming it - creating a new form of cultural expression in societies dominated by conflict, corruption and mass-consumerism."

Slayer parts: Tom Araya and Kerry King get interviewed a few times during the movie and share some memories like when they played in Japan for the first time back in the 80s.

Get Thrashed
DVD Release: 2008
Directed by: Rick Ernst
Released by: Lightyear Video

"The GET THRASHED journey begins in the early 80s, where Metallica and several other bands laid the groundwork for what would become a lasting impression on the face of heavy metal music. These bands helped ignite local scenes in Los Angeles, the Bay area of California and New York City, which helped fuel a worldwide thrash metal movement. By the dawn of the 1990's, thrash bands had gone from playing backyard barbeque parties to headlining arenas and Metallica were on their way to becoming one of the biggest metal acts of all time. But as legions of headbanging, stage diving and moshing metalheads were flocking to see their favorite bands, the tides had begun to change. In the early 1990's, a changing musical landscape sent thrash spiraling back into the underground. Some of the musicians passed away, some returned to their day jobs and some bands broke up. While the music lived on, the scene was forever changed. Get Thrashed traces the rise, fall and impact of thrash metal; from its early years, through its influence on grunge, nu metal and today's heavy metal scene. It is the story of the heaviest, hardest music of the 80s and early 90s as told by the bands who lived it, the fans and bands that grew up on it and by the artists that carry the "thrash metal" flag today. The documentary throws new light on an overlooked, yet incredible music scene and how it went from a simple rumbling in the underground to a loud, obnoxious and constant roar in the (almost) mainstream."

Slayer parts: Tom Araya and Kerry King get interviewed a few times during the movie and talk about when they started out as a band. Mixed in between the movie you can see some old Slayer video bootleg footage.