SLAYER has released the video for “Repentless,” the title track of their new album, which was released today, September 11.
The clip was filmed on August 26 at the Sybil Brand Institute, the women’s prison in East Los Angeles. While SLAYER performed the track under that punishing sun over an eight-hour period, the “prisoners” had to stage a riot for somewhere north of twelve takes before director BJ McDonnell finally called it a wrap. But that was all pretty much in keeping with McDonnell’s brutal vision for the clip, a vision that many in the veteran cast and crew referred to as “more like something for a feature film than a rock band’s music video.”
This is McDonnell’s first stint directing a music video. He directed the 2013 horror film “Hatchet III”, and his rich resume as a motion picture cameraman includes “Avengers: Age Of Ultron”, “Ant-Man” and “The Interview”. For SLAYER’s “Repentless”, he and the video’s producer Felissa Rose pulled together a gang of actors and crew who have been part of some of the most iconic horror films ever made: Derek Mears (“Predators”, “Friday The 13th”), Tyler Mane (“Halloween”), Jason Trost (“Hatchet III”), Danny Trejo (“Machete”, “From Dusk Till Dawn”), Tony Moran (“Halloween”‘s Michael Myers, “American Poltergeist”), Sean Whalen (“Men In Black”, “Halloween II”), and Vernon Wells (“Mad Max 2”, “Commando”, “Weird Science”) all are featured inmates in the video. And if that wasn’t enough, McDonnell and Rose brought in stunt coordinator Nils Allen Stewart who is known for his work on films like “Planet of The Apes”, “Anger Management” and “Daredevil”.