Black Metal Meets Domestic Chaos In Trailer For Finnish Animated Mockumentary ‘Belzebubs’

JP Ahonen’s heavy metal family is making the jump from the page to the screen. A new trailer released today offers a look at Belzebubs, the black-and-white adult animated mockumentary about Sløth, a stay-at-home dad juggling family life and his ambitions as a heavy metal frontman.

Produced by Pyjama Films alongside Movimenti Production and Mago Production, the series is distributed by Banijay Kids & Family, with confirmed broadcasters including Finland’s YLE, Catalonia’s TV3, Iceland’s RUV, and Czechia’s Prima. The first three episodes will also stream on Banijay Kids & Family’s ZeeKay Comedy YouTube channel in November.

Clocking in at 13 episodes of 22 minutes each, Ahonen, who serves as showrunner and head writer, says the longer format offered a chance to explore what happens between the comic’s punchlines.

“The comic strips, compressed to four, eight panels max in length, feel like snapshots of scenes or events in a longer story arc, so it felt thrilling to finally write something that had more room to breathe and evolve,” he told Cartoon Brew ahead of the trailer launch.

Ahonen and director Samppa Kukkonen had already collaborated on Belzebubs music videos, so they already understood the characters and their comic timing. But expanding those characters’ lives required a different storytelling approach.

“Each comic strip is built on an individual joke or a number of gags, but here the story team and I based each episode on drama, and then we added the comedy,” Ahonen said. “I personally want the characters to feel relatable, real, with proper hopes, fears and stakes, and that’s why it was important to me to first craft an emotional arc both in each episode and the whole season.”

“I mean, why would I simply echo the same thing in animation that already works in the comics? Here, I want to dive deeper into the characters and their minds, and build a mosaic of a season, where all the pieces fit together in the end.”

Animation also gives Ahonen greater control over pacing, performance, and the mockumentary’s cuts to couch interviews. Composer Douglas Black Heaton’s score supplies another layer of jokes through lyrics and genre choices.

“Obviously, the animation also gives voices to the characters, and I must say we have a stellar cast!” Ahonen said. “It’s been an absolute pleasure working with all our actors, and I nowadays ‘hear’ the characters when I write and draw the comics, too.”

The first season follows the band as it finds its drummer, lands a record deal, and records its debut album, Pantheon of the Nightside Gods, released in 2019. Familiar songs appear in evolving rehearsal versions, while fragments of the forthcoming second album are scattered throughout.

“The series doesn’t revolve around the songs, however, so the focus is always on the characters, their mundane problems, and most importantly, the premise of the series: juggling work and family is Hell.”