Horror-metal psychos Ice Nine Kills ended the U.K. leg of their Wurst Vacation tour in Nottingham’s Rock City after sold-out shows across the nation and a staggering set at genre-haven Download Festival.

Opening the show a mere 15 minutes after doors–which is always a risky move–were Thai septet Defying Decay. The slowly filtering-in crowd didn’t deter the group, though, as they smashed through their set of high-octane and heavy AF alt-metal while the venue started to fill.

Next up were Boston hard-rockers Lansdowne. More mellow and groovy than the band before them, if Defying Decay were here to get your blood pumping, Lansdowne were here to get your body moving. Far from newcomers to the scene, Lansdowne have been building their name the old-fashioned way for over 15 years, playing to audiences all over the world, and vocalist Jon Ricci definitely shows this experience in his stage presence.

Then came SKYND. Not for the faint-hearted, the band’s true-crime-inspired industrial/electro-metal is brought to life (or should that be death?) by frontwoman Skynd, whose doll-like appearance and insane vocal range make for quite the unnerving experience, which is exactly what you want from a band opening for Ice Nine Kills. Songs about everything from the Columbine Massacre to teen killer Tyler Hadley, who murdered his parents before throwing a party, come complete with infectious beats from multi-instrumentalist Father, and alluring moves from Skynd.

And alas, we arrive at tonight’s main event. Introduced as a band who “know a thing or two about rot and roll,” the crowd are invited to lend their “fears” and warned that leaving early would be a “grave mistake,” in an elaborate introduction that climaxes in the band making their entrance to the stage. Donned in animal masks, the sextet blasted the audience with Pet Sematary-inspired “Funeral Derangements,” as front man Spencer Charnas waved a shovel mid-air between screams.

Each song is accompanied by at least a new costume, most featuring stage actors getting their comeuppance, in a show that’s as close to a horrorcore musical as you’d want to get. Titling the tour and inspired by Eli Roth’s torture-porn classic Hostel, “Wurst Vacation” sees apron-bound, axe-wielding butchers take to the stage before Charnas dons an apron himself and proceeds to hack off the arms of an unsuspecting tourist. “Hip To Be Scared” lives up to its American Psycho inspiration, as the whole band dons sunglasses, and poor, unsuspecting Paul is once again decapitated by our Patrick Bateman.

Georgie, Marion Crane, Regan, and Leatherface are amongst the cameos throughout the rest of the set, and Charnas is transformed into the, even more, twisted INK versions of the likes of Pennywise, Freddy Krueger, Chucky, and Candyman. All set to the killer soundtrack of the band’s stand-out bangers from their last three albums, Every Trick in the Book, The Silver Scream, and The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood.

Closing their main set with “Stabbing In The Dark,” our Michael Myers brutally slaughters Laurie Strode–something the real one could never do in the movies–as Ice Nine Kills slay the Halloween-themed track and leave the crowd begging for their lives more.

Not many bands can pull off an encore of just one song, but when that song is the anthemic “Welcome To Horrorwood,” the opener to the band’s latest album and their latest single, it feels like the theme song for every single Psycho in the room, an initiation into the unique murderous world of Ice Nine Kills. As Charnas leaps into the crowd, the band’s very own masked killer, Silence, appears on stage, it might be the end of tonight’s show, but it’s just the beginning of a horror franchise we’re all a part of now. Are you misunderstood? Are you more bad than good? Welcome to motherfucking Horrorwood.

Ice Nine Kills

SKYND

Lansdowne

Defying Decay