I have certainly reviewed films and been the first to do so for Rotten Tomatoes, asking them to create a page for the film. However,in every instance, there’s always been an IMDb page to link to. This is the first time I’ve watched a film with apparently no IMDb page, or one the algorithm can find. So weird.

Heavy Healing, which like every other doc at Reel Abilities, landed with audio description. It is largely about how music you wouldn’t naturally find soothing, actually is for so many people. This manages to get a lot of musicians involved from various bands, as well as patients who were helped by the music therapy of listening to metal, punk, rock, and other more loud styles of music. It helped them cope in a way that Mozart, or Enya, never could. I also learned a lot more about the band Bowling For Soup than I had intended to in my lifetime, but they also apparently started way earlier than I remembered. I think I first noticed them right at the beginning of the new millennium, like 2001 or 2002 on the Vans warped Tour lineup. They had been doing their thing for quite a while before that.Crazy.

I was interested in this from a music therapy perspective, but also because the film had audio description, and had never been to another film festival. Previously, it was playing to the choir, showing up to fans of rock, and hitting audiences like test screenings. One of the better documentaries I saw, and one that reminded me a lot of Metallica Saved my Life, which I caught at Tribeca last year. Both explored how these non-traditional bands actually help people far more than anyone would likely give them credit for.

Now, here’s the plot twist. While IMDb looks at me like I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs when I search for this film, Rotten Tomatoes does actually have the entry. That means, I do get to represent this film on the TomatoMeter. No idea what’s going on at the Internet Movie Database, but one more review to push this closer to a score.

This is exactly what it claims to be. It is a well made documentary about the therapeutic powers of heavier genres of music, and how they are utilized to help people feel better across various diagnosis and conditions. The film succeeds by having not just patients involved, but also musicians, some of whom have faced similar situations as their non-musician fans.

It feels like the plot of a movie, or a musical, the idea that music can heal your maladies, but Heavy Healing makes more than a solid case that it is a little more than the musings of a mad world.

Fresh: 8.4/10