This review contains minor spoilers for Heavy Trip.
Heavier Trip starts off immediately following the events of Heavy Trip, with the fictional band Impaled Rektum locked up in a Norwegian prison. The four members of the band—Turo, Lotvonen, Xytraxm and Oula—are approached to perform at German open-air metal festival Wacken, which they decline because Xytraxm feels that Wacken is an “over-commercialized” festival for posers and mainstream metal fans.
Of course, the band soon finds out that guitarist Lotvonen’s parents will lose their slaughterhouse unless they can come with 30,000 euros, which leads the members of Impaled Rektum to break out of prison, leaving behind its highly-rated seafood buffet, find noted metal producer Maxwell Efraim Fisto and hope he’ll still let them play Wacken.
Throughout its runtime, Heavier Trip takes a sort of wink-wink-nudge-nudge approach to things. This is no Until the Light Takes Us, or even Lords of Chaos. Heavier Trip embraces heavy metal tropes and the silliness that comes with them. Lemmy’s hat makes an appearance, Impaled Rektum are chased by a security guard named Dokken, Dave Mustaine finds himself the butt of a joke and Babymetal are recurring (and essential) characters throughout the movie.
Like its predecessor, Heavier Trip is at its best when it’s just having fun in the moments between story beats. The driving story behind the film—the band’s desire to play gigs because they love it and because they want to help their family and Fisto’s pressure for Impaled Rektum to sell their souls for financial gain—is familiar and doesn’t bring a ton of new ideas to the table, despite the writers’ competency. That said, it’s easy to root for Impaled Rektum to make their dreams happen and not end up back in prison with nothing to show for it.
There’s a lot to love about this Finnish extreme metal sequel, which will almost undoubtedly earn itself a cult following. If you can laugh about the genre, you should make plans to catch Heavier Trip in theaters or digitally on November 29.
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