HEAVIER TRIP Review: Impaled Rektum's Sophomore Odyssey Is Worth The Trip

Impaled Rektum, the world’s foremost symphonic postapocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme war pagan Fennoscandian metal band is back with a headbang in Heavier Trip, Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren’s follow up to their 2018 underdog cult classic Heavy Trip. This time the boys have gained a fair bit of notoriety from their earlier shenanigans and are looking to expand their audience, but they’ll have to overcome a few critical obstacles before they can taste the success they desire.

We rejoin Impaled Rektum’s metal purist vocalist Turo (Johannes Holopainen), pessimist anti-authoritarian bassist Xytrax (Max Ovaska), fun-loving guitarist Lotvonen (Samuli Jaskio), and livewire drummer Oula (Chike Ohanwe) right where we left off with them in the first film, in jail. Though they are dutifully serving time for the transgressions of the first film, they haven’t given up on their dreams and attempt to bring their brutal metal to the inmates at their Norwegian prison home.

When cunning promoter Fisto (Anatole Taubman) offers them a lucrative opportunity to play one of Europe’s biggest heavy music festivals, Wacken Open Air, they initially turn him down with Xytrax decrying the event as too mainstream. However, when Lotvonen learns that his family slaughterhouse will be forfeited to the bank unless they can pay a €30,000 settlement, the gig becomes irresistible, now all they have to do is escape prison, secure the required equipment, and survive long enough on the lam to claim their €50,000 payday and maybe make some new fans along the way.

Where Heavy Trip was largely a tale of a bunch of nobodies toiling and struggling to hopefully become somebodies, the Impaled Rektum of Heavier Trip can’t rely on that anonymity anymore. This time, they are a well-known entity, though not exactly a well-respected or successful one. Now, the goal is to avoid their own infamy long enough to successfully get paid and save the livelihood of a family to whom they all owe a huge debt.

Laatio and Vidgren’s direction remains rock solid in its devotion to the core demographic of heavy metal lifers, who, though their obsessions may seem morbid on a good day, are often the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. The central quartet’s disparate motivations for pursuing a life of heavy metal mania help to ingratiate them to an audience that may not have any interest in the music itself, but still want to see a bunch of losers come out on top.

The first film’s scrappy origins lent it a significant amount of credibility among the indie comedy fans of the world, but its success means that the filmmakers can expand their vision and they’ve done so wisely. Heavier Trip features bigger set pieces, heavier music, and even a few choice cameos, including an extended appearance by Japanese metal phenoms, Babymetal. That group’s candy coated take heavy music may seem ill-fitted to the brutality of Impaled Rektum’s stated genre, but even the sourpussed Xytrax can’t help tapping his toes to their tasty riffs, and it’s a delight to see the band experience the world outside of their cramped rehearsal space and super contained vision.

Heavier Trip doesn’t quite reach the highs of its predecessor, but with the group now being a known quantity with a modicum of recognition, it’s impossible to recreate that magic. However, as a follow-up with a larger scope and ambition, it’s definitely a crowd-pleaser that will appeal to fans of the original film. Heavy metal fans looking to treat themselves will find a lot to love in Heavier Trip, a sympathetic postapocalyptic pessimism-grinding frown-abusing extreme smile creating Fennoscandian metal movie for the ages.