Raise your Horns for Impaled Rektum!



Heavy Trip (Hevi Reissu), written and directed by Jusso Laaito and others, is a delightful little romp that will please the grungiest metalhead and most laid back comedy spectator alike. This wickedly hilarious little road-movie is the Spinal Tap of a new generation, destined to deliver headbanging hilarity the world over.
Heavy Trip stars Finnish actor Johannes Holopainen as the frontman Turo of a small-town, and I quote “symphonic-post-apocalyptic-reindeer-grinding-christ-abusing-extreme-war-pagan-fennoscandian” Finnish metal band ( a clever little play on the universe of subgernes contained within the heavy metal genre). Turo and his friends, a stoic yet vain guitarist who goes by the stage name Xytrax ( Max Ovaska), an exuberant drummer named Jynkky ( Antti Heikkinen), and a laid-back bassist named Chirstensen ( Torstein Bjorklund) are a garage-band who find a sound through a happenstance at a meat-packing plant and their name (Impaled Rektum) through their interactions with their less-than-friendly neighbors.
When it seems that Impaled Rektum is destined to stay in the basement, luck has it that a man running a metal festival in neighboring Norway comes Christensen’s family’s meat-packing plant in search of reindeer meat. Jynnky sees this as an opportunity and rushes to give the man a recording of theirs after a faux pas involving an Evil Dead amount of reindeer blood. Turo, having assumed that this incident won them a spot in the festival, tells his crush Miia, who’s exuberance spreads throughout the town. Unfortunately, Impaled Rektum hadn’t actually had a spot in the festival, but the lack of availability isn’t going to deter them. The race is on for Impaled Rektum to get their music to the world or die in obscurity trying.
Heavy Trip both narratively and visually is chock full of loving homages to the fandom of the musical genre it portrays that even casual metalheads can’t miss. Visually, this film is designed the way an album cover might be. The wonderful wide shots of the rugged Nordic terrain would be at home gracing the CD cases of any black metal band. The dramatic bronzed lighting and Fury Road esque color saturation recalls the grungy aesthic of thrash metal mysic videos. There is even a sequence designed to mimic said music videos with fasted paced camera-work and frenetic editing. Even the score is drenched in its genre. Upbeat moments bleed the hair-metal riffs of the 1980’s and dramatic tension is exacerbated by the gloomy solo commonly found as lead-ins in the doom metal subgenre.  Even if you knew nothing of these stylistic choice’s metallic origins, they still manage to be visually and aurally pleasing. The narrative homages are many. From Pantera and Sodom posters lining Turo’s walls, to Xytrax’s encyclopedic knowledge of signature riffs, Heavy immerses viewers in metal culture in increasingly amusing and artful ways.
Yet being a metalhead is most certain not a requirement for enjoying all the headbanging hilarity Heavy Trip has to offer. The chemistry between the members of Impaled Rektum is charming enough on its own. Their comradery is truly heartwarming, even when tragedy strikes. Their antics, from butting heads with the local jazz musician Jounni, to commandeering a Viking longship on their way to Norway supply enough zany screwball Ferris Bueller esque comedy to satisfy even the choosiest comedy viewers.
Heavy Trip also seems to be designed to poke fun at oft-overused tropes of band-dramas and screwball comedies alike. This is particularly evident in the buildup of the town’s excitement over Impaled Rektum’s supposed gig in Norway. Many comedy films would have simply used this revelation via the ‘liar revealed’ trope, keeping the reveal from both the townsfolk and the audience leading to a large scale excommunication of our protagonists from their society at large. Rather than stick to this time worn trope, the audience is made privy to this information even before the band is, enhancing the comedy of knowing that the town that thinks them heroes is in for a monumental disappointment. Where most band-movies would have the band become bitter rivals of each other at some point, even at their lowest, Impaled Rektum still treat each other like brothers. Even their antics have lasting consequences, as their misadventures draw the ire of Finland’s border patrol.
While Heavy Trip is a love letter to metal fans the world over, being one is not a requirement for enjoying its fresh and unique brand of zany over-the-top comedy and stunning visual panache at home on any album cover. Truly, Heavy Trip is a helluva film worth headbanging to.
10/10
Heavy Trip
·         Directors: Juuso Laaito and Jukka Vidgren
·         Writers: Juuso Laaito, Aleksi Puranen, et al
·         Music: Luari Porra
·         Editor: Kimmo Taavila
·         Producer: Kaarle Aho
·         Turo: Johannes Moilanen
·         Xytrax: Max Ovaska
·          Christensen: Torstein Bjornlund
·         Jynkky: Antti Heikkinen


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