Symphonic, Post-Apocalyptic, Christ-Abusing, Reindeer-Grinding, Fennoscandic Metal

Heavy Trip (2018) is part of our heavy metal horror comedy series (after Suck) but it is very different - from almost everything.

It is set in Finland, Lappland actually. Four young men are in a metal band, practicing in the basement of a reindeer slaughterhouse. They are

• Jynkky the chubby fearless drummer. He dies in this scene, but they revive him by clearing the food out of his windpipe.
• Lotvonen the speed guitarist. His family owns the slaughterhouse.
• Pasi the goth bassist. His pasty white face is always expressionless behind his long straight black hair. He also remembers every metal riff he's ever heard.
• Turo the lead singer. He is more or less the protagonist, a shy gentle soul with a monster growl.

They sound great, have long headbanging hair, but they have never performed (in the twelve years they've been together) because they don't have any original material. Anything new they come up with, Pasi can tell hem where it comes from.

We get a little taste of their day to day life. Pasi is a librarian. When a little girl asks for a Justin Beiber CD, he gives her Uruguayan speed metal. Turo is a hospital orderly, who has to clean up for an old man who has soiled himself. The old man says, "It's better to shit yourself than be constipated," and believe it or not, that is part of the message of this movie. Toru also has a crush on the cute girl at the flowershop, but he’s too shy to say anything, even though she is being aggressively courted by another musician, a locally successful lounge singer.

Lotvonen is working in the slaughterhouse when he lets a carcass fall into the bone crusher, and finds the sound they were looking for. They record a demo for their new original song and are very happy. When a city slicker comes to the slaughterhouse looking for blood and they accidentally drench him in it, they realize he is a promoter for the big Norwegian Metal fest and give him the demo. They feel they are on their way.

But they are fooling themselves, and when Toru gets the call that they do NOT have a slot at the festival, he is fooling them. But word has spread that they are going to Norway, and they are getting love in the community for the first time.

This mostly seems like a sort of a sweet comedy about a small community - I kept wondering when they would make a pact with Satan and the killing would start. About 40 minutes in, a demon-like character shows up, but it turns out to be Pasi in makeup and a costume - he wants to be called Xytrax now. “I’m on a mission from Satan.”

So the movie doesn’t get supernatural, but there is death. After that, the movie gets a little surreal and silly, not so much Finnish slice-of-life. So if you find the first part a little boring, you might enjoy the last part.

We liked both. The boys in the band were basically very sweet. When Toru is working in the hospital, we see the supervisor, a middle-aged woman, looking at him in a certain way - it seems to combine aggravated annoyance mixed with affection and even at little pride. Maybe she is thinking he’s a nice boy, who should stop fooling around and get serious, but at least he’s his own man.

Also, the metal music is great, if you like that kind of thing. And if you don’t, maybe you’ll learn.