‘Heavy Trip’ review — Ridiculous and lively heavy metal comedy

Heavy Trip is a joyous and affectionate love letter to the outcast that is almost impossible to resist.

Heavy Trip—also known as A Band Called Impaled Rektum—is billed as a heavy metal comedy. And it completely is. Told with the same off-beat humor as Taika Waititi’s best—Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Thor: Ragnarok—Heavy Trip follows wannabe Finnish heavy metal band Impaled Rektum as they finally, after 12 years of practicing in the basement of a reindeer slaughterhouse (so metal) could be performing their first gig. The catch is that the gig is all the way at a heavy metal festival in Norway—and may or may not exist.

Lead singer Turo (Johannes Holopainen) tries his best along with his bandmates to realize their dream to be a “symphonic, post-apocalyptic, reindeer-grinding, Christ-abusing, extreme war pagan, Fennoscandic metal” band, as bassist Pasi (standout Max Ovaska) often puts it. The movie is a parody of metal culture through and through, but directors Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren—the first feature for both—aren’t laughing at the metalheads, they’re laughing with them and admiring them.

Not only that, the members of Impaled Rektum are the true heroes of the story. Drummer Jynkky (Antti Heikkinen)—the heart of the group—is so optimistic in their pursuit of success that it’s hard not to root for them through all their antics. Of course, not everyone wants to see the band succeed. The citizens of the band’s rural town aren’t keen on the group’s fabulous long hair, leather jackets, and propensity towards music that sounds like a reindeer carcass stabbed with a knife run through a meat processor—and that’s exactly how guitarist Lotvonen (Samuli Jaskio) accidentally discovers the band’s sound. 

Eventually, after an unfortunate incident involving the promoter for a huge metal festival in Norway and a vat of reindeer blood—yeah, this movie is metal—the band starts to find some confidence. Especially the shy Turo who finally musters up the courage to ask out his crush Miia (Minka Kuustonen) despite her police captain father’s protests. Naturally, he’s the band’s number one enemy.

Heavy Trip isn’t something we haven’t seen before. We follow a group of outcast dorks on a mission to become something more. It’s a story we’ve seen time and time again. That’s what the movie is for much of its first third. For its last third, it turns into a road trip movie (and chase) with one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen this year involving the Norwegian border patrol and a bachelor party with a questionable theme. The second third has some structural issues that prevent it from reaching the height of its beginning and end, but Heavy Trip is a joyous and affectionate love letter to the outcast that is almost impossible to resist.

It’s a blast watching Impaled Rektum find themselves through increasingly ridiculous—and increasingly metal—hijinks like exhuming a body, helping a mental patient escape, and even commandeering a group of Vikings. The quirky slapstick humor works perfectly with the group’s metal aesthetics and the entire cast is completely tuned into the movie’s off-beat wavelength. Not everyone will be able to find the rhythm that Heavy Trip is drumming, but once you do it’s futile not to drum along.

Heavy Trip is available to rent or buy on Amazon!