'Heavier Trip' Directors Discuss The Pressure Of Creating Sequel To Metal Cult Classic 'Heavy Trip'

By David E. Gehlke

Perhaps the best movie reflecting the true spirit of underground metal in recent years is "Heavy Trip", the 2018 creation of first-time Finnish filmmakers Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio. The story is simple and endearing: A small-town metal band featuring four Finnish youngsters has ambitions of greater things but can't agree on a name, let alone any song ideas. When the sounds of a stuck reindeer carcass stuck in a meat grinder inspires their first original song creation, IMPALED REKTUM is born, along with the band's hilarious quest to play a gig in neighboring Norway. "Heavy Trip" took some time to resonate with audiences, even in metal-friendly Finland. Once it did, it became an undisputed cult classic, with audiences across the globe dressing up as the film's characters and reciting its most memorable lines.

Six years later, the sequel, "Heavier Trip", has arrived. Vidgren and Laatio have found a new adventure for the four members of IMPALED REKTUM while maintaining many of the threads from the original that fans grew to love. (Note: Both films are nearly entirely in Finnish and feature soundtrack contributions from native metal bands.) On the eve of its North American release, Vidgren and Laatio pulled up with BLABBERMOUTH.NET for a chat.

Blabbermouth: "Heavy Trip" became an unexpected cult classic. In doing "Heavier Trip", did you feel the pressure of doing the sequel now that there will be expectations?

Juuso: "I think there was pressure, especially when the first one was so liked. Yeah, there definitely is pressure. When you're a fan of something…fans are so hard to please. If you do the same thing, they're not going to be happy. If you do something very different, they're not going to be happy either. We didn't want to make the same film twice. It's exciting to see how the fans will receive it."

Jukka: "Was it easier or harder? It's always hard writing a film. [Laughs] This time, we already had the characters, so that way it was easier. The hard part was making something we didn't see in the first film. As Juuso said, it can't be too different."

Blabbermouth: Were you two more efficient when shooting, given inflation and other considerations?

Juuso: "I think a lot of stuff was left on the editing room floor. I guess we learned from the first film about stuff that's probably going to get used and we learned how to make it so that it's harder to lose complete scenes. I think we learned to be more efficient in the script process and shooting process. We're smarter about it than in the first film."

Jukka: "You have limited resources and time. Time to shoot. It's always funny to me to hear these stories about [Stanley] Kubrick shooting a scene for two months. [Laughs] For us, it's 'You have two hours.' That's a good scene for us! Sometimes we have half an hour. We really don't have the time or leisure to shoot anything extra. You have to know what shots you need and how to get them."

Juuso: "It's always if you spend one minute longer on a scene, then it's a minute taken off the next. I remember we had to shoot the scene where the band played their music in prison for the first time. We had 50 minutes to shoot the whole scene or something like that. It was like, 'Play the song on repeat five times!' To get the material we needed, I don't know if it translates to English, but it was a fire under our asses."

Blabbermouth: Did you start on "Heavier Trip" right after the first movie came out? Was the sequel pre-ordained?

Jukka: "No, well, in a way, it was more like a joke that the last dialogue in the first film is that 'You'll probably hear from REKTUM again.' It was more like a joke for us. Like you said, we had no expectations that this would be a cult film that traveled outside of Finland. If that happened, then you have to start wondering. Of course, you always want to make a film. It's a question of whether there are enough people who want to make the film in a way that they will fund it, and somebody can say there's a possibility this film will get its money back and then some. Then you might want to do that film. The money is not the reason to do it, but the chance to do it."

Blabbermouth: The main characters are still grounded in some of the themes you explored in the first film, but they're clearly different people as the movie progresses. How did you want to develop them?

Jukka: "I guess the first thing is that we wanted to take them somewhere. We wanted to flesh out the characters more. In the first film, we concentrated on the lead, Turo. We wanted to give these guys more time. We had versions of the script where they had even more stuff, but the problem with having four characters is that you can get easily cramped and have a lot of scenes and try to take everybody with you. I think the main thing was that we wanted to get these characters some growth and have their own arcs, but that was difficult in terms of how much time you can give each person. Like, how many pages can somebody have? Then, they somehow have to connect to the main plot of the film so you can have something that happens that feels like it doesn't have to do with anything. I guess it was interesting to find these ways. We had a lot of ideas about the characters from the first film, which didn't end up in the first film. We kept thinking of stuff like Lotvonen's guitar solo that was set in the first film, but there was a line in the first movie, 'There are no solos.' We had the idea in our heads that [bassist] Xytrax doesn't like solos, so it was about how to make it relevant. I can't remember which phase of the writing when the BABYMETAL idea came in, but that felt natural. Sometimes, the ideas are very simple. For example, here's a guy like Xytrax who can't make a compromise; how can we make him compromise? How can we put him in a situation where he has to admit something he has a hard time admitting? The BABYMETAL thing worked really well on this idea that he would like something that he cannot admit liking. Then we wrote in BABYMETAL, which was stupid at the time because it was like writing, 'Let's have METALLICA come here!'"

Blabbermouth: You had a near-Dave Mustaine [MEGADETH] cameo with a guy who looked just like him. You didn't really take the guest star bait outside of BABYMETAL.

Juuso: "We tried!"

Jukka: "We totally wanted to have Dave Mustaine on the set."

Juuso: [Jokingly] "He totally wanted to come to the movie, but we said no, let's put it that way."

Blabbermouth: A good chunk of the film toward the end takes place at Wacken. Were there any logistical issues shooting at a festival of this size?

Juuso: "No. [Laughs] We went there a year earlier to location scout and everything seemed to go very smoothly. I think what happened during the year before our shoot was that Wacken was sold. I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard a rumor that Wacken was bought for somebody as a birthday present. Anyway, management changed. The people that we were in contact with were gone, so we sort of had to find new people to get in contact with. It was a difficult process and lots of question marks, even during our shoot. We got there, and the local Wacken people were very nice, but the whole festival was in chaos and crisis mode. They didn't have time or resources. It was very complicated and we were pretty much on our own, trying to make our movie in chaos. The weather was horrible. We couldn't use cars to drive our gear around. We had to carry everything in the mud."

Blabbermouth: Did you have the mud boots?

Jukka: "First, I had these short rubber boots that were up to my ankle. They didn't work at all. [Laughs] Then I got the ones that were up to my knees. They were almost enough. I had this raincoat. I just put it in the washer this week. It still had some of the muck and mud on it."

Juuso: "I'm keeping the mud on my Wacken raincoat for memories."

Blabbermouth: Making metal movies is unglamorous. You may be at the biggest metal festival of all, yet you're trudging through the mud with your gear, trying to get these shots with no help.

Jukka: "It was the closest I've been to a military experience. [Laughs] It was really like that. At first, when you step on a little puddle of mud, it's like, 'My boots are messed up.' After five days, you don't even care. It was great. We had good memories."

Juuso: "In the beginning, the mud was pretty solid. Then it got really sticky. Your boots got stuck to it. In the end, it was almost like liquid. You just heard 'Plop, plop, plop.' It was a good experience."

Blabbermouth: Without going too far into the new movie, what are some of the best things you've seen from people in reaction to the first?

Juuso: "In Japan, it's become a cult film where people dress up in characters from the film. They go to special screenings. Somebody dressed up as the speed camera. [Laughs]"

Jukka: "I've got such a huge imposter syndrome. Whenever I hear something good about the first film, I always presume they've seen the wrong film. I'm still getting adjusted to somebody seeing and liking the film and maybe seeing it more than once. Of course, it's wonderful. We have awesome fans around the world and it's crazy."

Juuso: "People have sent mail saying how much the film means to them and how much it has given them solace and how they like to watch it in difficult times. Or when they're feeling bad, they watch it and feel better. It's an unbelievable thing to hear. It's something you dream of hearing. Not that you want people to have bad times, but it gives them something to make their day a little bit better."

Blabbermouth: Furthermore, you've kept a lot of the Finnish identity. There's a little bit more English this time out.

Juuso: "It would be an easier sell if it would be completely in English, at least outside of Finland. Early on, we decided that we were not going to go there. We're not going to make the guys speak English to each other. Yeah, it's hard to say. Coming from Finland, we have a hard time seeing what other people see as Finnish. I guess the Finnish way of saying things is saying the least amount of things. That comes through. That's very Finnish. The characters have some deep-rooted Finnish in them. We might have a very difficult time seeing what something people outside of us are like. 'That's so Finnish.' Or, 'That's very exotic.'"

Blabbermouth: Has the first film finally caught on in Finland?

Jukka: "I think so. There's a weird culture of avoiding being proud of local things in Finland. Things have to be accepted and justified outside of Finland before we can say something we did is good. When the first film came out, it was a pretty lukewarm reception. Then, when people sort of realized that it's actually liked outside of Finland and accepted, then it's a good film. I think the metal people enjoyed the film and everybody else caught on. Now, I think the comments are 95 percent positive, which I think is crazy for the first film. I think the first film has become sort of a Finnish export item that people can be proud of."

Juuso: "It took some time when it came out. It came out on TV and streaming services in Finland and then a lot of people caught the film, and I think this seems to be the case with the second film as well. It was not hugely crowded in the theaters, but I think people will find out about it later on and when it comes out, they will watch it. Hopefully, that will happen in the second film as well. Finland is a metal country but to a degree."

Jukka: "I think maybe it's a world phenomenon, but metal is getting plowed by pop music and all that stuff."

Blabbermouth: One of the main threads of both films is that the guys in IMPALED REKTUM are nice, hard-working people with dreams. Do you think your portrayal of them may change some minds about metalheads?

Jukka: "We do get the idea that people who don't know these guys, their appearance and metal are not the easiest to listen to. It was important to show that these guys are sincere and are warm guys who dream. They're very committed to their music. They genuinely love the music. I think pop music, rap music, and hip-hop are situations where you might end up doing that because they are popular. There is money in it. There's no money in metal. [Laughs] You try to find someone who does it out of the goodness of their heart, doing metal music. I love that idea."

Blabbermouth: To wrap, is there a possibility for a third movie?

Jukka: "We'll see how this goes. I think it's too early to say."

Juuso: "It's not like we decide, 'Hey, we're going to make a film!' We need millions of viewers to make that film. A lot of people are involved in making it, but let's see. Maybe one day…"