SXSWORLD

4 2 SXS W O R L D | M A R C H 1 5 , 2 0 1 8 | SXSW.COM Heavy Trip Delivers Head- banging Laughs By Andy Smith According to a number of sources, Finland has the most metal bands per capita in the world, with erstwhile head- bangers found across the Nordic country, in major cities and rural villages. It is a group of these small town metal- heads and their dreams of glory that propel Heavy Trip (Hevi Reissu), a madcap comedy adventure that celebrates its World Premiere at SXSW 2018. Co-directed by Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio, the movie follows Turo, lead singer of Impaled Rektum, a self-de- scribed "symphonic post-apocalyptic reindeer-grinding christ-abusing extreme war pagan Fennoscandic metal" band that has spent 12 years rehearsing in the guitarist's parents' reindeer slaughterhouse without actually writing a song or playing an actual gig. Meanwhile, Turo must com- pete with the smarmy local lounge singer for the affections of Miia, who works in the town flower shop, while dodging taunts and threats from other villagers, including Miia's intimidating policeman father. When fate interrupts with a visit from the promoter of one of Norway's biggest metal festivals, the stage is set for an epic journey. Bands who have gone to great lengths to travel to SXSW should get knowing laughs watching Impaled Rektum's wild, against-all-odds misadventures. For Vidgren and Laatio, who have directed several heavy music videos and hail from Oulu, considered the epicentre of Finnish metal, the subject matter is close to their hearts. "Probably every town in Finland has a couple of metalheads walking the streets being given a lot of shit for their long hair," says Vidgren. "But they choose to be themselves, and I think that's something to be proud of." "There's a weird contrast in the musicians too," he con- tinues. "Super angry music, played by really nice friendly guys. And playing some really niche-metal that most people would just consider loud noise is probably not going to make you rich or famous, so you know the motivation for these dudes is really the music." That contrast extends to Vidgren and Laatio's conceiving Heavy Trip as a comedy. "We made this film as a kind of antithesis to Finnish films which tend to be pretty dark," Vidgren explains. "We wanted to make a feel-good film ... the kind where you really want the main characters to succeed, and to be genuinely funny." Heavy Trip's 10 Essential Heavy Metal Albums as compiled by co-director Juuso Laatio and co-screenwriter Aleksi Puranen: MEGADETH Rust in Peace: For some reason humanity is still creating new art even though it was already perfected in 1990. Paradise Lost Draconian Times: Pioneers of gothic metal. Depression never sounded better. Samael Ceremony of Opposites: Swiss black metal classic from the early 90's. Sweet sweet blasphemy. Year of the Goat The Unspeakable: Amazing harmonies from this occult metal band from Sweden, Finland's hated neighbor. Type O Negative Bloody Kisses: Slow, deep and hard, with a great sense of humor. RIP Peter Steele Amorphis Tales From the Thousand Lakes: You can really feel the cold breeze of the sunless Finnish winter with this one. Helloween Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part 2: The latter and better half of the two albums that formed the "melodic power metal" genre. Sentenced The Cold White Light: Melodic, dark and rocking metal that took their dark, suicidal sense of humor to the max. Opeth Blackwater Park: Face- melting growls and blast beats mixed with beautiful vocals and acoustic guitars. You can totally have sex to this album. Summoning Stronghold: The dark side of Tolkien's fantasy world that mixes ambient and black metal in a perfect way. Heavy Trip. Photo by Harri Räty Heavy Trip will screen tomorrow (Friday, March 16) at 4:30pm at the Alamo Ritz (320 E 6th St). Full details can be found at schedule.sxsw.com or the SXSW GO app.

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