Deathgasm II: Goremageddon exceeds my decade-long anticipation while still surprising me with something original and unexpected…
First watched sight unseen over ten years ago on the perfect beer buzz, I had one of the best times ever with Deathgasm 1. It was so much fun, I’ve been afraid to revisit the film for fear it wouldn’t live up to that experience. Over the course of all that time, I’ve failed to convince a single one of my horror-loving friends to watch what is a death metal tribute to Peter Jackson’s early works, Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead trilogy, and the best late-night scuzz rock music videos that hardly ever got any MTV airtime.
I finally rewatched it as part of my Halloween pre-game Heptalogy marathon in the hillbilly camper mini-theater, and I’m happy to report that it stands the test of time. Movies back in 2016 still looked like movies. This thing rocks and is a pitch-black, gore-drenched classic that proudly stands next to Braindead (aka Dead Alive) and Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn.
Strong words, I know. Now, a decade in the making, it’s time to finally watch Deathgasm 2. I’ve waited a long time for this sequel. A lot has happened to me. Let’s see what this sucker has crawling around up inside its denim vest.
“Dude, Go have a wank so we can go back to playing cool shit.”
Deathgasm 2 somehow escapes the dreaded sophomore slump of most anticipated metal albums, pulling off the small miracle of not chocking on its own bile, instead deciding to slice off a dozen ding-dongs in a glory hole montage that’s definitely one for the dismembered gore Bible.
This is the long-awaited resurrection of old-school horror sequels that somehow manages to ascend the scorched plains of shiz shanks and sewage holes. Not yearning to be better than what came before it, but simply hoping to be a watchable option in enjoying any continuing popular franchise.
It manages to escape that dreaded, hollow feeling that plagues most legacy chasms of this caliber.
I feared Deathgasm 2 would rattle on like a tube camera rehash, but it avoids repeating what we already know, going the Bogus Journey route to offer a completely different, yet samey sort of story for the second go-around with Brodie and his gang of metal doofuses.
It’s literally Cannibal Corpse the movie for its first hour, finding one of the more clever ways to bring back dead characters. Then it goes full vegan zombie just for earned laughs.
I do have one caveat. I give a giant, ringed-middle finger to this movie for eating Brodie’s dog. If it was any less stellar, that would be unforgivable as a throwaway joke. The chewed pooch barely gets a decency pass, until the poor thing returns as a trash-can-dwelling ghoul. Fine. Do it. I liked seeing the zombie hound. And he does get a special tribute card during end credits.
Everything else soars high, crescendoing with a literal battle of the bands as it tries to cherry-top what happened in the original without regurgitating the same poppy chorus over and over again.
There’s a bunch of jokes strewn throughout these splattering blood and guts that seem to only be in place for the cast and crew on premiere night, which reads as true punk rock more than grifty slumming. So I’d give that bit of weirdness a wavering pass, too. You do you, boo.
I truly feared the worst going into this, loving the original as much as I do. While a lot of sequels are truly awful on their own merits, I’m just as equally bad at watching any given follow-up that I even remotely liked just a tiny bit. It’s a deficiency in my brain as a pure movie junky. I can never let any sequel just happen in my eyes and in my brain because of my over-imaginative preconceived notions and inability to watch any given redo on its own terms.
That’s on me.
When it came to Deathgasm 2, it somehow just washed over me like I had no expectations at all, which is odd, ’cause I always Virgo out. Maybe it was that decade-long gap between films?
The metal music helps fill the void felt in most sequels that are throat-squeezed and gasping for air. I dug this soundtrack quite a bit.
I haven’t had this much fun with a Part 2 in a long, long time. I’m glad the director took his time in decreasing the plot hiccups, ironing out the crotch marks to make something that truly stands on its own.
The Gwar stuff at the end was weird though, yo!
DEATH FALSE METAL!
(Where was my Marc Price cameo? For R34L? Maybe he was too busy trying to score a cameo in that new Killer Tomatoes movie.)
