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Years after surviving the demonic apocalypse of the first film, Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) is down on his luck, broke, and stuck in a small town that feels like purgatory. But when he hears that the NoizeQuest battle of the bands is stopping in his town, he sees it as a chance to redeem himself—and perhaps even win back his ex-girlfriend, Medina (Kimberley Crossman). The only hitch: his drummer is missing an arm, and the rest of the band is, well… dead. Fortunately, Brodie still has pages torn from the Black Hymn; it only takes one riff to bring his buddies back from the grave. But every chord comes with blood, guts, and the apocalyptic chaos that only Deathgasm can unleash.

With Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon, Jason Lei Howden manages to create a work that blends horror and comedy, playing in the tones of the absurd without ever becoming heavy-handed and ridiculous.

Walking the Fine Line

The gamble was far from won in advance for this long-awaited sequel. Replicating the explosive formula of a cult film without falling into lazy copycat territory requires a delicate balance. The director manages to keep his narrative on that famous tightrope where crude humor and gore escalation feed into one another. Rather than running out of steam in repetition, the feature film fully embraces its status as an ultra-generous B-movie, multiplying winks to metalheads and B-movie aficionados without ever ceding to cynicism.

The zombie characters of Zakk and Dion are funny while retaining a slightly serious edge. By making Dion his villain, the director finds an original way to play with the Necronomicon sub-genre where a bad guy wakes the dead.

Although the film is far from being a masterpiece, it delivers exactly what you want from this kind of movie: blood, cheap effects, and frightening situations that turn funny.

Music at the Heart of the Narrative

While the first installment already used decibels as a weapon of mass destruction, this second chapter pushes the concept even further by anchoring band dynamics at the core of the plot. The battered camaraderie of these musicians brought back from the afterlife brings an unexpected touch of humanity—macabre as it may be—amidst the spurts of blood. Musical sequences turn into genuine pieces of horrific bravery, where every guitar solo becomes a festival of systematic dismemberment. It is the unwavering love for metal that breathes all its vitality into this visual orgie.

Moreover, the film will certainly appeal to music lovers with its few winks. What can be said about the Ozzy-on-prozac type acting as a guru to a gang of losers, other than that it provides a counter-balance that makes it easy to love the two losers who serve as main characters.

A little more…

Frankly, for someone who isn’t huge on comedies, I had a damn good time. Much funnier than it is scary, Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon entertains while bringing a few original elements.

Using music as the trigger for spells is a neat idea that works well with the rest of the story. Sure, the rules governing the universe could have been a bit more fleshed out, but the result remains solid.

Let’s just say this feature film represents a great way to kick off the month of October for horror cinema fans.

Trailer