Monster Fest 2025 Film Review - Deathgasm II: Goremageddon
Images courtesy of Monster Fest.
A decade after the original Deathgasm summoned demons with death metal riffs and adolescent chaos, Jason Lei Howden returns with Goremageddon, a sequel that’s louder, bloodier, and somehow both self-aware and stuck in the past. If you missed the first film, it followed a group of New Zealand teenagers as they uncovered a Necronomicon-style book of satanic musical incantations, known only as the Black Hymn.
Brodie (Milo Cawthorne) is back, now older but not necessarily wiser. After failing to maintain a relationship with his now ex-girlfriend Medina, he turns to necromancy to resurrect his fallen bandmates in an effort to win her attention at a country wide battle of the bands. As you might guess, chaos ensues. The plot is mostly an excuse for a barrage of gore, sexual innuendos, and metal references, and while the enthusiasm is undeniable, with the characters no longer in high school, the novelty has dulled.
One of the most tedious parts of the film's core experience is its attitude towards its protagonist’s “brutal as f**k” ethos. Characters openly mock Brodie’s arrested development - he’s called a manchild more than once - and the film seems like it's at least wanting to critique the outdated fantasy of metal as rebellion. Yet it can’t help but revel in that same mindset, doubling down on corpse paint, chainsaws, and headbanging as if it’s still 2015. It’s a contradiction that’s never resolved, and while fans of the genre may appreciate the throwback, I personally found it exhausting.
The humour, too, is a mixed bag. Goremageddon leans hard into sexual gags - dismembered phalluses, crude innuendos, and a recurring obsession with bodily fluids. In the original, this felt like an authentic extension of teenage idiocy, and symptomatic of the many metal and core bands in the scene that would tout names like Butthole Surfers and Infant Annihilator. Now, with the characters pushing thirty, it’s less charming and more grating.
Visually, Howden echoes early Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi with twisting camera rigs, and buckets of blood and practical effects that should satiate the gorehounds. The pacing never kicks into fourth gear, and sometime during the lead up to the final act, it becomes kind of a drag. Beneath all the carnage, there’s a missed opportunity to evolve the story or its characters. Where the first film offsets its crude side with a palpably warm heart, Goremageddon plays like a reunion tour that’s fun for the diehards, but very much has the air of desperation that comes with one final hurrah.
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Deathgasm II: Goremageddon screened as part of Monster Fest 2025. For more info, click here.