Following the success of the first film in the Decline of Western Civilization series, it didn't take long for Penelope Spheeris to direct another, this time shifting the focus to metal music. The movie is similar to its predecessor stylistically, meaning it mostly consists of footage of various metal bands performing, as well as interviews with people involved in the metal scene. Some are very well known, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Kiss, Megadeth, and Lemmy. For whatever reason, Lemmy was interviewed from a considerable distance, leading him to think Spheeris was trying to make him look foolish. Many of the people being interviewed belong to lesser known bands like Poison and Vixen. A surprising amount of them are fully convinced that they will have loyal followings one day, as they're determined to keep playing until they become popular. Even more strange, they are so certain they will succeed that one says if he doesn't become famous, he'll probably just commit suicide. It's all or nothing. Similarly to the first film, some cops are interviewed, and it always seems like they have nothing but bad things to say about the type of music being presented. In the first film, they tell how punks hate the police because hating authority is part of their subculture, and the police represent authority. It's essentially the same story being repeated as to why this music is a bad influence (especially on kids), but the type of music is different. One scene that I think is pretty odd is when Spheeris is interviewing Ozzy in his kitchen while he makes breakfast. While trying to pour orange juice, he spills most of it onto the table because he hand won't stop trembling. Eventually in the 90s, this part was shown to be fake and the kitchen didn't even belong to him. Aside from this, that particular scene also contains my favorite part in the movie, which involves Spheeris asking Ozzy what he thinks about going a long time without drinking. He just says "it sucks." My thoughts exactly. Another favorite of mine depicts the band London performing their single "Russian Winter", the prelude of which has the singer setting a Soviet flag on fire. While metal still remains a popular genre today, there's a bit of controversy surrounding this movie stating that the rise of the grunge genre is due to this film. This is speculated because apparently, metal fans in the movie were fed up with the non-stop atrocious behavior many of them were displaying, particularly when it came to gluttonous eating and drug use. In my opinion, this doesn't really add up considering that grunge had plenty of drug abusers listening to it, and some of the performers (Kurt Cobain) did drugs themselves. Even many of the musicians interviewed admit to almost being killed by their impulsiveness when using dangerous substances. To summarize, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II is formatted basically the same as the film which came before it, but this time, the movie offers an insight into the inner workings of one of music's most popular genres.
