The second sequel picks up not from the previous one in 1988, which dealt with the heavy-metal phenomenon, but rather reverts to the slightly passé punk-rock subject matter of the first documentary in 1981. Except that it deals less with the bands (though Final Conflict and Naked Aggression grab a share of the spotlight) and more with the newest generation of shaved, dyed, pierced, and tattooed adherents, specifically the "gutterpunks," many of whom were unborn when the original film was in production ("I was an abortion that couldn't get paid for"), most of them homeless and jobless, all of them seeming to subscribe, with different levels of ineloquence, to a philosophy of life that can pretty well be summed up like so: everything is shit but beer. It is not much of a movie, cobbled together as it is of talking-heads interviews, indifferent concert footage (occasional subtitles to help out on the lyrics), and ill-matching video visits to living and/or "squatting" quarters. It succeeds, however, in holding up a looking glass to a subspecies who claim little space on movie or radar screens, and succeeds, moreover, in humanizing them ("I think punks are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet"), so much so that the cackles die in your throat and decompose into a lump. Directed by Penelope Spheeris. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd