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Somehow, James Merendino always knew he'd come back to Salt Lake City.
"I like to make movies about outsiders," Merendino said over the phone this week from New York. "I grew up in Salt Lake and have a lot of memories about this place. When I thought about making another movie about a new generation of outsiders, it seemed only natural to do it in Salt Lake City."
Merendino mined those memories before, in his 1999 comedy-drama "SLC Punk!" That movie followed the lives of two Utah slackers, Stevo (Matthew Lillard) and Heroin Bob (Michael A. Goorjian), and their circle of friends in Salt Lake City's punk scene in the 1980s. The movie became a cult classic, a sign of this conservative state's surprisingly fertile underground.
Seventeen years after "SLC Punk!" burst into moviegoers' consciousness (premiering at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival), Merendino has returned with a sequel: "Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2." (The movie has its premiere in Salt Lake City on Thursday, with more screenings in other cities, before being available on a digital download on Feb. 16 and released on DVD, digital HD and video-on-demand on March 8.)
"I wanted to tell a story about being alive, and clinging to life, and letting go of things you can't have," Merendino said. "That's sort of my sandbox. I thought that if I'm going to tell a story like that, it's going to be in Salt Lake."
"Punk's Dead" introduces a new generation of Utah teens trying to figure out their place in the punk world. It centers on Ross (played by Ben Schnetzer), the 17-year-old son of Heroin Bob — who died of an accidental Percodan overdose in the first movie.
Raised by his mom, Trish (Sarah Clarke, replacing Annabeth Gish from the first film), Ross has assiduously avoided joining any of the punk cliques or partaking of any illicit substances — and has cultivated a look somewhere between Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde. But when his girlfriend, Lillith (Emma Pace), cheats on him, Ross goes all out, hanging out with punks Crash (rapper Richard Colson Baker, aka Machine Gun Kelly) and Penny (Hannah Marks), consuming Pabst Blue Ribbon and 'shrooms.
Today's punk scene has many subdivisions, Merendino said, but the disparate groups have common threads.
"What's interesting about that generation of punks — or Goths or whatever the scene is — is they still listen to the same music we were listening to in the '80s," Merendino said. "They're really loyal to that generation of music."
That music is heard throughout the soundtrack, but new music is represented in a rocking finale at a rock show staged in June 2014 at The Complex in downtown Salt Lake City — at the end of the movie's rapid-fire two-week shoot. The concert was paid for by "SLC Punk" fans through the crowd-funding website IndieGogo, where more than $90,000 was raised for the movie.
"This was a fan-based movie," Merendino said. "They helped make this movie happen. … I utterly have no idea why or how that happened."
The movie's star, Schnetzer, is a performer on the rise. Before "Punk's Dead," he played the title role in the Holocaust drama "The Book Thief" and played a gay activist in the British comedy-drama "Pride." At Sundance this year, he impressed audiences in the movie "Goat," playing a college student going through a brutal fraternity hazing.
"He's an amazing actor," Merendino said of Schnetzer. "He was charming [in the audition], and he has a pretty good range."
Merendino called Baker — to whom he refers as "MGK" — "a natural. He fills the frame. He's a huge presence." Marks, Merendino said, "is a formidable actor. I thought she was going to kick MGK's ass."
For the sequel, several characters from "SLC Punk!" return, rallying around Trish when Ross goes missing. They include the LSD-dropping Sean (Devon Sawa), the aptly named John the Mod (James Duval) and the now-rich Eddie (Adam Pascal).
"They were incredibly supportive," Merendino said of the returning cast members. "They had my back the whole time."
Most important, Goorjian is back as Heroin Bob — delivering expletive-filled beyond-the-grave commentary in a heaven that looks remarkably like his old rundown Salt Lake City apartment.
Heroin Bob's spirit is evidence that, as Merendino said, "the movie's at odds with itself. On the one hand, it's sentimental and sort of life-affirming. And at the other times, it's utterly nihilistic because no matter if you have a good time, you're still dead."
Twitter: @moviecricket —
'Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2'
The Utah premiere of "Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2."
When • Thursday, Feb. 11; screenings at 8 and 8:30 p.m.
Where • Megaplex 12 at The Gateway, 165 S. Rio Grande St., Salt Lake City.
Tickets • A limited number are available at MegaplexTheatres.com. Go to http://www.facebook.com/SLCPUNK2/ for more information.
Home video • The movie will be available for digital download starting Tuesday, Feb. 16. Cinedigm will be releasing it on DVD, digital HD and video-on-demand on March 8.