Ice Nine Kills Release ‘Hell Or High Slaughter’ For Ready Or Not 2 With Grave Diggler

Ice Nine Kills aren’t just writing songs for horror films anymore, they’re building entire universes around them.

Ice Nine Kills have now teamed up with Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, dragging a long dead ’80s hair metal act called Grave Diggler back into the spotlight, yeah, it’s as unhinged as it sounds.

The track ‘Hell or High Slaughter (Grave Diggler: Pt. 2)’ is set to feature in the sequel, landing both early in the film and again over the credits when it hits cinemas, here’s the twist though, it’s not technically an Ice Nine Kills song, it’s framed as a relic from Grave Diggler, a fictional glam band stitched into the film’s universe.

Hell Or High Slaughter (Grave Diggler: Pt 2) trailer

The lore runs deep

According to the band, Grave Diggler is made up of the fathers of Ice Nine Kills’ members, including frontman Spencer Charnas, a fake legacy band, complete with a rise, fall and all the excess you’d expect from that era (per Bloody-Disgusting).

“If you were a kid in the ‘80s, and you were into fast cars, fast girls, and sniffing glue, then you were into Grave Diggler.”

That quote from MTV icon Matt Pinfield sets the tone, sleazy, exaggerated and fully committed to the bit.

A full blown horror crossover with hair metal chaos

Ice Nine Kills aren’t stopping at just a song for Ready or Not 2, there’s also a faux documentary, Laid to Rest: The Grave Diggler Story, on the way, along with a resurrected 1987 music video that’s been “long-banned” until now.

The band leans into the absurdity of it all:

“Their sons may have eclipsed them in the 21st Century, but for a sleazy moment, Grave Diggler left its stain on hard partying rock n’ roll with decadence, desecrations, and panty raids.”

It’s a tongue in cheek nod to the excess heavy glam era, name dropping bands like Mötley Crüe and W.A.S.P., while framing Grave Diggler as another casualty of bad business and worse habits.

Behind the scenes, the project pulls in names like Samara Weaving, Elijah Wood and Scream directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, blurring the line between parody and full scale production.

The Ice Nine Kills ‘Ready or Not 2’ song and its NSFW video drop March 20 via Ice Nine Kills’ YouTube:

At this point, Ice Nine Kills aren’t just making music for horror, they’re writing the mythology that sits behind it and I cannot wait for this one.

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