Rock Watch: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Watched:  07/06/2025

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Rob Reiner/ Marti DiBergi

SimonUK and I took in the re-release of This is Spinal Tap (1984) at the Alamo on Sunday evening.  

I don't need to tell you what This Is Spinal Tap is, I hope.  Apparently, The Drafthouse has signed up to host Fathom events, and this included the viewing of the new 4K restoration of the movie, but it's sort of America's original faux-documentary.  It led directly to Christopher Guest's brilliant mockumentary* series and indirectly to the format of shows like The Office and Parks and Rec.  

I have lost track of when and how I saw this movie the first time.  I remember seeing it very young, and not really getting the jokes - minus the "it goes to 11" bit (I want to say as early as 1985 or 1986) but then seeing it again at the end of high school and absolutely getting it (maybe in 1992-93).  By then, I'd had a subscription to Rolling Stone, so some of the references and gags - like the cricket bat - made more sense.

On this viewing, I was shocked how well I knew the lyrics to the songs when I hadn't seen the movie in over a decade.  

Rob Reiner's already strong career and lifetime in Hollywood via his father meant that the movie is full of crazy cameos - as well as an appearances by people on their way up.  We get a young Paul Schaefer, Fran Drescher as Bobbi Flekman, a baby Ed Begley Jr., Billy Crystal and Dana Carvey as mime waiters, Bruno Kirby, Anjelica frikkin' Huston, Fred Willard - and then out of nowhere, Patrick Macnee?  Because why not.  

The three leads are amazing, full stop.  McKean, Guest and Shearer are so weirdly specific and easily identifiable as both real people and heightened versions of those types of people - it's wild to watch.  Even in 2025, I have to pull back and remember that Derek Smalls is not a real guy.

And, of course, it's funny how it doesn't matter how big or small the band, everyone in real life bands winds up in battles that involve a significant other weighing in, and everyone winds up doing a Jazz Odyssey as second-billing to the puppet show.  Maybe metaphorically speaking.  Maybe literally.

What strikes me most about This is Spinal Tap is how much it invaded our language and culture.  I'd argue a *lot* of people saying "it goes to 11" have never seen the movie, and/or have no idea where that phrase comes from.  I mean, good luck getting an American Gen-X'er in front of the actual Stonehenge and not have them mutter "no one knows who they were, or what they were doing...".  Or, whilst examining something creative: "it's such a fine line between stupid and clever".  

What's weird about Spinal Tap as a film is that there's a deep fondness, but it's so consistently funny, it's almost exhausting.  People were still laughing, but it was a gentle ripple of laughter by the second half.  We know the jokes.  We've all seen the movie a dozen times.  But, you know what, the 18" of Stonehenge descending never fails to play.

One undersung person in Hollywood is the great Karen Murphy, who was a producer on this film and almost all of Christopher Guest's movies.  For reasons I never understood, she came and spoke to my Production Management class in 1996 or so, and I've rarely been so impressed with a human.  I think she was in town working on Waiting for Guffman.

By the way, re-showing the movie was also to promote the coming Spinal Tap sequel.  They showed maybe one minute of it after the movie, and I was all in.

*I deeply dislike this term, but I lack a better one