This Is Spinal Tap [1984]

Spinal Tap is a great comic movie - hilarious from start to finish. It takes the (much copied but never bettered) form of a mock documentary (or rockumentary, if you will) following the spoof band as they go on tour of the USA to promote their new album.

Heavy Metal may seem to be beyond parody but Spinal Tap manages. The band is a glorious, grotesque caricature of a heavy metal band: misogynist & sexist, vain, split by internal dissent and artistic differences and hopelessly lacking is self-awareness.

The boys in the band all excellent and totally convincing and there are a lots of great cameos. The songs are glorious parodies of heavy metal songs; listen to the lyrics, they are often hilarious (and of course deeply offensive). The film is full of laugh out loud moments and memorable lines that have entered the lexicon (the airport metal detector, turn it up to 11).

To cap it all off the extras (listed in the product description above) are fantastic and hilarious.

Buy it, watch it, enjoy it


The funniest film of all time just got funnier....   October 17, 2000
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

Where to start? This is quite simply one of the best DVD's yet released.

The films great (obviously) but there's so many extras and nice touches here that the disk is essential to anyone with a DVD player even if you already have the standard version on DVD (or video).

There's over an hours worth of deleted scenes (its almost like having a second movie to watch) and the commentary by the cast (in character) is hilarious.

There's also 4 music vids, trailers, tv clips and more - even the films menu screen is guaranteed to make you laugh!

Buy it now - it's worth it for the deleted zoo scene alone, but with all the other extras it's essential!


Talk about extras, this has got 'em   December 21, 2001
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

OK so that's not a very good play on one of the films lines but all the rest have been done already.
This is one of the greatest comedies of all time plain ans simple although i admit it may not cater to certain peoples tastes. I however laughed my head off mostly because I know people like Nigel et al(no you can't touch it, don't even point at it!).

Don't really wanna go through the best bits of the film cos that'll just spoil it for folk who havn't seen it. If you havn't seen it though, you have to, in fact I dare you not to laugh at 'Stonehenge' and the insuing argument about stage sets and dwarves.

The DVD has some excellent extras too. God only knows why some of the scenes were cut, I mean come on TAP AT THE ZOO!

So yeah, buy it and turn your TV to 11 (I know thats a bad ending but this whole review's been quite bad hasn't it?)


A feature-packed DVD which goes up to 11   December 11, 2000
Dave (Edinburgh)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This DVD goes up to 11 - one louder. This is what the DVD was created for. The first disc of this two-disc set contains the film and a commentary from the band. The picture quality is superb and the sound is excellent - the ...metal numbers are perfect CD quality. The second CD contains what basically amounts to an alternate version of the film - out-takes which are almost good enouhg to have been in the original. On top of that, you get piles of extras - videos, trailers, archive footage, interviews and, of course, adverts for bizarre Australian savoury pastry products. What more could you ever ask for from a DVD. The film itself is excellent. I had heard so much about it beforehand - mainly from sad obsessive fans - that I watched it for the first time wanting not to like it. But it really is well worth watching - even if you can't stand Heavy Metal. Everyone plays it completely straight - and that's what makes it all so funny. The songs are also superb in a terrible kind of way. There are too many wonderful bits in this to mention - but the show-stopping performance of the theatrical soft rock classic Stonehenge has to be the highlight of the film.


This film goes up to 6 stars   March 29, 2007
S. R. M. Penney (West Drayton, UK)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

This is the greatest film ever made. Citizen Cane? No lycra-clad middle-aged rockers to be found. Casablanca? How many dancing, set-destroying dwarves in that film? Porkies II? Sorry about that last one but as David St Hubbins says: "There's a fine line between stupid and clever".

This Is Spinal Tap follows - in mock documentary style - the misadventures of a fading British rock band on tour in the U.S. The plot is, of course, secondary to a series of hilarious scenes in which the ridiculousness of heavy metal is laid bare. The hair; the clothes; the self-indulgence; the prima donna behaviour. That's not to say that die-hard rock fans should avoid this; on the contrary, anyone who's followed heavy metal (or better still, been in band) will appreciate the humour all the more (I speak from experience!). The acting (and musical) performances are all pitch-perfect and the script just the right side of believable.

The DVD extras are well worth a look too. The band's commentary (with the actors still in character) is extremely funny and the deleted scenes, whilst of great interest to Tap enthusiasts, just go to prove that the final cut of the film could not have been bettered.