The groundbreaking 1984 mockumentary comedy This Is Spinal Faucet chronicles the proverbial demise rattle of the eponymous fictional heavy metallic band with such eager consideration to element and human conduct that it’s straightforward to mistake Spinal Faucet for an actual band. Within the long-belated sequel, Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues, surviving band members David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel reunite, minus a full-time drummer, in fact, for a one-night-only live performance, after being estranged from each other for 15 years.
Whereas the affectionate critiques for the movie are a testomony to the wealthy legacy of the primary film and its iconic characters, there’s a transparent recognition that the sequel’s attraction is just about totally associated to nostalgia for This Is Spinal Faucet. Certainly, watching Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues is like watching a geriatric tribute band carry out the minor hits of a band whose prime ended roughly 40 years in the past.
‘This Is Spinal Faucet’ Nonetheless Goes to 11
Whereas the overarching legacy of This Is Spinal Faucet is expounded to the way it successfully launched the mockumentary style, the important thing to the movie’s success lies in its utter believability. Apart from the operating joke of the perpetually dying drummers, together with different absurdities, This Is Spinal Faucet at all times stays grounded in actuality. That is embodied within the distinctive personalities of the three members of the deeply untalented and pretentious heavy metallic band Spinal Faucet, which shares recognizable similarities with a number of pale real-life metallic bands of the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties.
This Is Spinal Faucet, which paperwork the fictional band’s disastrous 1982 tour throughout the USA, is an enchanting case research of the extended state of delusion, narcissism, and self-deception that appears to be inherent within the rock life-style. The members of Spinal Faucet every characterize excessive circumstances of arrested growth. They don’t know do something apart from be in Spinal Faucet, which is in a steep downward spiral. As soon as capable of fill arenas, the band is now relegated to enjoying in amphitheaters, a navy base, and even at an amusement park, the place the band receives second billing beneath a puppet present. Different concert events had been canceled. An autograph signing at a report retailer failed to draw a single buyer. That is all blamed on poor advertising and marketing.
After all, not one of the sycophants within the band’s shrinking orbit dares to deal with the band’s predominant downside, which is that their music sucks. Nonetheless, as a substitute of overtly mocking the band, This Is Spinal Faucet generates most of its humor by contrasting the lingering optimism of the band members with the stark proof of their declining reputation. That is successfully highlighted by director Rob Reiner, whose character, documentary filmmaker Marty Di Bergi, serves the vital goal of asking related questions that provoke ridiculous solutions.
After all, the comedic set items in This Is Spinal Faucet are legendary and firmly embedded inside the public consciousness. There’s the scene on the airport safety checkpoint, the place the presence of Harry Shearer’s Derek Smalls triggers a metallic detector, till he removes a cucumber from his pants. One of many funniest scenes in This Is Spinal Faucet entails a foolish glam rock stage manufacturing, for which the band’s supervisor commissions a designer, performed by Anjelica Huston, to assemble a reproduction of the prehistoric construction Stonehenge, solely to be terribly disillusioned when she delivers a miniature prop as a substitute of a life-sized duplicate. In one other scene, the trio seems on stage in alien pods, that are supposed to provide start to them, one after the other, till Derek will get caught in his pod.
‘Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues’ Lacks the Authenticity of the Authentic
Essentially the most outstanding achievement of This Is Spinal Faucet is that, simply because the movie satisfied audiences in 1984 that it was an actual documentary about an actual band, this phantasm stays comparatively intact in 2025. That is regardless of solid members Christopher Visitor, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and particularly director Rob Reiner being infinitely extra recognizable now than they had been when the movie was first launched. It is a testomony to Reiner’s route, which by no means upstages the movie’s documentary method and unforced narrative by way of elaborate digicam pictures and visible gimmicks.
Nonetheless, the mockumentary fashion that This Is Spinal Faucet popularized has develop into so hackneyed that the style now exists as a parody of itself. That is very evident in Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues, which eschews the documentary appear and feel of the primary movie in favor of a sophisticated and customary comedy satire format. This standard and slick method, mixed with cameo appearances by the likes of Elton John and Paul McCartney, creates a way of self-awareness by way of which the band members appear to be in on the joke, one thing they had been blissfully unaware of within the first movie.
‘This Is Spinal Faucet’ Will By no means Be Topped
Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues has the misfortune of following within the footsteps of a comedy traditional that’s develop into a cultural landmark. Nothing within the sequel is as humorous because the outtakes from This Is Spinal Faucet. What’s most missing from the sequel is, to cite some of the iconic traces of dialogue from the movie, a transparent understanding of the skinny line between intelligent and silly. Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues struggles to discover a compelling motive for its existence.
Nonetheless, to the diploma that Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues represents a frivolous and pointless viewing expertise, the sequel nonetheless generates real emotions of appreciation and heat for viewers who’ve aged alongside This Is Spinal Faucet and its iconic characters. Certainly, Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues, with its themes of growing old and legacy, performs much less like a real sequel than it does as a touching 82-minute postscript to an 82-minute masterpiece. Spinal Faucet II: The Finish Continues is in theaters now.