This Is Spinal Tap (1984) on Netflix
Documentary filmmaker Marty Di Bergi follows English heavy metal band Spinal Tap on a 1982 United States tour. David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls are in the band.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.9/10161,698 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
Spinal Tap, an English heavy metal band, sets out on its biggest tour of the United States to date, promoting the album Smell the Glove. Filmmaker Marty Di Bergi travels with the group to make a documentary about the trip. David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel, childhood friends, sing and play guitar, and Derek Smalls plays bass. The band has changed its name several times over the years, and it now performs heavy metal. Its former drummers died in strange circumstances. Nigel shows Marty an amplifier built with volume knobs that go up to eleven.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 2016, Harry Shearer filed a $125 million fraud and breach of contract lawsuit against StudioCanal and Vivendi, claiming that he and the other co-stars had received only $179 for sales of merchandise and music over the prior three decades.
- J. K. Rowling cited Spinal Tap's series of drummers as an inspiration for the Harry Potter series, in which something bad happens to every teacher of Defence Against The Dark Arts at Hogwarts, causing them all to leave without ever completing a full school year.
- Musicians kept recognizing themselves in the mockumentary. Dokken's George Lynch is said to have exclaimed "That's us! How'd they make a movie about us?", while Glenn Danzig said that when he first saw Spinal Tap he thought, "Hey, this is my old band."
- Lars Ulrich told a press conference crowd that the 1992 Guns N' Roses and Metallica stadium tour seemed "so Spinal Tap". Shortly after the tour started, Metallica's James Hetfield suffered third-degree burns on his arms after standing too close to a pyrotechnic device.
- U2 guitarist The Edge said in the documentary It Might Get Loud that when he first saw Spinal Tap, "I didn't laugh: I wept," because it summed up what a brainless swamp big-label rock music had become.
- Judas Priest, the heavy metal band that Rob Reiner saw in preparation for the film, has had eight drummers in its career, a turnover the website Ultimate Classic Rock described as "positively Spinal Tap-worthy".
