Regarded as the best, funniest, most anarchic rock cliché mockumentary of all time, This Is Spinal Tap is the fictional tale of a not-so-successful heavy metal band descending into insanity. The German version was called “Die Jungs von Spital Tap”, a little chummy. The film’s running gags, such as drummers regularly dying or amplifiers turned up above the final volume level of “10”, have long written cinema history.
Now, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the film’s premiere in 1984, director Rob Reiner has announced a sequel. In Spinal Tap II, Reiner returns in front of the camera as both filmmaker and aging rocker, alongside Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest, the chaotic hard rock heroes of yesteryear.
“Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t say why isn’t there a sequel?” Reiner told the US trade magazine “Deadline”. “For many years we have said emphatically, ‘No.’ Until we finally had the right idea of how to continue the story. It’s not about just doing it. After all, the original should be honored by continuing to tell the story in a congenial way.”
Here’s what we’ve heard about Spinal Tap II from usually well-informed circles so far: The sequel focuses on the death of the fictitious British band’s manager; however all the actors are American. A contract appears in his estate obliging the band to give one last concert.
This leads to trouble and all sorts of Remmi Demmi. As a reference to the original, then-filmmaker Martin “Marty” Di Bergi gets the credit for it, as the band deems the original documentary a complete failure. He nevertheless returns to film Spinal Tap’s final show.
In the mid-1980s, This Is Spinal Tap received good reviews, but the film initially flopped at the box office. He found the spread of videocassettes a large audience, not to mention “cult”. “When we first showed it in Dallas, nobody knew what kind of film it was supposed to be,” says Reiner. “People said, ‘I don’t understand why you’re making a film about a band that no one has heard of and that’s so bad. What’s that about!? I told her it was satire and I would explain. But it took quite a while for the penny to drop. `This Is Spital Tap` is now in the official National Film Registry.
The original will be on view at a retrospective at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 17, while the 2024 remake will be marketed internationally at the parallel film market.