This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Average Rating: 8.6/10
Reviews Counted: 60
Fresh: 57 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 116,255
My Rating
Movie Info
Largely improvised by director Rob Reiner and his cast, This Is Spinal Tap looks and sounds like a "real" documentary, with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest as David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel, the key members of a going-nowhere British heavy metal band called Spinal Tap. The "group" started as an informal skiffle band, eventually maturing into an R&B act called the Thamesmen (their hit was "Gimme Some Money"). After going through a psychedelic period with
Mar 2, 1984 Wide
Jul 14, 1998
MGM
Watch It Now
Cast
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Rob Reiner
Marty DiBergi -
Michael McKean
David St. Hubbins -
Christopher Guest
Nigel Tufnel -
Harry Shearer
Derek Smalls -
R.J. Parnell
Mick Shrimpton -
Tony Hendra
Ian Faith -
David Kaff
Ian Faith, Viv Savage -
Bruno Kirby
Tommy Pischedda -
June Chadwick
Jeanine Pettibone -
Fran Drescher
Bobbi Flekman -
Joyce Hyser
Belinda -
Vicki Blue
Cindy -
Paul Benedict
Tucker "Smithy" Brown -
Patrick Macnee
Sir Denis Eton-Hogg -
Billy Crystal
Morty the Mime -
Fred Willard
Lt. Hookstratten -
Ed Begley Jr
John "Stumpy" Pepys -
Howard Hesseman
Terry Ladd -
Fred Asparagus
Joe "Mama" Besser -
J.J. Barry
Rack Jobber -
Robert Bauer
Moke -
Dana Carvey
Mime Waitress -
Lara Cody
Fame Groupy -
Jean Cromie
Ethereal Fan -
Gloria E. Gifford
Airport Security Offici... -
Archie Hahn III
Room Service Guy -
Sandy Helberg
Angelo DiMentibello -
Anjelica Huston
Polly Deutsch -
Russ Kunkel
Eric "Stumpy Joe" Child... -
Andrew J. Lederer
Student Promoter -
Charles Levin
Disc & Dat Manager -
Patrick Maher
New York M.C. -
George McDaniel
Southern Rock Promoter -
Julie Payne
Mime Waitress -
Wonderful Smith
Janitor -
Brinke Stevens
Girlfriend (uncredited) -
Zane Buzby
Rolling Stone Reporter -
Danny Kortchmar
Ronnie Pudding -
Robin Menken
Angelo's Associate -
Paul Shaffer
Artie Fufkin -
Daniel Rodgers
Little Druid
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This Is Spinal Tap Trailer & Photos
All Critics (61) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (61) | Rotten (3) | DVD (23)
For music biz insiders, This Is Spinal Tap is a vastly amusing satire of heavy metal bands.
Top CriticFor all its japes and jokes, the movie is really about exhaustion of the spirit: sitting in a bleak hotel suite at 4 a.m. with the bad taste of last night in the mouth and the feeling that tomorrow will not be a better day.
The material is consistently clever and funny, though ultimately the attitudes are too narrow to nourish a feature-length film.
Reiner's brilliantly inventive script and smart visuals avoid all the obvious pitfalls, making this one of the funniest ever films about the music business.
It stays so wickedly close to the subject that it is very nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.
The film is a composite of classic moments, all of which we sense could have happened to any of the classic heavy metal bands -- or at least to those whose members combined delusions of greatness with low I.Q.s.
Consistently funny, with sheer brilliant turns from every performer on the cast...
Returning to Spinal Tap always brings with it a pronounced sense of discovery, a freshness that is uncommon with movies generally and unspeakably rare in a comedy.
[VIDEO] Although examples of the mockumentary genre existed before "Spinal Tap" this heavy metal comedy is considered an epitome of cinematic satire.
If you didn't know this was a fake film, you could easily believe it's real.
...a sporadically amusing but all-too-uneven piece of work...
Hilarious, ribald, drug-filled rock send-up.
The original suffers upon review simply because its novelty has worn off. But being the first mainstream feature of its kind, it deserves due reverence.
The story of an embarrasingly inept heavy-metal band called Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner's film set the mockumentary standard that has come to define much of modern screen comedy. [Blu-ray]
Scores an 11 (out of 10) for sheer inspired lunacy but it's the writers' unexpected fondness for their subject matter that puts the film in a class all its own.
Hilarious, bitingly perceptive and cinematically assured.
Mildly funny, not a whole lot better than the best Christopher Guest mockumentary I'd seen before this, 'Best in Show.'
There had been countless documentary spoofs before This Is Spinal Tap, but this inspired put-on was the first to actually capture the texture and style of real documentary.
Hilarious pseudo-documentary spoof of a British rock group that was so on-target in its satire, many viewers took it for the real thing.
This superb satire became the standard against which all mockumentaries are evaluated. The film was so successful that the fictitious group reunited for a series of live concerts and a TV special, further blurring the line between real and reel.
The satire is ever so refreshingly played straight, is seemingly benign and dead-on funny.
Audience Reviews for This Is Spinal Tap
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Marty DiBergi: Do you feel that playing rock and roll music keeps you a child... that is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?
- Derek Smalls: No, no, no. I feel it's like, it's more like going, going to a national park or something, and there's... you know, they preserve the moose. And that's my childhood up there on stage is that moose, you know.
- Marty DiBergi: So when you're playing, you feel like a preserved moose onstage?
- Derek Smalls: Yeah.
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- David St. Hubbins: I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.
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- Morty the Mime: Mime is money.
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- Nigel Tufnel: These go to eleven.
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Foreign Titles
- Spinal Tap (FR)
- Esto es Spinal Tap (ES)
