This is Spinal Tap: 41st Anniversary Review

Rob Reiner’s 41-year-old cult classic This Is Spinal Tap still works as a quietly hilarious mockumentary of rock music and its stars.

For This is Spinal Tap’s 41st Anniversary (and in preparation for its legacy sequel, which will come to cinemas later this year), the movie has been restored in 4K and looks better than ever. This doesn’t mean the film looks like a contemporary production; after all, it was shot in 16mm many decades ago. It just looks as originally intended: grainy, grimy, gritty, and real, but without any visual artefacts or tears that might have appeared in the last forty-one years. This is Spinal Tap now looks like a well-preserved vintage documentary, which only contributes to its veracity.

It’s amazing to think that This is Spinal Tap was Rob Reiner’s directorial debut. It’s such a well-crafted and potentially chaotic product that it would have been quite challenging to make even for a seasoned director. But somehow Reiner managed to wrangle the hundreds of hours of footage he shot and, alongside his editorial team, turned them into something coherent, credible and, most importantly, funny. There are some gags in This is Spinal Tap that feel niche or that modern audiences might not get, but in general, the movie feels like a breeze, portraying its characters as three-dimensional and believable buffoons.

Appropriately enough, the film is structured as a false documentary centred on hard rock band Spinal Tap, whose members are singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), bass player Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest). At first, they seem to be rock gods: amazing artists whose absurd lyrics have managed to captivate audiences all around the world, and whose controversial record covers have frightened and angered those who don’t believe in the Religion of Rock.

Unfortunately, the movie starts showing that the band has seen better days, and that instead of filling up stadiums, they are now trying to book smaller, less impressive auditoriums for less energetic gigs. Their manager, Ian Faith (Tony Hendra), tries to promise them that their best days are yet to come, but isn’t doing a good job at it. And the record company publicist, Bobby Flekman (Fran Drescher), tries to explain to them why their newest album, “Smell the Glove”, can’t be sold at regular stores with its original cover (in short, it features a woman being denigrated by a man).

Things change, though, when David decides to fire Ian, and his girlfriend, Jeanine Pettibone (June Chadwick), becomes the new publicist. Nigel decides to quit the band, and Spinal Tap starts resorting to playing in army bases and changing their look and style. Jeanine, then, plays the part of a Yoko Ono: a divisive figure who some might see as the one who finally splits up the band. Whether it’s her fault or not, This is Spinal Tap manages to show what happens to a band when their glory days are over, and when the music industry turns too complex, chaotic and “mainstream” for them.

Now, most of This is Spinal Tap was improvised by the actors, which results in an organic-feeling and sometimes surprising experience. All Reiner gave his cast were notes on how the scenes should begin and end; the way they approached the situations and the conflicts was up to them. This is why they had so much material, but also why the characters feel so real, and thus, the film feels like an actual documentary when it’s actually telling the story of a fictional band and fictional musicians. 

The film’s realism is not limited to technique, though. Apparently, actual rock musicians who’ve seen This is Spinal Tap reacted quite positively to it, not only because they found it funny, but because they felt represented by it. The way the characters talk, their bickering, how their music evolves and the discussions they have with producers and record label representatives: it all feels credible and very similar to the experiences of real-life bands. Reiner did his research, but his cast also did their part. Even their fake British accents are believable enough, and help make Spinal Tap seem like a band that could’ve (and even should’ve) existed.

If the film still works, though, it’s also due to how funny it is; maybe not in a “laugh-out-loud” sort of way, but definitely by making its audience chuckle quite frequently. Stand-out scenes include an early discussion between the mockumentary’s director, Marty DiBerg (Reiner, obviously), and the band about their past album covers; the band coming up with a song about Stoneheng and them trying to commission a statue that represents said place, and why not, the running joke about the band’s drummers, who keep dying in increasingly bizarre ways (my favourite: one of them dies by inhaling someone else’s vomit… ugh!).

If these and many other gags work, it’s because they make the viewer laugh alongside the characters, not at them. They are goofy and egocentric and even a bit stupid, but they never seem like bad people. Thus, the jokes are not at their expense, but at the expense of the world they live in, and the way they react to the news about their latest album cover, or the places they now have to play at. But most importantly, the funny situations they get involved in seem realistic, like problems actual rock musicians might have. And what do you know, some rockers have admitted to having been involved in these kinds of circumstances (like when the band gets lost in a rather maze-like venue, right before they have to play).

This is Spinal Tap might have been one of the earliest mockumentaries to have ever been made, but it’s still one of the best, too. By tapping into a complicated and chaotic industry and portraying its fake musicians as believable (yet quite ridiculous) human beings, Rob Reiner’s film manages to feel both credible and absurd; it’s funny and full of memorable lines (the phrase “Up to Eleven” is a thing thanks to this movie), but it also looks and sounds like something that could have happened in real life. Most of the gags work, but it’s in its characters where the film finds its truth. I just hope the long-awaited sequel doesn’t ruin what was accomplished with This is Spinal Tap; this is one legacy I wouldn’t like to be tarnished.

This Is Spinal Tap will be re-released in a new 4K restoration for its 41st Anniversary in U.S. theaters on July 5-7, 2025.