“This Is Spinal Tap” Celebrates Its Golden 41st Anniversary 4K Restoration In Theaters July 5-7

Created by Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, “This Is Spinal Tap” chronicles England’s loudest and most punctual band on their disaster-filled U.S. tour. Experience the remastered, remixed, and definitive 4k version of what can only be described as a mockumentary masterpiece.

Fun Facts/Behind The Scenes:

Many viewers were initially fooled into thinking Spinal Tap was a real band, due to the film’s realistic style and performances.
In 2002, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry for being culturally and historically significant.
Spinal Tap originated from a sketch – The band first appeared in a 1978 TV pilot called The TV Show, where Michael McKean and Christopher Guest improvised their characters after being burned by an on-stage effect.
Over 100 hours of footage were shot for the film, despite having no formal script (all the dialogue was improvised), and scenes were shot documentary-style using handheld 16mm cameras.
The film was only made thanks to Norman Lear, who backed the project with a $2 million budget after major studios initially passed on it.
The backstage “lost” scene was inspired by Tom Petty; footage of him wandering through a maze of doors trying to find the stage in Germany led directly to one of the film’s most iconic moments.

Musician Acclaim

The film resonated with real musicians; Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osbourne, Jerry Cantrell, and others related to the film’s backstage chaos and mishaps.
Lars Ulrich of Metallica described their co-headlining tour with Guns N’ Roses as ‘so Spinal Tap,’ and discussed the influence of Spinal Tap’s Smell the Glove on Metallica’s black album.
U2’s The Edge said the film made him weep, as it captured how vacuous big-label rock had become.

Critic Acclaim

Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect 4/4 stars, calling it “one of the funniest, most intelligent, most original films of the year” and later included it in his Great Movies list.
Gene Siskel also gave it 4/4 stars, noting it was so convincing that viewers might initially believe the band was real.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the film as “a witty, mischievous satire” and a clear labor of love.
Critics noted the film’s brilliance in satirizing both rock star lifestyles and the documentary format itself.
The film holds a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.6/10 and is widely considered one of the best films of 1984.
On Metacritic, the film has a high score of 92/100, indicating universal acclaim.
It ranked #29 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list.
Empire magazine ranked it #48 on its list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time in 2008.
In 2011, Time Out London named This Is Spinal Tap the best comedy film of all time.
The Writers Guild of America listed it as the 11th funniest screenplay ever in 2015.

Only in Theaters July 5-7