Why, God, Why: They’re Making a Sequel to This Is Spinal Tap

As a dude who loves cinema, it infuriates me that studios can’t leave classic movies alone. Did we need anything beyond the first Ghostbusters? Why did The Matrix need three follow-up films, each more convoluted and aggressively transparent than the last? And let’s not even talk about the Psycho sequels. Now, it’s been revealed that one of heavy metal’s most important landmarks: is being exhumed for a sequel: This Is Spinal Tap.

Yup, according to Deadline, This Is Spinal Tap will get an official sequel as part of its 40th anniversary. The mockumentary — or, if you will, rockumentary — will be spearheaded by original director Rob Reiner, and will star band guitarist/vocalist David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer).

Says Reiner of the film’s background and plot:

“The plan is to do a sequel that comes out on the 40th anniversary of the original film and I can tell you hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one? For so many years, we said, ‘nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it, to do it. You want to honor the first one and push it a little further with the story.

“They haven’t spent any time together recently, and that became the premise. The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away. In reality, Tony Hendra passed away. Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert. She was basically going to sue them if they didn’t. All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert.”

There’s only one way I will consider supporting this movie: if they do some terrible modern scene shit. In the same way that we get “Gimme Some Money” and “(Listen to the) Flower People” in the original, I want to see that St. Hubbins did a bad nu-metal album and scenecore record in the 40 years since we last saw him. I want Methods of Mayhem via Spinal Tap. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of old-dude hair metal jokes, right?

We’ll see how this turns out, but honestly, I’m pessimistic. Here’s “Sex Farm.”