This is GWAR, 2021.
Directed by Scott Barber.
Featuring Dave Brockie, Adam Green, Ethan Embry, Jon Freeman, Bob Gorman, and Bam Margera.
SYNOPSIS:
Documentary charting the history of shock metal group GWAR.
GWAR are a heavy metal band from Richmond, Virginia, who have been peddling their shock metal wares to crowds of rabid fans since 1985. However, chances are that mainstream audiences may not be too familiar with them because GWAR are an acquired taste, not necessarily musically but aesthetically. This is because GWAR aren’t a band in the traditional sense – at least not outwardly, although this film may change that perspective – but they are more of a collective, a hive mind of musicians who dress up as alien characters on stage to perform their theatrical, and very gooey, live shows.
But unlike, say, Kiss, who wear make-up and adopt stage personas, GWAR have had several – dozens, in fact – different people playing the same roles over the years; someone leaves the band, get someone else in. Doesn’t matter if they don’t look the same as the previous person as they’re covered in huge prosthetics and costumes, and it is this continuity that has allowed the band to continue without the usual complaints about which line-ups are better, etc.
This is GWAR, however, is not all about the music, it is about the band and how they have forged a career and gained a cult following with their ludicrous stage show, a show that includes huge ejaculating penis’s (fake ones, obviously), the front row getting covered in all manner of (fake) bodily fluids and, during one controversial tour, a band member dressed as a priest getting various objects shoved up his (extremely fake) backside. It’s all entertainment in the name of rock n’ roll, but not everybody sees it like that and the documentary is quite revealing in the thought processes behind the band’s work ethic, which began with frontman Dave Brockie, adopting the stage name Oderus Urungus, and filmmaker Hunter Jackson, known as Techno Destructo when in character, coming together from their previous projects to create the whole GWAR universe.
As with most documentaries it helps if you are already a fan of the subject, but This is GWAR follows a similar path to 2008s Anvil! The Story of Anvil by focusing on the personalities involved and making you feel for these people and their struggle to get their art out there, making them the protagonists in their own story. With GWAR, what comes across very quickly is that Dave Brockie and Hunter Jackson had no love for each other, especially after the band had some mainstream success and a surprise Grammy nomination, but their creative partnership worked, up to a point.
Jackson left the band he helped to form after their relationship had broken down completely, with Jackson claiming that Brockie had fully become the arrogant rock star frontman he had always seen himself as, and then claimed he hated all the other band members. Usual rock star stuff but when the other members of the band are brought to tears whilst recounting how it all went down is as heart wrenching as any romantic movie script Hollywood could come up with, and it serves to remind you that there are real human beings inside the costumes.
Despite Hunter Jackson leaving the band carried on and Dave Brockie’s behaviour became increasingly more unstable, the frontman overdosing on heroin and passing away in 2014. Jackson is completely honest in his reactions to being told of his former bandmate’s death, but time is a good healer and the band, now fronted by their former bass player Michael Bishop (as Blöthar the Berserker), welcomed Jackson back to perform with the band, which he has continued to do sporadically ever since.
With even more tragedies than Dave Brockie’s death to befall the band over the years, the overall picture is one of a band with more survival instincts than a wild animal, and by the time the inevitable “We shall continue to do this until we can’t” wrapping up comes along you feel like you have been on a full-on emotional journey with some of the most bizarre but honest rock stars you’ll ever see. They really don’t make them like this anymore.
So even if you are not familiar with GWAR or their music this documentary, if not necessarily making you a fan, will at least make you appreciate where they are coming from, which means the filmmakers have done their job and not just made a fanboy-pleasing fluff piece. The only real complaint is that there probably isn’t enough music – or whole songs – featured to give you an idea of what their ‘hits’ are or where to start if you are not already a fan; even a few music videos in the special features would have been handy. As it is, we get some short interview pieces and behind-the-scenes footage that wasn’t included in the main feature but not a lot else.
That small gripe aside, This is GWAR is one of the most enjoyable music documentaries to have been made for a while, giving new meaning to the phrase ‘warts and all’.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
