Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
The old rockers are drawn out of retirement for one final gig, in New Orleans.
Nostalgia rocks: Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest interviewed by Rob Reiner
Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.
They were washed up forty years ago. Yet, following the documentary This is Spinal Tap, the British band found a whole new audience. Stranger still, the film launched the mockumentary format as a profitable new genre, as well as launching the real-life career of a fictitious rock’n’roll band (comprised of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer). While the concept of a fictionalised documentary was not entirely new, the cult success of Spinal Tap (1984) kicked off a cheap and cheerful genre, which in the intervening years has spawned everything from Man Bites Dog (1992) to Borat (2006). The Spinal Tap line-up itself first appeared on ABC TV’s The TV Show with Rob Reiner, which led to the movie, directed by Reiner, and then four albums, including the latest, The End Continues (2025), released as a soundtrack to the new film.
Since 1984 the English band and the movie have accumulated quite a cult following and Rob Reiner’s follow-up has much in it to keep the faithful chuckling in their beards. It’s been fifteen years since the band played together but some contractual small print inherited by the daughter of the group’s original manager requires them to perform one last time. As luck would have it, An Evening With Stormy Daniels at New Orleans’ Lakeside Arena has been cancelled, providing a last-minute vacancy. It is the perfect opportunity for the director of the original film, Martin DiBergi (Reiner), to make a reunion doc. As resolute as ever, DiBergi tracks down David St. Hubbins (McKean), who’s now composing music for podcasts and on-hold telephonic fodder. Nigel Tufnel (Guest) has moved to Berwick-on-Tweed and opened a cheese and guitar shop called Cheese and Guitars, where customers can exchange their stringed instruments for a wheel of cheddar. Finally, DiBergi finds Derek Smalls in Tooting Bec, London, where the latter is now curator of a glue museum, a new passion for the former bass player (fittingly, Derek believes he was the glue that held the band together). Meanwhile, as eleven of the group’s drummers have died in interesting circumstances, a new percussionist must be found, and so big names like Questlove, Chad Smith and Lars Ulrich (of Metallica) are approached. Eventually they find their man, Didi Crockett, a hugely talented lesbian unafraid of the drummers’ curse.
In the supporting ranks, Chris Addison plays Simon Howler, the band’s new manager who not only suffers from St Cecilia’s Curse, which renders him tone-deaf, but who suggests their merchandise includes T-shirts, baseball caps and chairlifts and that if one or two of them dies, it would hugely boost their legacy. Some of it really is too silly (such as the bug costumes they are forced to wear), but when the band members are allowed to be themselves and just talk simple, there is a genuine comic vibe. There is a high chuckle quotient, if never quite the belly laugh Reiner might have been hoping for. And when Spinal Tap are harmonising and jamming in the studio and on stage, they aren’t half bad musicians, either.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Valerie Franco, C. J. Vanston, John Michael Higgins, Nina Conti, Kerry Godliman, Chris Addison, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Garth Brooks, Questlove, Trisha Yearwood, Chad Smith, Lars Ulrich, June Chadwick, Fran Drescher, Paul Shaffer, Garth Brooks, David Furnish, Henry Diltz.
Dir Rob Reiner, Pro Rob Reiner, Michele Reiner and Matthew George, Ex Pro Frank Marshall, Screenplay Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Rob Reiner, Ph Lincoln Else, Pro Des Michelle C. Harmon, Ed Bob Joyce, Costumes Lauren Bott.
Castle Rock Entertainment-Sony Pictures.
83 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 12 September 2025. Cert. 15.
