This Is All the Spinal Tap You Need

I guess there's a temptation to call 1984's This Is Spinal Tap ground-breaking.  I've read so many people talk about how, when this came out, people couldn't figure out whether this was real, and only the hip people got it.  I think there's a lot of "print the legend" to that origin story.  I mean, mockumentaries were a thing long before this.  Heck, Woody Allen had made two.  Eric Idle and Lorne Michaels even did their similar "rockumentary" The Rutles years before this.  This kind of parody was the lifeblood of shows like SCTV and SNL.  In fact, the boys had even played Spinal Tap years before on network television.  So I don't know if it was really pushing any envelopes, but it was and is still a funny, well crafted flick.

Revisiting the original Spinal Tap in 2025, yes it still holds up as fresh and clever.  Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer have proved themselves to be brilliant comic actors and improvisors over their careers, but this is still their shining example.  Director Rob Reiner, probably pulling all the industry favors he can, has assembled an amazing supporting cast around them, including excellent comic turns from Bruno Kirby, Patrick Macnee, Howard Hesseman, Anjelica Houston, Paul Shaffer, Fran Drescher and scene stealer Fred Willard.  Some of these are just fleeting cameos, like Ed Begley Jr and Billy Crystal, but they all work together to enhance the perfect atmosphere.  The famous bits ("this one goes to eleven," etc) are as funny as ever, but they've also produced a credible human drama to house the jokes and the songs.

Criterion first released Spinal Tap as a non-anamorphic follow-up to their special edition laserdisc in 1998.  The rights soon reverted back to MGM who released their own special edition DVD in 2000, and then upgraded it to blu-ray in 2009, with an additional bonus disc.  Yeah, the extras situation is complicated, and we'll hash that all out below.  But the point is, you needed both the Criterion and MGM releases to have everything, and that's been the frustrating situation in the US all these years.  But now, looking to reclaim their title, Criterion has reclaimed... their title, with a new 3-disc UHD/ BD combo-pack.  Is it the ultimate edition we've been hoping for?

1) 1998 Criterion DVD; 2) 2000 MGM DVD; 3) 2009 MGM BD;
4) 2025 Criterion BD; 5) 2025 Criterion UHD.

The basic aspect ratio hasn't changed much over the years, but there have been slight shifts.  We start at about 1.78:1, which you pretty much had to upgrade once you got a widescreen set, anyway, since it's non-anamorphic.  You can see it's a little tighter on the right with extra picture vertically (especially along the bottom) compared to MGM's DVD, which is a just slightly windowboxed 1.83:1. The BD, a nice boost to HD that clears up a lot of compression and fuzziness, takes the opportunity to fine tune that to a more exact 1.85:1.  And Criterion's new transfer is also precisely 1.85:1, but you can see their new scan pulls out a little further to reveal some extra slivers of information around the edges.

This new scan, we're told in Criterion's booklet, is a "new 4K restoration ... created from the 16mm original camera negative and a 35mm blow-up interpositive."  I do wish these booklets gave us a little more details on the transfer, like what scenes were taken from an interpositive and why?  There's no reason the "About the Transfer" part of a 20-page booklet has to be limited to three sentences, including one about the audio.  But that gives us the basics.  This is 16mm, and not always from the OCN, so there's not going to be a fresh horde of fine detail.  When the band are standing in front of a bunch of tourist pamphlets in their hotel, you still can't read any of their covers.  Actually, your first take away will probably be that it's all a bit grey.  I say over and over how shots with HDR (and this UHD was done in Dolby Vision) will look darker than normal in SD because they're meant to be viewed on a higher nit display, but even accounting for that, Criterion's transfer is definitely on the dark side.  Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I'd guess the older transfers had a bit of a contrast and saturation boost to give them a more common, but less historically accurate look.  Anyway, Reiner is credited with supervising this, so let's hope he was paying attention.  It's certainly not distractingly dim in 4k, and the carefully rendered grain certainly gives this the most authentically filmic look of them all.

Audio-wise, the '98 Criterion DVD just has the original stereo mix, while MGM replaces it with a new 5.1 remix.  That's understandable for a rock concert movie, but a bit of a bummer for purists.  Their blu-ray bumps it up to DTS-HD, which is noticeably clearer in spots, and it brings back the 2.0l but the latter is disappointingly lossy.  So Criterion gives us the best of both worlds with the 5.1 in DTS-HD and the original stereo mix in LPCM.

Criterion's original DVD was surprisingly free of subtitle, but MGM quickly corrected that by introducing optional English and Spanish to their DVD and BD.  They also added French ones to the blu.  And now in 2025, Criterion drops those foreign ones, but keeps the English HoH.

The Final Tour

Now, I mentioned that the extras situation has always been frustrating with this film, and that hasn't been entirely cleared up; but they've gotten pretty close.  The '98 Criterion starts out with a lot of great stuff, including two fun but informative commentary tracks: one by the three stars, and one by Reiner, producer Karen Murphy, and their editors.  They also included almost 80 minutes of deleted scenes, practically a second feature's worth of content!  There's also some funny promo content and the early 20-minute "demo" version of the film called The Final Tour.

And MGM's DVD had a lot of that, including pretty much all the deleted scenes.  It's a bit confusing, because they list it all out differently in the menus... MGM ostensibly has eleven minutes less deleted scenes, but then they have stuff like the "Flower People" press conference listed separately, while that was among the deleted scenes on the Criterion.  And they have some bits, like a clip of Tap on The Joe Franklin Show, that Criterion didn't have.  MGM had a new, 5-minute interview with Reiner in character as Marty DiBergi.  The biggest short-comings were that MGM didn't have the two audio commentaries or The Final Tour - oof!  But they created their own, exclusive commentary with the stars in character as Tap, which is... kinda amusing, but wears a bit thin after a while.

The came MGM's blu, which essentially mirrored their DVD, in terms of both what it had and what it was missing, but they also included a new bonus DVD.  And this sucker was short - about twelve minutes of low quality, non-anamorphic footage in total.  It basically includes a brief performance by Tap from 2007 (introduced by Reiner and Ricky Gervais), and a short, but genuinely funny, interview with Guest in character as Nigel.  Nice to have, but MGM was clearly reaching just to add a "bonus disc" and make their new version more saleable.  Surely, they could've stuck those two little SD clips on their blu-ray.

Anyway, the good news is that Criterion is here to close the gaps.  Their new 2025 release has all three commentaries.  The Final Tour is back, and there are even more deleted scenes and promo clips than ever.  The Joe Franklin Show, the Marty DiBergi, the "Flower People" conference: all here.  There are also some new goodies, including a brand new half hour chat with Reiner and Patton Oswalt.  And there's a 2009 in-character interview feature with the band called Back From the Dead, which runs almost a full hour.  There are some clips (basically, the funniest scenes) from the 1992 television sequel The Return Of Spinal Tap, and the trailer for the new theatrical sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (I've seen it, and all the best jokes are in the trailer, so that honestly might be enough unless you're a real die-hard fan).  They also throw in a fun, full-color booklet with notes by critic Alex Pappademas.  The only thing they don't have are the MGM bonus disc clips from 2007.

So yes, this really is the ultimate edition that delivers all you need.  You could also track down one of the several low quality DVDs of Return Of Spinal Tap (fair warning: several foreign blu-rays claim to include this as a bonus feature, but it's a drastically cut down abridged version, so stay away from those) and that bonus DVD.  But honestly, I think after watching everything in this set, with a lot of the same jokes rehashed and same songs replayed, you'll already have had more than enough.  This is a really fun movie that still holds up, but it doesn't need to be a franchise.