Hated: G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies

The heroin-induced death of G.G. Allin last June was a decidedly anticlimactic end to the life of “the most dangerous man in rock & roll.” After all, Allin repeatedly promised fans and detractors alike that he'd go out in a final suicide showcase, taking the front row with him and thereby ensuring his grimy scum rock legend for all time. No such luck, though. Phillips's lean documentary on the man (shot last year as a student film for NYU) is an engrossing -- and thoroughly gross -- glimpse into the sociopathic life and work of Allin and his band, The Murder Junkies (brain-dead brother Merle Allin on guitar). The film is filled with videotaped images from G.G.'s chaotic live shows; here's G.G. defecating on stage and then eating/smearing/hurling his own excrement into the audience; here's the band, righteously drunk and unhindered by talent, stumbling into the speaker columns; here's the police arriving to break it all up (again and again). Phillips goes back to Allin's tiny hometown in Vermont and interviews his high school teachers, trying to get a fix on just how the phenomenon of G.G.'s excessive lifestyle came about, with little success. He also includes snippets of the group's appearance on Geraldo (after the skinhead chair-throwing incident several years back, it seems nothing can faze Rivera these days), cutting back and forth between that and interviews with G.G.'s fans and detractors. To his credit, Phillips keeps the film moving at a steady clip, but in the end, it's all much ado about nothing. G.G. Allin ends up coming across as a random explosion of useless spectacle -- despite his unfocused rants against “the system,” he's a rebel showman first and a subversive second... Wayne Newton covered in shit and swathed in pathetic rage.