On the morning of
28, 1993
was found in a
York
final, riot-inducing show. His sudden death surprised those who knew Allin, but
the irony that he would die alone was lost on few, following years of
threatening to actually take his own life on stage in mid-performance.
Road Trip and Old School director Todd Phillips’ senior film thesis project at
New York University, Hated was finished
just before Allin’s demise, and it chronicles his life in unflinching fashion,
never shying away from the on-or-off stage havoc Allin created to challenge what
he saw as a lazy, living-asleep nation of conformists and non-believers. So if
that means footage of Allin smearing his own feces on his face and flinging it
into the crowd, or getting urinated on by a girl at a party… well, then so be
it.
Allin — who once smashed out six of his own teeth and over the
course of his life was arrested over 50 times, on charges ranging from
disorderly conduct to exposing himself to minors — is an undeniably compelling
non-fiction subject, simply for all his outrageous behavior. While Phillips
doesn’t pretend to wear a cap of objectivity (he was responsible for booking the
spoken word performance at NYU where Allin stripped in front of the crowd,
inserted a banana in his ass and taunted the audience with threats and
obscenities, resulting in a stand-off), neither does he ask many tough
questions of Allin, save for one bleary hotel segment where Allin confesses he’ll
probably end up “in prison or a hospital.” This is mostly a rib-nudging,
along-for-the-wild-ass-ride piece of point-and-shoot entertainment, sans
psychological examination.
Clips from an Allin appearance on Geraldo Rivera’s talk show
are amusing in a time capsule sort of way, but it’s cynical former band mate “Chicken
John” actually offers up the most insightful analysis — not something you’d
necessarily expect from a guy with such a name, nor someone who smashes himself
in the face repeatedly during the movie’s concluding wrap-up, illustrating his
point that Allin was essentially a phony performance-artist nihilist, and that
such antics really don’t hurt that much. (Ummm… OK.) A counter-culture document
through and through, Hated isn’t particularly an extremely well made movie, but it by and large held my attention on the strength of its bizarre
subject. Featured songs include “Die When You Die,” “Gypsy Motherfuckers,” “Fuck
Authority,” “Suck My Ass It Smells” (seriously), “I Want To Kill You,” “Carmelita,”
“Bite It You Scum,” “When I Die,” “Highest Power,” “I Kill Everything I Fuck (The
AIDS Song)” and “Look Into My Eyes & Hate Me.”
Housed in a regular Amray case, this superlatively packaged special edition release
of Hated comes with a special poster
offer for a reproduction of serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s original portrait of
Allin (the pair struck up a pen-pal friendship); a set of temporary tattoos
designed after Allin’s own body art; an exclusive interview with brother Merle
Allin and drummer Dino Sex; an art gallery of submissions from the contest held
to select the release’s cover art; a rare, three-minute interview with Allin’s
mom; three music videos; and an engaging audio commentary track with Phillips
and the aforementioned Allin and Sex. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here.
C+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)