One of the few acts who can legitimately thank Beavis and Butt-Head for making them famous (as opposed to merely cult), Gwar was, and still is, an American heavy metal act with punk roots who got started in the 1980s in Richmond, Virginia. They’re best known for performing in elaborate monster/alien costumes (mostly big headpieces and bare midriffs) and deploying lashings of fake bodily fluids and prosthetics in their act, such as a notorious massive codpiece called the Cuttlefish of Cthulhu that sprays “sperm” at the audience – and got them banned in North Carolina at one point.
That episode is one of many recounted in this in-depth oral history rock doc, a sturdily made work whose appeal will very much depend on viewers’ interest in the band in the first place. Director Scott Barber doesn’t really pan out to discuss Gwar’s context much, either in terms of 80s-90s punk-metal, or the southern music scene, or even the overlap between art-school craft and fringe performance, all of which would be fascinating subjects in their own right.
