Filmmaker Todd Phillips defies the PBS-ready norm with his bile-inducing documentary,
Hated: GG Allin & the Murder Junkies
"I hate everyone. My mind's a machine gun, my body's the bullets, and the audience is the target." - GG Allin
The most frightening (and refreshing) aspect of the documentary Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies is that punk icon Allin isn't revealed as yet another MTV-ready poseur or corporate pawn. He doesn't go home after a long night of shrieking inane lyrics, rolling around in broken glass and eating his own shit to greet a pleasant wife and watch the evening news. Nope, there's no picket fence wake-up call to Allin's phantasmagoric existence, which documentarian Todd Phillips chronicles in sickening detail. Probably the last word on the subject - until GG finally makes good on his oft-made promise to off himself onstage - Hated delves deeply into the bloodstained world of human abomination.
"If GG was not being what he is now, he would be murdering people," says Unk, the articulate Allin devotee whom Phillips showcases in Hated. "He'd be killing people - no question about it, no ifs, ands or buts."
It was this odious character that Phillips wanted to capture from the start. Hated began as a short film at New York University: "I used GG's brother Merle in a short [consisting of him violently beating up a homeless guy] and GG loved it, so he agreed to let me do this profile on him. He likes the attention - to be known."
Covering such as explosive subject, the production was not without mishap. Apprehending on celluloid the fully enraged Allin onstage with the Murder Junkies was like dropping a production crew into the middle of the My Lai Massacre - considering the bald brute's propensity for viciously attacking (or flinging his own fresh feces at) unsuspecting concertgoers. "It's like going to see the most bizarre freak show in your life," says Unk of the typical Allin gig. "And GG's the best freak show you can get. There's gonna be blood, rape, beating-up - whatever's going on, it's gonna be going on." To combat this fog of battle, Phillips used two well-marked camera crews. "We put orange patches all over them, so GG would know who they were and hopefully not punch them out." The result is Hated's instantly impactive opening - a brief show at NYC's Space at Chase that resulted in several broken noses and GG hastily fleeing the scene to avoid parole violation.
Phillips was nearly expelled after setting up and filming a disastrously misrepresented Allin solo performance (a poetry reading!) at the university - highlights of which include GG jamming a banana up his butt, consuming the rectally reworked results and tossing chairs at terrified coeds. Created by Phillips, the situation (among others) reeks of Hard Copyesque manipulation. But then again, this filmmaker also cites the muckraking TV show as the cutting edge of American documentary filmmaking - and an avid Drew Barrymore fixation as his only vice.
Allin, whose endomorphic physique boasts a road map of raised scar tissue derived from past performances, is possibly the best argument for retroactive abortion. But how and from what did this creature evolve? Despite a clever blend of performance clips and interviews (with GG himself, brother/bass-playing bandmate Merle, former high school buddies, teachers and assorted Allin encounterers), Hated draws few Darwinian conclusions while clearly illustrating the outcome: a man unfettered by the rules of society and with absolutely no regard for others.
"He didn't really get along with anyone - especially at school," explains the bald, porkchopped-sideburned, Hitler-ish mustachioed Merle in the film. "He started rebelling from the very beginning - he'd go to high school wearing women's clothing."
Freudians would probably decipher Allin's raw, unmitigated rage by noting his remarkably tiny penis - displayed (un)prominently throughout the film - but I'd be inclined to blame a bad gene pool (which would also explain Merle).
Of course, the truth may lie on the cutting room floor. "There were some things we took out," Phillips confesses before describing a particularly disturbing scene involving a ketchup enema and some french fries. "Probably the most incriminating thing was about GG's suicide promise and that Merle knows when and how he's going to do it. But when the shit comes down, I don't want to be held responsible on murder chargers. The plan is that he'll take some people with him, but GG says wild stuff when he's drunk and the things are going too well for him right now. When he does MTV Unplugged, hopefully.
Not surprisingly, this threat is more of an added attraction than a deterrent to serious Allin aficionados. Says Merle, "I've had plenty of people say to me, 'I'm gonna be right in the front row when GG kills himself, and hopefully he'll take me with him.' That's a pretty hard-core fan."
And another good argument to experience Allin on film.
Financing the project through various means (working in the Miramax marketing department, driving a cab, credit card fraud and assorted thievery), Phillips cut together a palatable, nondemonstrative segment of Hated that impressed the "right" people, winning him a post production completion grant from Time Warner (!). The film was completed by Phillips and editor Alex Crawford under the aegis of Christine Choy, the lone NYU faculty member to support the project, and (despite administration objection) included the supposedly prestigious NYU screening schedule - until Phillips himself surprised event coordinators by pulling the piece as an act of protest against their intolerance.
In all, Hated is a must-have for Allin fans and detractors alike and probably the best film I've seen so far this year. No lie.
But how did the unpredictably bestial performer react to the film?
"GG actually embraced me after seeing it," Phillips says with obvious relief. "And he's not the kind of guy I'd expect too many compliments from."
Phillips is currently working on Alex Crawford's documentary about NYC-mainstay Al Goldstein. Hated is available for $27.95 (postage paid) from:
Film Threat Video
P.O. Box 3170
Los Angeles, CA 90078-3170
For the soundtrack, featuring cover art by serial killer John W. Gacy, 12 Allin tunes and interviews, write to:
Performance Records
P.O. Box 156
New Brunswick, NJ 08903
David E. Williams
Return to The GG Allin SuperSite Media Guide