You Ain't Seen Me, Right? - Hated (1994)

Ever feel like there should be more to cinema than CGI animals and Ashton Kutcher? Then look no further! You Ain't Seen Me, Right? is the weekly feature that shines a big ol' respectable critiquing spotlight on some little-known films you really should watch.

You Ain't Seen Me, Right? is brought to you by Daniel Palmer, of Part-Time Infidel web fame. Before he writes one of these features, he cries: “By Jungle Law, the Ghost Who Walks calls forth the power of ten Roger Eberts!”

Hated (1994)
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Those who consider Marilyn Manson's Bible Belt-baiting theatrics the apotheosis of shock would be advised to witness the dubious delights of GG Allin in full swing. Front man of the infamous Punk band the Murder Junkies, Allin took the genre's shock tactics to new depths, earning himself a rabid cult following in the process. His onstage antics have become the stuff of legend for all the wrong reasons.

A chance meeting with Allin's brother and Murder Junkies bassist, Merle, inspired Todd Philips to make his junior film school project about GG, who had just served three months in prison for the rape and torture of a female acquaintance. Allin skips parole to take the Murder Junkies on the road, backed by an equally inept, capricious band - including a heroin ravaged Dee-Dee Ramone on guitar, for a week.

Allin's own unique brand of ‘performance art' is one of the most disturbing things you'll ever see - naked and caked in his own faeces, he leaves the stage to writhe in broken glass and pick fights with the audience, hurling excrement at them and inserting items of varying dimension into his rectum. After capturing such shocking scenes, Philips endeavoured to find out what inspired Allin to debase himself.

The fact that Phillips has gone on to enjoy huge success directing witless comedies like Road Trip (2000), Starsky and Hutch (2004) and The Hangover (2009) makes his achievement on Hated all the more miraculous, refraining from glorifying Allin or wallowing in his worst excesses. Allin is given a forum for his opinions, but this is contrasted with footage of a disgruntled former band member dismissing him as aimless and the college students who cannot disguise their amusement at his attempted provocation.



Looking into Allin's background, one is not short of explanations as to what shaped his misanthropic personality, chief amongst them the fact that he was given the name Jesus Christ Allin by his priggish, abusive father. Phillips' visit to the New Hampshire town where Allin grew up offers more insights into his development. It emerges that Allin began to rail against the stifling conformity of small-town values at an early age; attending school in women's clothing and beginning his lifelong reliance on hard drugs.

Allin had a (Charles) Manson-esque hold over his fanbase, which consisted of three groups - alienated youths who related to his nihilistic outsider stance, violent jocks who attended his shows to pick fights and hipsters who viewed the whole thing with ironic detachment. His elevation to the status of underground icon is part of the same strange phenomenon that sees serial killers become celebrities.

To put it mildly, Hated is not for the squeamish - watching Allin beat up a female heckler at one of his spoken word shows is a particular low point - but it is an incisive study of a nasty, callous subculture that has sadly been co-opted by the mainstream. If GG is an innovator of anything it is the schadenfreude that is now a staple of prime-time TV.
Wow - bit of a change of pace this week, isn't it? You were expecting European auteurs, and you got flinging faeces. Who knows what will be in next week's You Ain't Seen Me, Right?!.