The Allins (Depressing Waste of Humanity Documentary Sadness)
Let me preface this by stating that I have never been a GG Allin fan. I know some of you swear by the guy and his “mission” but the truth ain’t nothing but the truth. Allin wasn’t a revolutionary or even a cut-rate performance artist, just another poseur playing the human geek show gambit in an attempt to win over the same shock hounds that read Mexican murder mags and pretend to worship serial killers. That said, while this isn’t the first documentary about GG Allin and his dopey family… it’s easily the best. The Allins (aka GG Allin: All in the Family) takes a deeper look at the survivors of GG’s legacy, in particular his mother Arleta and his brother Merle. While Merle copes with the loss of his brother by attempting to create a cottage industry around his memory, Arleta spends her days in relative privacy trying to wrap her head around the fact that “Kevin” is never coming home. Both are in some ways sympathetic and in others simply pathetic, but never once are they boring. Once the Murder Junkies get back on the road and the viewing audience is introduced to the human trainwreck that is Dino Sachs, a portrait of America surfaces…or is that one of Merle’s finger paintings he’s trying to flog on Facebook?
As a documentary, this film is both relentlessly insightful and a display of human worthlessness that in moments can be both hilarious and painfully aware. These people make money off the legacy of a brain-dead redneck geek show carny freak but are clearly uncomfortable with both the ramifications and the sheer outlandishness of GG’s fan base. When you’re dealing with a group of cretins who “pay homage” by showing up at the cemetery to relieve themselves on your family member’s grave as some sort of tribute, how are you supposed to react? By the time the camera crew finally get access to film Dino Sachs’ rotting and cluttered apartment, the point becomes glaringly obvious – These people have been so profoundly damaged by the experience of dealing with the life and “legacy” of GG Allin that they may never truly recover. This is one of the best documentaries I have seen in ages. Essentially a tribute piece, The Allins works best as a portrait of human worthlessness roughly akin to the works of John Waters and Andy Milligan that hits as had as a brick. Even in death, GG Allin is no fun to be around.
Written by David, Comptroller of Your Last Scrap of Existence
The Allins (2017)
Sami Saif
5 / 5
