Reviews

Let's see... where do I start?  With GG's face completely covered in blood only four songs into his set in Asbury Park?  How about him grabbing a woman standing by the stage in Atlanta and going down on her?  Later he pulls a traffic cone on stage and sits on it, doing his best to jam it up his bare ass.  Maybe I'll start with GG in Austin, Texas taking a microphone stand and smashing a fan in the head before his band, The Murder Junkies even play a note.  It's all there for the sick and twisted fucks who are into that sort of thing.
 
How about this... let me back up and start over.
 
You all have heard of GG Allin.  If you haven't, I' m not getting into it.  Look it up.  Stories of his fabled shows are the thing of legend and tall tales.  One thing's for sure, GG Allin wasn't exactly right in the head.  It seems like he really thought he was put on this Earth to save rock and roll... or destroy it.  In the end, he did neither.  He killed himself by overdosing after a show in New York City.
 
Terror in America chronicles three shows on GG's 1993 tour of the same name.  The gigs were filmed during the last months and even weeks of his life.  To be honest, this is the first I'd really ever seen of the man outside of tiny blips here and there on the internet.  After watching this DVD, I can't say I see GG Allin as the same psychopath I'd only read about.  Don't get me wrong, I still think he was out of his fucking mind, but now he seems somewhat more human.
 
Forget all the crazy shit he did on stage.  Forget seeing GG flopping ar ound on his back with his small dick hanging out.  Forget watching him take a crushed beer can and repeatedly hitting himself in the head until his face drips crimson.  The most interesting thing here, is the interaction the people who came to see him had with the performer himself.  Some of these people wipe the blood off GG's face with their own sweaty bodies.  Others stick hands in GG's face until he takes a fist full of their hair and then punches them square in the jaw.  All these people (including the girl I mentioned earlier who allowed GG's grungy mouth between her legs) actually look like they're enjoying it.  They stay right up front during the entire 30 minute set.
 
At least 95 percent of the crowd however, stand at a safe distance, so when GG moves in on their territory, they run like they're being chased by a mad gorilla.  Even when GG is on the floor with the rabid fans right up front by the stage, he looks more like a wild beast who's escaped from the zoo, a wild beast facing down angry zookeepers.  I wonder how many of these people saw GG as just that, a crazed animal they were mocking and taunting, waiting for him to explode in a fit of unbridled rage.  Either way, in the end, they got what they wanted.
 
The DVD contains a few short extras that show GG more as a person than his antics inside a club.  He talks to fans and signs autographs at a record store, he lays down vocals with his band in the studio, and strangely enough, has fun joking around in someone's backyard swimming pool.
 
The video work is shoddy at best and the songs are simple, abrasive and childish.  Terror in America is more a lesson in the depths of human depravity than it is a concert film.  One thing is for sure, GG Allin was one of the sickest, most punk motherfuckers to ever set foot in front of a crowd, no matter what genre of "punk" you adhere to.
 
Do I recommend people watch this?  Not exactly.  I'd say it's more of a textbook case for college psychology professors, but people enjoy watching other people do dumb shit, and after watching Terror in America, there was plenty of that at any given show put on by GG Allin.