NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE (2025)

Streaming on Hulu from Zapruder Films and NEON!
Directed by Matt Johnson.
Written by Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol.
Check out the trailer here!

Matt Johnson plays Matt, an enthusiastic wannabe entertainer who comes up with scheme after scheme to break into show business. Jay McCarrol plays Matt’s friend Jay, who is a little more down to earth, but always seems to go along with Matt’s wild plans. Matt’s latest plan involves time travel and though it seems like an impossible scheme, the plan works and Matt and Jay find themselves thrown waaay back in time to the ancient age of 2008, closer to the beginning of Matt and Jay’s relationship. Of course, hijinks ensue and Matt and Jay find themselves in a bit of a paradox that only another wild scheme can fix.

If you’re unfamiliar with the works of Matt Johnson, NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE is a good enough place to start as any. I’ve seen a few of his previous works and have been blown away by them; specifically, BLACKBERRY and especially the excellent OPERATION AVALANCHE. I still need to seek out his first film THE DIRTIES, which is his most controversial as it involves a school shooting. In all these films, Matt pretty much plays the same character. Matt is overzealous, with mad plans get himself and whomever is cast as his hapless partner into trouble while his partner sheepishly (in this case Jay) goes along with the plan against his better judgment. In that sense, they’re a bit like the classic comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, where the same characters are cast in different situations over and over again. Even the way Matt dresses with his tan suitcoat and fedora resembles the outfit of Harpo Marx, part of another classic comedy team, the Marx Brothers. So, don’t expect a lot of range in these characters to be shown in NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE. They’re the one consistent through Matt’s own movies and it’s fun to see them take on new predicaments.

But because the stories are so crazy, it’s fun seeing these two characters / actors playing themselves. And this story is an insane one. Without going into too much detail, over and again, I found myself baffled as to how these two guys did what they did in NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE. The film occurs through a few different timelines, mainly the present and 2008. But because these guys have been making films for this long, they don’t use expensive de-aging tech to make themselves look younger. They’ve cobbled together a story from old footage from their old webcam show, NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW from 2008, and paired it with new, modern footage, to make a time travel film like no other. And somehow, it all freakin’ works!

But on top of basically making this movie over the span of about twenty-years, they also pull off some stunts that seem impossible, like parachuting off of the CN Tower. As a person who suffers from a sane amount of vertigo, this early scene on the tower is some of the most toe-curling, head-slappingly insane stuff I’ve seen on film. They are basically combining Sacha Baron Cohen’s BORAT with JACKASS and these guys are smart enough, or lucky enough, to make it work.

For the most part, from what I have gleaned, much of NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MUSICAL is improvised with Jay and Matt riffing off of one another, but it seems the two have been friends so long that they do this as if they are following some mad script with how precise and funny this story is. There’s definitely a CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM feel here as they seem to just let the camera roll and fill in the gaps in their apartment with all the Matt and Jay back-and-forthings. It’s madness, but that’s the feeling you get from watching this film, asking yourself over and over, “How the hell did they do this?”

Yes, this is not much horror, though there is more than a bit of mad science going on. Matt is definitely like an unhinged Frankenstein with Jay tagging along out of a potent combo of lack of self-respect and a deep love for his friend. Seeing Jay work through his own ethical issues along the way is one of the more interesting threads of NIRVANA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE. It’s simply a movie that has to be seen to be believed and if you’re a genre fan, you have to seek out this offbeat, manic, and downright baffling bit of cinema.