This is GWAR digs behind the blood and guts spectacle of the most notorious of heavy metal freak shows and reveals a story of family, ego, heartbreak, and unrepentant artistry.

In the annals of shock metal, none are more over the top shocking than GWAR. With their blend of Alice Cooper-style vaudeville theatrics and gore drenched sci-fi horror storytelling, GWAR have endured as a punk metal institution and artist collective. Those who have attended a GWAR concert will no doubt have bore the brunt of the experience in the form of blood, vomit, and sperm that the band spray across the audience.

Of course, it is all fake, the creation of which is shown in the opening scene of This is GWAR, a documentary that works as an in-depth introduction for the uninitiated and a refresher for GWAR fans. Either way, the Scott Barber (The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story) directed This is GWAR is one of the finest examples of heavy metal documentary filmmaking, a sub-genre that has grown substantially over the last several years.

Through the use of new and archived interviews, along with a smattering of behind-the-scenes footage, This is GWAR tells the story of what is dubbed a “punk-rock Disney” artist collective that came together during the early 1980s at Richmond VCU. The “Walt Disney” of this collective is found in artist Hunter Jackson and musician Dave Brockie, whose uniquely twisted imaginations conjured a fictional group of half-naked hard-rocking alien marauders who flee their doomed Scumdog planet and bring their perverted form of destruction to Earth.

While GWAR’s line-up has constantly evolved, the creative spirit of the band is found in Jackson and Brockie, whose tumultuous relationship fuelled by their respective massive egos led to all matter of in-fighting that still festers raw emotional wounds, which Jackson especially projects in startling scenes of irrelevance towards Brockie’s death in 2014.

What the members of GWAR, past and current, do present is a collective front is in their unflinching approach to artistry. While the bands’ violent, sexual, and grotesque form of over-the-top satire has made them a target of censorship groups, their refusal to back down from their unique brand of shock metal has made them an alluring and enduring rock institution for over 30 years. Barber’s presentation of how the “magic” is made reminds that this heavy metal horror show is one built on far-out ideas and a lot of grease work. Fake blood and cum don’t grow on trees, you know!

In pulling the curtain back on this group of thong wearing, decapitating, guitar shredding, erect alien monsters from the slimy pits of Hell, This is GWAR presents the triumph and tragedy of artists constantly on the fringe of their craft, and sometimes even their sanity. This is GWAR, indeed!