sidandnancy

Movie Review: Who Killed Nancy

DOCUMENTARY

WHO KILLED NANCY (Peace Arch Entertainment)

STARS > Glen Matlock, Steve Dior, Howie Pyro, Alan Parker

DIRECTOR > Alan G. Parker

RATING > [2.5/5]

OPENS > JUL 30

“Sid Vicious will not have to stand trial for the murder of a girlfriend at the Chelsea Hotel. Sid is no longer Vicious; he’s dead.” So said a New York City TV reporter the day after the former Sex Pistols bassist died from a heroin overdose in February of 1979. Had he lived, the English punk icon probably would’ve have gone to prison for the murder of Nancy Spungen, his 20-year-old American girlfriend, who was found dead from a single stab wound on October 12, 1978, in the room the couple shared at Manhattan’s seedy Chelsea Hotel. Vicious more or less confessed to the murder, after all—and then recanted, and then said he didn’t remember what happened. Nearly 32 years later, what exactly went down in that flea-bitten flophouse remains a mystery for the ages. Some believe that Nancy stabbed herself in the abdomen in an extreme, Mr. Brownstone-induced version of the self-harm performed by modern-day “cutters.” Or that someone tried to rob the couple, but Nancy put up a fight and was killed in the process. Or that one of the dealers who stopped by the room that night just couldn’t take Spungen’s incessant junkie whining anymore and decided to put her out of her misery. But few people seem to think that Vicious, who by all accounts was passed out on heroin that night, could have actually done it himself.

Writer/director Alan Parker explores all of the above possibilities in Who Killed Nancy, a documentary released in the UK last year that makes its U.S. debut this week. Based on the book Sid Vicious: No One Is Innocent, one of Parker’s three (!) Vicious biographies, the film includes interviews with many of the characters from Sid’s inner circle, including NYC punk fixture Howie Pyro (formerly of D Generation and Danzig), who was with Vicious on the latter’s fatal night; guitarist Steve Dior, who played in Sid’s last band, the Idols; former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock (Sid’s predecessor in the Pistols), ex-Slits guitarist Viv Albertine, filmmaker Don Letts, and a weathered assortment of ex-groupies, junkies and hangers-on.

But it’s Parker himself who steers this narrative through 89 minutes of half-remembered anecdotes, half-baked theories and long-forgotten TV footage. All told, he’s written eight Sex Pistols books (including the three Vicious tomes), and he certainly seems to have spent enough time with the main players—including Sid’s mum, Anne Beverly—to be considered a bona fide expert. But not even the director’s recurring onscreen presence keeps Who Killed Nancy from flying off the rails into abject speculation. While the film does a fairly convincing job of arguing Sid’s innocence, it provides little substantive evidence as to whom Nancy’s killer might actually have been. Meanwhile, it’s perhaps telling that three of the four living Pistols did not participate in this documentary. Of course, the subject matter might bring up too many bad memories. Or maybe they’re just sick of talking about something that happened in a shitty hotel room 32 years ago. Or maybe they think Parker is just a little too far up a dead man’s ass. It’s as unclear as who killed Nancy, really. But no one’s made that documentary yet.

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