Gee, Thanks Elvira

You know it's hard enough to get people to take low budget B grade Euro Horror seriously as it is without Elvira and her boobs getting in your face with all sorts of cheap wise cracks. I used to like her but dishing it out to DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT is a new low. Maybe on late night TV it would come off as something other than a smug, smarmy, unfunny ribbing of a very special little movie that deserves to be seen it it's unmolested form, but her DVD of this is a genuine tragedy for Euro Horror fans. Whats sad is that it's infinitely easier and less expensive to obtain than even one of the poor quality public domain DVD-R burns of this movie, let alone the majestic widescreen version from Japan. I bought her DVD in the same manner one might open up a carton of milk that they know has gone bad to see the chunks and simmering ooze of rot for themselves.

Yes sports fans, for $6 or so you too can laugh and guffaw like a skull chucked moron at an imaginative, perverse little thriller that has never gotten the treatment it deserves in North America. Laughing at DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT or DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE is like laughing at a Bob Ross painting or somebody doing an impersonation of Mister Rogers. It may be absurd but of this is anyone's idea of "funny" then your sense of humor is on the same level as fart jokes or watching an old lady fall down a flight of stairs; It's shallow and cruel. Like her movies are anything to be proud of. The worst part about it is the Guilt by Association stigma that will now be attached to the movie -- If Elvira dished it out, why even bother looking at the thing for any merit? Better yet why take horror as a genre seriously at all. It is the one form of social expression where you can really take a gamble on "new" ideas, or at least it was before this PG-13 crapfest of dumbing down movies began.

Nowadays you have these new movies like SAW and HOSTEL and CHAOS that don't deserve more than one word in their title and are designed to mortify viewers with imagery they might see on a battlefield in Iraq, and that passes for horror. It's just not the same as an actual concoction involving music, visuals, performances by actors, and atmosphere. DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT was written by the guy who made BLOODY PIT OF HORROR and has cinematography by Joe D'amato before he became Joe D'amato. It may not be Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA but it deserves to be seen unmolested and without some kind of deck-stacking to convince viewers that it's all a ridiculous farce. Same with DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE: These are marvelous little fairy tales for grown ups made at a time when anybody anywhere could make a movie with no money really, and the cinema because a genuine international form. It was a special time that is gone forever and witnessing Elvira take a dump on that tradition is nothing short of sickening. These DVDs will be on the $5.99 rack before Christmas is over, a shameful devaluation of a cunningly made little masterpiece of form over content and if Elvira couldn't hack it with her own career that is no excuse to dishing out onto those who could.

I don't know which would have been worse: This DVD or a Media Blasters hack-up job all incorrectly framed and perhaps made from a composite passed off as an "uncut print". In any event cult horror was better off when it was in the underground, fans of the genre should avoid this DVD and Elvira should just slink off into retirement. Sure you gotta make a buck, but please don't do it at the expense of my culture.