Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

The El Duce Tapes Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 5, 2021

While it’s probable that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow still holds the prize for one of the most unlikely winners of the Best Song category at the Academy Awards, at least in terms of its rather provocative lyric, another Oscar winning song, and a rather iconic and even history making one at that, Isaac Hayes’ classic “Theme from Shaft”, certainly had its own unusual lyric. When the song was an enormous hit, the wonderfully wacky comedienne and singer Kaye Ballard did a guest appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson where, dressed in an evening gown and lots of jewels, she stood at a lectern and delivered a “dramatic reading” of the lyric, offering an "interpretation" of such immortal lines in the song as “Who's the black private dick / That's a sex machine to all the chicks?” That was of course played for its inherent comedy, but there’s a somewhat similar laugh out loud moment in the often quite disturbing documentary The El Duce Tapes where government official types who were part of the then au courant The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) expressed their outrage at the state of "modern music" by reading undeniably objectionable lyrics by a band many have probably never even heard of, The Mentors.

The backstory of The El Duce Tapes is in some ways as interesting as anything actually contained on the tapes. A struggling actor named Ryan Sexton reportedly found Mentors' head honcho El Duce (AKA Eldon Wayne Hoke, his real name) passed out drunk in the hedges outside of Sexton's apartment and, intrigued, Sexton started taping El Duce and the band on a series of VHS tapes. The fact that El Duce was "introduced" to Sexton in this way might already hint at certain self destructive tendencies, something that becomes completely apparent in the footage of El Duce offered up in this kind of horrifying but fascinating compendium. Suffice it to say that a happy ending is clearly not in the offing for El Duce.

This is a bizarre piece of filmmaking which can hardly be termed "entertaining" in the conventional sense, but which is often hard to ignore. Unabashedly dark and depressing, the documentary attempts to peel back the layers of a character whose facade is willfully thorny and defensive. Sociopolitical context also enters the fray, giving the film an almost comical subtext despite the sadness on display.

The El Duce Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The El Duce Tapes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.50:1. This is one of the few Arrow releases I've reviewed which doesn't have any real information about the transfer in the insert booklet, other than some passing comments by both the directors and the producer in separate "statements". Rodney Ascher and David Lawrence mention the film was "shot on location in some of the filthiest apartments and scummiest clubs in Los Angeles on a VHS camcorder by Ryan Sexton", and producer Tim Kirk mentioned how "Ryan Sexton and I dragged Ryan's giant VHS camcorder from our seedy Hollywood digs to an even seedier part of Hollywood. . .to interview El Duce and The Mentors." The source elements here are obviously very shoddy looking a lot of the time, to the point that it can actually be hard to make out what's in the frame on at least passing occasions (see screenshots 11 and 12 for just two examples). Some of the interview segments actually look relatively good, all things considered, but the entire presentation has "old school" anomalies like tracking problems and an often substantially noisy, even pixellated, appearance.

The El Duce Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The El Duce Tapes features LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. It may be debatable just how much you'd really want to hear a surround iteration of The Mentors' frequently bombastic and vitriolic "music", but the 5.1 mix here does open up the musical interstitials while definitely providing more "oomph" to the low end in particular. Otherwise, though, both tracks are similar if not identical in a lot of the talking head material, which sounds fine for the most part (there are occasional amplitude variances and the like, obviously due to the "fly on the wall" filming techniques). Optional English subtitles are available.

The El Duce Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with the Filmmakers and More includes Rodney Ascher, David Lawrence, Syd Garon and Tim Kirk.


• The Ryan Sexton Tapes (1080p; 34:37) is an audio interview with Sexton conducted by producer Tim Kirk. This plays to various stills.


• The El Duce Sessions (1080p; 4:17) features video footage of Nilbog recording the film's original score.


• More El Duce Tapes (1080p; 12:54) is described as a "free standing alternate assembly of unused material".


• More El Duce Stories (1080p; 3:45) also features an amusing description on the menu, "a cut up of a few of El Duce's famously long aimles stories assembled into one incomprehensible word salad."


• Tape 2: Hollywood Reservoir (1080i; 16:45) is an actually kind of sweet interchange between Sexton and Hoke.


• Reality Check present The Womentors (1080p; 6:17) focuses on a female version of The Mentors.


• Return to Rape Rock Mountain (1080i; 29:04) is a new interview with Steve Broy of The Mentors.

Additionally, Arrow also provides a typically nicely appointed insert booklet.

The El Duce Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's hard to really come out and recommend something like The El Duce Tapes to a "generalist" audience, but if you're a fan of so-called "shock rock" you will no doubt want to check this out. This is another release of a cult item where there are some inherent technical deficiencies that simply can't be overcome, but where a well done supplementary package may help to balance those scales.