THE EL DUCE TAPES (Rodney Ascher, David Lawrence, U.S.). 106 minutes. Rating: NNNN
Rodney Ascher, director of Room 237 and The Nightmare, returns with a grimy, prickly found-footage project that looks at the shock-rock scene of the early 90s through the story of The Mentors, a grotesque, deliberately offensive band whose frontman Eldon Hoke – who went by the stage name El Duce – sang about raping and brutalizing women.
Relying heavily on actor Ryan Sexton’s VHS footage of the band on and off-stage, Ascher and editor David Lawrence – who shares the doc’s directorial credit – build a clear-eyed look at Hoke’s stage persona, which often seems to be as much of a performance as the moral posturing of professional scolds Jerry Springer and Rush Limbaugh.
The symbiotic relationship between El Duce and 90s talk shows is a running thread, as is the suggestion that not all Mentors fans understood the purgative nature of the band’s music. Ascher and Lawrence draw a direct line between that and the current wave of violence and loathing in America, with Hoke’s own sad end becoming a footnote to a larger tragedy.
April 26, 8 pm, TIFF 3 April 27, 2:45 pm, Scotiabank 3 May 4, 8:15 pm, Scotiabank 8
