The Killer Elephants - review by Tellusfilm.com

The kind people at Tellusfilm wrote a very fine review of Attackafants first DVD-release, The Killer Elephants. You can all all read it in Swedish here, but they were very nice and translated the review to English for you non-Swedes to read! Enjoy!

The other night I put ”The Killer Elephants”, hot from the presses, into my DVD-player. You don’t recognize the title? Not that strange perhaps. It’s a relative obscure Thai action movie from 1976, nothing you will find at your local movie rental shop’s Top Ten shelf. If it hadn’t been for the newly started distribution company Attackafant Entertainment, which released this movie in collaboration with Njutafilms, we poor freezing Swedes would probably never have had a chance to see it.

The story isn’t that obvious, men honestly: if you’re going to watch a movie with the title “The Killer Elephants”, is the story really that important? That’s what I thought. But to put it short, it seems to be a cop that with more or less help from a slightly less law-obedient acquaintance tries to free a village from a terrorizing gangster. At least that’s what I think it’s about, I was busy following all the brawls and car chases. Elephants? Yup, there is some nice elephant action as well.

The first time I heard about the movie, or rather the title, I thought it was a movie about killer elephants, perhaps the mutated result of a scary experiment gone wrong. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. These are regular elephants, albeit used as demolition artists and car crushers. Very cool (even if mutated killer elephants would have been even cooler). There’s also a scene in this movie that I’m willing to bet a few bucks will never be reproduced in another movie. Bandits knocked out cold by elephant penises are tragically underrepresented in movies, that’s all I can say.

I had a blast watching “The Killer Elephants”. It’s obvious that 70’s action from Asia not always was that different from its western counterpart regarding the actual core of the storytelling. There’s a lot of “Hey ho, let’s go”.

I was positively surprised about the picture and sound quality. Call me narrow-minded, but if someone says “Thai action from 1976” I expect pretty awful quality, in the vein of fourth or fifth generation VHS copy (if anyone out there remember those). This looked pretty good however. Sure, there are some dirt and scratches from place to place, but nothing too disturbing.
I want to send a personal “Thank you” to the man behind Attackafant Entertainment, who with this (and hopefully many more in the future) release broadens the Swedish DVD market to include more than just the latest special effects lollapaloozas from Hollywood. Knowing Attackafant’s main agenda is pure love for all thing movies rather than just making money makes it all even more admirable. That attitude renders a standing ovation in my book.

So, go buy yourself a copy of “The Killer Elephants” now. If you for some reason don’t like it, you can still stand tall and proudly proclaim “That elephant-penis-knockout-movie? Yeah, I’ve seen it.”