Elephant Video

When it comes to the halcyon era of British home video, few collectors will have a kind word for Elephant Video, who's roster of 19 or so titles included a clutch of Italian Exploitation classics – City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, The Last Hunter and uh… Umberto Lenzi's Eaten Alive, albeit issued in very watered down editions, almost completely devoid of splatter. I myself have been very scornful of Elephant in the past, for back in the early 90's when I first discovered Italian Horror, my introduction to Lucio Fulci's films was courtesy of Elephant and it was disappointing to find out all the good stuff was missing. Elephant was indicative of the seemingly fly-by-night VHS labels that were rehabilitating for the post-certificate era, some of the more contentious titles previously caught in the DPP dragnet; Elephant’s sleeve artwork was poorly rendered on lightweight paper and the cassettes were cheap plastic things that rattled to death in the VCR when rewound. I mention Elephant because they feature in, unlikely as it seems, the Winter 1989 issue of Sight & Sound which I was reading earlier. The article about the cleaning up of the British Video Industry (“Codes of Practice”) quotes Elephant boss Barry Jacobs speaking about the difficulties of distributing his product. Elephant were notorious for pre-cutting their submissions to the BBFC to guarantee a smooth and cost-effect passage through the offices at Soho square, but what I wasn’t aware of was how much pressure was brought to bear by the Video Packaging and Review Committee. In the case of Elephant, Barry Jacobs was informed by the BBFC that the Board would not consider reviewing Elephant titles until the sleeves were passed by the VPRC. House by the Cemetery was one of the biggest Elephant casualties, losing some 4mins of footage, but as well as that, the knife being wielded on their sleeve was no longer bloody as per the pre-cert Vampix VHS edition (at least they were able to retain Alan Jones' notes from the Vampix sleeve). The second half of the 80's were hard times it seems for small indie labels and while I’m not trying to defend a hard-done-by Elephant Video, the S&S article offers a more nuanced perspective than I previously considered…