This Is Elvis (1981) masquerades as a tribute but plays like a horror film — a grotesque invasion of privacy that exploits the King’s image in death. Read why this so-called documentary remains one of the most tasteless films of the 1980s.
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Movies of the 80s
Published about 2 hours ago • 3 min read
A Horror Film Disguised as a Documentary
It’s hard to believe that the documentary This Is Elvis actually exists. Imagine a found footage horror film starring one of the most famous human beings who ever lived, and you’ll start to understand what this movie is.
Created by Malcolm Leo and Andrew Solt — with “assistance” from the scummiest of promoters, Colonel Tom Parker — This Is Elvis is an ugly, voyeuristic invasion of privacy. Elvis Presley wasn’t a saint, but no one, saint or sinner, deserved to have their death recreated in this manner.
A Tribute That Feels Like Desecration
The truly perverse part is that this film thinks it’s a loving tribute. It was made by people who apparently believed they were venerating “The King.” But what they actually created is a tone-deaf horror show.
While viewers recoil from scenes of a bloated, drug-addled Elvis inching toward his grave, the filmmakers treat every frame like holy relics — as if they’ve discovered the Shroud of Turin of rock ’n’ roll. The result is grotesque reverence bordering on necrophilia.
Recreating Elvis’s Death: Why?
The opening scene is unconscionable. Elvis pulls up to Graceland in his Cadillac, waves to fans, and goes inside with his girlfriend, Ginger Alden (played by an actress). Moments later, she finds him dead on the bathroom floor.
This isn’t archival footage — it’s a recreation using an impersonator and lookalike interiors. The filmmakers actually staged Elvis’s death. There’s no justification for this. None.
To place this grotesque dramatization alongside legitimate archival performances — including rare concert footage and television appearances — is beyond tone-deaf. It’s cinematic grave robbery.
Blurring Reality: Found Footage Before Found Footage
Shot in a semi–found-footage style, the film constantly blurs the line between documentary and fiction. But unlike later mockumentaries or artistic experiments, This Is Elvis uses that ambiguity not for art, but for exploitation.
It inserts impersonators, fake interviews, and a fabricated “Elvis voiceover” to narrate his life story. The result is eerie and manipulative — a Frankenstein’s monster of truth and lies stitched together for profit.
A Cash Grab Masquerading as History
The film includes private footage of Elvis in limousines, surrounded by sycophants, reminiscing about women and swallowing pills like candy. Maybe it’s real, maybe it’s recreated — the movie makes it impossible to tell.
That confusion isn’t artistic; it’s predatory. The filmmakers — and Parker, who gave them access to Graceland and Elvis’s father Vernon Presley — weren’t preserving history. They were draining the last drops of money from a man who’d already been consumed by those around him.
The Icon as Product
By 1981, Elvis had already become kitsch. His death turned him into a myth, a late-night punchline, and the subject of endless tabloid fantasies. But This Is Elvis doesn’t seek truth or compassion — it just keeps the tabloid machinery humming.
Instead of showing us who Elvis Presley was, it reduces him further, stripping away dignity until only the icon — and the profit — remains. Watching this film feels like witnessing a second death.
Cruelty Masquerading as Honesty
The film’s defenders might claim it tells the “warts-and-all truth.” But there’s no journalistic integrity here. The fake interviews, impersonators, and tasteless reconstructions aren’t truth — they’re sensationalism.
Even the concert footage, where Elvis once seemed immortal, is weaponized. The filmmakers show him forget lyrics, stumble, and look confused. It’s not context or compassion; it’s humiliation.
Why show this? Elvis was already dead. We already knew the tragedy. Showing him struggle on stage robs him of the one space where he was truly alive.
This Is Elvis and the Culture of Exploitation
I despise This Is Elvis. It’s the documentary equivalent of Blonde (2022), Andrew Dominik’s grotesque fiction about Marilyn Monroe. Both films pretend to honor their subjects while parading their corpses for spectacle.
They exist not to understand, but to exploit. They’re what happens when curiosity curdles into cruelty and capitalism rewards the ugliest impulses of human nature.
Elvis deserved better. So did Marilyn. So does anyone who ever became famous enough to stop being treated like a person.