"The Psychobilly Sickness" DVD
Hairball8

The Psychobilly Sickness attempts to be to psychobilly what the Decline of Western Civilization was to the early '80s punk rock scene--a true testament of what life is like as a psycho punk. However, PS tries to do way too much in a short amount of time and comes off shoddy and mediocre.

The big problem is that it's only 60 minutes long. If this is going to be a series focusing on each era of psychobilly individually then that's fine. Nearly half of the film (can I call it that) focuses on the the history of psychobilly, primarily The Meteors. God knows they deserve it, but an interview with The Cramps would have been cake.

The rest of the DVD pretty much covers Japanese psychos, wrecking, hair styles and tattoos. Definitely a primer for the young psycho in your life.

The video quality is ho hum and the sound is god awful, but we get to see some live performances that are fantastic. Some of the interviews are hard to hear and one interviewee (it might even be the narrator) is shot while in a prone position.

So I've done some bashing, but there is a lot of hope. If this is going to be a series there has to be some cohesion and the directors need to find a few bands and just follow them around. Take from documentaries like Decline or books like "Our Band Could Be Your Life" and adapt it to the psychobilly scene. Imagine a DVD just on Jersey Psychos or a disc on early '90s psychos. The ideas are endless.

I actually am really looking forward to the next one.

Reviewed by: George Koroneos
Reviewed on: December 20, 2005