Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1987)

Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1987)

W: Sam Egan, John Paragon and Cassandra Peterson
D: James Signorelli

The great bad movie hostess, Elvira has her own movie and in great eighties fashion, saves a town from taking itself to seriously. And demonic possessions as well.

The hard rocking and innuendo spouting Elvira is having a tough time getting her dreams of being a Las Vegas act off the ground. Her show is a joke, so she is advised if she wants to go anywhere she’ll have to pay for it. With fifty thousand dollars!

Luckily she inherits the home and belongings of her grandmother, presumably a witch in the town of Falwell. She gets there only to become the central controversy of parents and decent citizens alike. Kids look up to her, men can’t keep their eyes off of her and not to mention her up to no good Great uncle is trying to get his hands on her assets… I mean… ‘cookbook’, A strange book of magic and potions that she is clueless about.

The movie is pretty funny, definetly dated, but has a fun sense of itself, Cassandra Peterson who plays Elvira has good comic timing, though the jokes wear thin after awhile. Its when the ‘cookbook’ comes into play that this movie becomes a good horror comedy. Its high class campy fun.

She even hosts a midnight show where she shows the “worst movie ever”, apparently ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ is it…. I don’t think so. The special effects are neat and there is a great scene involving a crock pot monster. She falls for the hunky theater owner and also does an homage to Flashdance.

The thing that I thought was funny, with as much crude sexual remarks she makes, and hints at her being a nympho, she seems to be a fairly picky one. Just a character inconsistency I thought was funny. A funny line of conversation is when the concerned theater owner asks her ‘ hows your head?” after she bumps it, her reply is “I haven’t heard very many complaints”.

Its quick, witty and like I wrote, campy, and if you can’t go wrong with the highly attractive Cassandra Peterson wearing an impossibly low cut dress throughout.

However, even though Peterson credited Elvira as being created back in her improv days, there was a public out lash from the original Vampira who claimed she ripped off her character. Its debatable, however, there is never enough hot horror hostesses around presenting bad movies. So pass the cake!