Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Wonderful Movie

ridiculous rating

Powerful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

When her Great Aunt dies, horror hostess Elvira heads for the uptight New England town of Falwell to claim her inheritance of a house, a cookbook and a poodle. But once the locals get an eyeful Elvira, all hell breaks loose.....This is one of those cult movies that you either get, and go with, or hate with a vengeance. The film obviously has a set demographic, and underneath all its glamour, it's just another fish out of water comedy, but with a sassy edge.There is no denying its a film full of twaddle, balderdash, and piffle, but for heavens sake, its a lot of fun, in that cheesy eighties way.Elvira could be anyone's queen for the night, and again, there is a particular orientation who lap this sort of female character up, and she knows this, playing on every innuendo in the book. She is likable, but not too annoying, as one would expect from her garish wardrobe.The townsfolk all hate her at first, and the youngsters love her, and before all is good, it goes very bad for Elvira, but as always, you know all will be well come the end.There is a subplot about a cookbook, that can render the holder very powerful, song and dance numbers, a wonderful reference to Carrie, and it all ends with a fight with rings, but it all works in a camp, silly kind of way.Guaranteed to brighten your day.

Cassandra Peterson, well established as horror hostess Elvira, appeared as the character in "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark". In the movie, she goes to a Massachusetts town to claim her inheritance after an aunt dies, but it turns out that the people in the town have an 1800s mindset and the children are denied any pleasure. So guess what the morality-obsessed adults think when this, um, well endowed gal arrives!I swear, I never stopped laughing while watching this. It's as if the whole movie is an excuse to be as silly as possible. Some of the best scenes are the encounters with holy roller Chastity Pariah (Edie McClurg). In a way, the whole part about Elvira's evil uncle trying to get hold of the cookbook could have taken a back seat to the parts about the repressed adults.It's one movie that they must have had a lot of fun filming. THANK YOU ELVIRA!!!!!!!!

The first celebrity crushes I remember having as a child were on Morticia Adams from the "The Addams Family" and TV-show hostess Vampira from Ed Wood's film "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (and yes, I was a completely normal child). Unfortunately I was never too familiar with Elvira, even though she's pretty much a campy knock-off of them both and her TV-work belongs more to my generation. Her show "Movie Macabre" never aired here in Europe, however, and I never really bothered to seek out her long-feature films because they look so … silly. This is thus my first real acquaintance with Elvira and, even though it certainly isn't the worst film I've ever seen, I can't say I regret having waited so long. Mrs. Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film, undoubtedly knows her cinematic trash and clearly treasures devotion for B-movies, but the film itself unfortunately is just a gigantically juvenile farce focusing on her very own bosom (which is quite impressive notwithstanding) instead of a cool tribute to genre movies. Elvira's offensively witty one-liners and revealing outfits actually take the attention away from the inexistent and mundane plot. When Elvira gets fired from her TV job in Los Angeles, she finally hopes to start her very own show in Las Vegas, but she needs 50k$ for that to happen. But then she gets a letter announcing her great aunt has died and Elvira's name is mentioned in the will. She arrives in a traditional little New England town, where her appearance and behavior promptly shocks the puritan and conservative local population, only to find out she inherited a hideous old house, a cookbook and a poodle. Whilst hanging around waiting for her broken down car, Elvira befriends the younger generation of Fallwell and discovers that her deceased aunt was actually a good witch who wanted to prevent her malignant brother Vincent Talbot from obtaining her magic powers. The first half of "Mistress of the Dark" is just boob jokes and nothing else. The second half tries to be a little more involving, with a dumb but funny cooking interlude, an exciting edition of the yearly Fallwell summer picnic and a genuine old-fashioned New England with hunt. Besides Peterson herself, this film benefices from a pretty solid ensemble cast and everyone delivers performances that are not worthy of the movie, in fact. William Morgan Sheppard is awesome as the wicked Uncle Vincent, and there are neat little roles as well for Susan Kellerman, Edie McClurg and Pat Crawford Brown as the uptight townspeople. The only misfit in the cast is Daniel Greene, who looks incredibly dim-witted as Elvira's love interest. She's clearly too hot to handle for him and he was the Atomic Cyborg!

Since the start of her career in the 70's and vastly throughout the exuberant 80's, Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) has grown into a modest icon and genuine cult figure in the world of horror & bad monster movies. While Ms. Peterson has taken on various supporting roles in motion pictures, covering a wide variety in genres, it was her TV-character Elvira that brought her the most fame. Part of her charm – and respect from the fans – lies in the fact she never turned her back on the horror genre that made her famous (unlike many other big name actors & actresses that like to distantiate themselves from their "early" work). I've seen only bits & pieces of her TV performances, but her cameo role in Ghoultown's recent tribute song "Mistress of the Dark" really encouraged me to check out more of her stuff. One thing had been clear to me already long before this music video: Over the years, Elvira had become a force of influence herself by the time the mid-80's came around.And in 1988, after films like "Fright Night" and "TerrorVision" incorporated homages to and spoofs on her TV-work, it finally happened: "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark", the motion picture. Now, I had seen the trailer for it already back in the VHS rental days, but it took me until last week to finally see the actual film. A few years ago, I did manage to watch "Elvira's Haunted Hills" (made in 2001), but for some reason it didn't impress me all that much. Was it really that forgettable, or should I give it another watch? I actually really do feel like re-watching it now, as this first Elvira film from '88 really convinced me. Though perhaps partly responsible for making this film work, might be Sam Egan and John Paragon with their contributions to the script, there really is no way to deny it: Cassandra Peterson has a great feel for comedy (she also co-wrote the screenplay).When Elvira learns she's one of the beneficiaries of a Great Aunt (she never heard of before), she takes it as the long cherished opportunity to start up her own show in Las Vegas. Out to claim her rightfully inherited money, she travels to a quiet New England town. But the uptight townspeople of Falwell are in for a treat. In less than no time she manages to shock and insult all noteworthy inhabitants of the conservative little town with her (often unintentionally) provocative behaviour. To make things worse, her inheritance turns out not to be what she expected: A rundown mansion, a cookbook and a poodle. But what she doesn't know, and her evil uncle Vincent Albot does, is that her Great Aunt was a witch, and the cookbook contains recipes to concoct the most hellishly dark powers imaginable. And if you haven't turned off the movie yet by the time Elvira has cooked up her first dish from the recipe-book, then rest assured, you're going to sit out this ride with a smile on your face.It's surprising how a script rigged together with boob-jokes, witty one-liners, movie references, inside jokes and bade taste merriment also manages to tell a coherent story. Simple, of course, but coherent. While other movies, heavily relying on gag-like situations, often make you loose track of the story completely (like the "Naked Gun" films, for example), this film doesn't. A lot of horror-comedies were being produced during the 80's, but not a lot of them actually worked. Let alone a horror-spoof that doesn't derail at some point ("Killer Party", although I'm grateful for this one going completely bonkers during the finale) or becomes too tedious too quickly ("Saturday the 14th"). Although "Elvira" is more comedy than horror, it doesn't loose track of what it's doing and consistently builds up towards a mildly grotesque finale, complete with a supernatural showdown in the streets of Falwell between newborn witch Elvira and evil uncle wizard Talbot, including a real honest-to-god witch hunt and Elvira's very own burn-at-the-stake moment.I'm telling you, there's no power in hell that could make this movie unfunny. One of the first giggles I got was during the opening credits already, when Daniel Greene's name appeared. Daniel who? Oh yes, I recognized his name (and later on his dim-witted macho-face). How can one not forget Daniel Greene once you've seen... "Atomic Cyborg aka Fists of Steel"! But if you haven't seen "Atomic Cyborg", then I'm sorry, but you won't be able to laugh with his face in this one. And on a side-note: I never could have imagined Elvira looking this cool while ignorantly driving away from a gas station. Even Robert Rodriguez could not have made that shot look any better.