Elvira Mistress Of The Dark

Rack 'N’ Roll

Elvira Mistress Of The Dark
USA 1998 Directed by James Signorelli
New World Pictures/Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Well this is interesting. I was given this newly restored Arrow Blu Ray of Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark for Christmas and when I looked it up on the IMDB to see when I first saw it here in the UK (late 1988 or whether the UK release wasn’t until the following year) it’s not listed as being released in UK cinemas at all. Well... I can tell you now that this information is false. I saw this movie at what was my local cinema at the time although, I suspect, it probably wasn’t until sometime into 1989 as I seem to remember drooling over the adverts for this in American comics for quite a while before I got the opportunity to see this one for myself. So... surprise, surprise... sometimes the IMDB gets it wrong.

Now I actually met Elvira, aka Cassandra Peterson, maybe around twenty years ago. It was at the London Film And Comic Con they have every summer but that was in the days before it was the heavily attended, joy-killing event it is in its present incarnation. In those days you bought entry tickets on the door and, if you were there half an hour early, you’d more than likely be the first in the queue. And as for seeing the stars themselves... well it must have been slow business for these guests, I guess. There was none of this pre-buying a slot to see the celebrity... you’d just get on the end of the line of... maybe three people... and wait your turn. Nowadays, if Elvira were to return to this country, she’d have her whole day booked out, I’m sure but, those were simpler times. She wasn’t wearing her Elvira make up and I remember her as being a thoughtful and pleasant woman. I asked her if she’d make out the photo she sold to sign to me with the phrase “Revenge is better than Christmas!” and she asked me why. I reminded her that it was a line from her movie (at the time she’d only made one feature film as Elvira... but been in others as a different character and occasionally guested as Elvira in various movies and TV shows like CHIPS and The Fall Guy). I reminded her where in the movie the line was from and her response was something like... “Oh yeah, I remember now.” before dutifully signing the photo and leaving me as star struck as I’m sure I would be today if I ever met her again.

So, a pointless story perhaps but I tell it here to let you know that, despite Elvira not really being a big thing in the UK in terms of actual TV coverage like she was in the US back then... where she was pretty much a cultural phenomenon and still is as far as I’m concerned (just check out her Twitter feed)... I was certainly someone who knew who she was and I was very much aware that there was some kind of hardcore group of die hard fans for her here in the UK too. I used to buy her vinyl records of Halloween horror song collections and I especially liked the odd tracks where she sang on them herself). And I did know some other people who saw this movie in cinemas back in the day and... yeah... it was a very well liked film.

Anyway, getting back to my rewatch of the movie... this thing is still great. It’s not the hard edged horror version of Elvira that you might have been expecting from the figure who is probably one of the most recognised icons of modern American popular culture. This is due to certain studio concessions which, if you watch the fine and quite long, expanded documentary included by Arrow with this release, you’ll find out more about. That being said though, at the risk of making this sound like an American version of a Carry On film (which it kinda is, actually), the film is filled with a lot of sexual jokes and, while not exactly hard edged horror, it does have witches, a haunted house (of sorts), a magical dog and a grotesque and very unfriendly pot monster. And although it’s not a very gory film due to the ratings, there is a scene where the main supernatural villain, played wonderfully by William Morgan Sheppard (who sadly died a few weeks after my friend gave me this Blu Ray), has his forehead caved in with one of Elvira’s thrown high heels before having his hand chopped off. Of course, the hand starts crawling around after Elvira too but... that’s pretty standard stuff.

And, sexy jokes or not, the level of humour in this movie is totally the kind I love. As in they are real groaners.

For example, when Elvira learns that her recently deceased Great Aunt has left her something in her will, she comes out with the clichéd, throwaway but oh so brilliant line... “I didn’t know I had a good aunt, much less a great one.” And this film is just filled with stuff like this coming at you at a rate almost but, not quite, as fast as a Marx Brothers sketch. So when a policeman asks her, “Do you know you were doing 50 in a 25 mile per hour zone?”, her reply of “No but, if you hum it I can fake it.” is all I need to keep me smiling. Or, after hearing an insult from one of the town’s folk on her arrival in their little part of the US, the much quoted line... “Listen sister, if I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.” 

And, of course, the expected amount of jokes about her shapely figure are very much all over the film and, frankly, I really don’t mind this stuff in this movie because Cassandra Peterson writes or approves a lot of that material herself, so she’s really not being exploited. So, naturally, I love the line where, after accidentally dropping a cinema sign letter on her head, the romantic lead played by Daniel Greene asks her... “How’s your head?” To which Elvira replies in her quick fire fashion, “Well I haven’t had any complaints yet.”... which has got to be one of my favourite one liners in any movie and, again, if you watch the accompanying documentary, you’ll see there was a lot of talk about whether they should be letting that line into the film or not due to the potential teenage audience.

So what we have here is a fun romp of a movie with a sexually aware undercurrent and the kind of ‘horror’ atmosphere which brings to mind more the old 1960s Roger Corman does Edgar Allan Poe style pictures and, frankly, this works for me. Indeed, I believe they were trying to get Vincent Price for the role of the main villain at one point but, I don’t think they could afford him at the time.

However, the main attraction here is Elvira, aka Cassandra Peterson herself. This horror hostess character she created for television, fending off a bit of an unfair copyright law suit by Maila Nurmi aka Vampira (read my review of a book about her here), is someone who will, I’m sure, be remembered long after she has departed this mortal plain and it’s an absolute pleasure to see her starring in a vehicle made especially for her. She doesn’t break the fourth wall as much as you might think she would (although she does do it a few times) and, asides from the action, cutting dialogue and beautiful performances, the film still has a great deal going for it.

For example, there are some nice fantasy sequences and, after the opening of the movie, a cool moment where the non-diegetic rock song soundtrack accompanying Elvira on her road trip turns back into source music as she joins in with the music which has been playing throughout the montage. So yeah, the director and editors really knew what they were doing and I’m stumped as to why this one did so badly at the box office (although it did extremely well on the highly priced, lucrative rental video circuit when it was released on VHS tape a little later). I would have liked to see her do a few more movies in this series but it was not to be. She did make another Elvira movie, of course.... Elvira’s Haunted Hills... but this was over a decade after this one and it seemed to have an even more lukewarm reception as far as I remember (although, once again, I managed to see it at the cinema and... yeah... I liked this one too).

And there’s not much else for me to say about this one. If you haven’t seen Elvira - Mistress of the Dark but you know who she is and you like the jokes and sexual innuendo coming in thick and fast then this is definitely a nice little film which probably wouldn’t get made in quite the same, almost innocent in some ways, way these days. The new Arrow Blu Ray restoration looks fantastic and the documentary and the odd nice extra rounds off a great package. This one’s definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of horror tinged comedy and this particular presentation of it by Arrow is absolutely the best version to get. An invaluable addition to anyone’s library of films.