Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)
Directed by James Signorelli
I mean…who doesn’t love Elvira right? Cassandra Peterson, the woman is timeless, seriously she’s 73 years old and still looks like a million bucks. Her sense of humor and delivery may be goofy but that is just what makes her awesome.
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is about the TITular character, sorry I had to do that lol. She hears of a great aunt’s death and she’s in the will, so she has to travel to a small town. She finds out her aunt left her a house and a “cookbook”. Her sex appeal and carefree attitude clashes with the overly conservative (or how she puts it “perservative”) nature. She befriends the local teenagers and movie theater worker Bob. The teens help her clean the old house up and Bob lets her show Attack of the Killer Tomatoes at the theater. Her great uncle Vincent is after the cookbook, which is actually a book of spells, which your favorite gothic valley girl is slow to realize haha.
The acting is pretty good, Elvira is pretty funny and has lots of one-liners. A few of my favs are: A scene where Bob is changing the marquee and a letter falls and hits Elvira….
Bob: Oh my god! Elvira, how's your head?
Elvira: Haven't had any complaints.
Another favorite is when Elvira is at the bowling alley and a waitress asks her what she wants….
Elvira: Bloody Mary.
Waitress: no hard liquor served past eight o'clock. Do you want a virgin?
Elvira: Maybe, but, ah.....I'll have a couple drinks first.
One more because I laughed at all the sex jokes in this movie. The realtor came by to check out Elvira’s mansion and he’s played by Kurt Fuller (again awesome) he tries to assault her, and she throws him out. Soon she gets a phone call:
Elvira: Oh the house? Yeah I was about 6 inches away from selling it.
I know it is a dick joke but man that cracked me up way more than it should’ve haha. Also Kurt Fuller is always a good asshole. If you haven’t seen No Holds Barred…then you can “TAKE A LEAK!”
That is the type of humor you can expect in this, sometimes it hits, sometimes it doesn’t. At times the jokes are rapid fire like a Rodney Dangerfield movie. They also have way too many jokes about her boobs. I know Elvira is known for her awesome rack, but dear lord there are so many boob jokes lol. Edie McClurg plays the uptight Karen character of the movie and she’s as great as always. There is also a scene where Elvira makes some kind of concoction that turns everyone crazy horny, and Edie McClurg sits on a guy’s face LOL. I totally didn’t have that on my bingo card. They find out she did it and they plan to burn her at the stake.
If you are into Elvira, then you’ll like this. If you like crude humor that is childish at times, then yeah watch it. It isn’t amazing but it was an entertaining watch and Elvira is just so fun, and easy on the eyes. I give this a B-.
B-
