{"id":7990,"date":"2024-11-02T20:12:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T00:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7990"},"modified":"2024-11-02T20:12:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T00:12:37","slug":"elvira-mistress-of-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/02\/elvira-mistress-of-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Elvira, Mistress of the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong> (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual innuendo and jokes, some violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Signorelli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Sam Egan, John Paragon and Cassandra Peterson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James B. Campbell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Hanania Bier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 30, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Cassandra Peterson, W. Morgan Sheppard, Daniel Greene, Susan Kellerman, Edie McClurg, Jeff Conaway, Frank Collison, Ellen Dunning, Pat Crawford Brown, William Duell, Kriss Kamm, Scott Morris, Ira Heiden, Robert Benedetti, Kurt Fuller, Hugh Gillin.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $5.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0It worked for commercial pitchman Ernest P. Worrell (aka Jim Varney) the previous year so why not Elvira (aka Cassandra Peterson), the sultry late night horror movie hostess with the big bazoombies. Surely a movie starring her would be a big hit, right? Okay, maybe not. That doesn\u2019t mean Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong> isn\u2019t worth watching at least once, especially if you remember watching her show Elvira\u2019s Movie Macabre in which she presented B-grade horror movies with comments throughout. It was like Vampira with double entendres and cleavage jokes.<\/p>\n

In 1988, the sexy Goth gal brought her act to the big screen in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong>. It was produced and released by New World Pictures which usually meant that yours truly would be there opening weekend. Sadly, I missed this one at the movies. Between a busy schedule (school and work) and it being a one-week wonder, I just didn\u2019t have time to see it. I had to wait until it came out on video. Thankfully, it never took too long for a New World movie to hit video. I saw it the following spring and liked it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After she\u2019s fired from her job for refusing the sexual advances of the TV station\u2019s new owner, Elvira finds herself in a real bind (see what I did there?). Her plans to open a new show in Las Vegas will go right down the crapper unless she comes up with $50,000 to fund it. Luckily, she receives a telegram informing her that her great-aunt has died and she\u2019s the primary beneficiary. She gets in her car and heads to Fallwell, MA for the reading of the will. That\u2019s when Elvira\u2019s troubles really begin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For one thing, Fallwell is one of those small conservative towns filled with uptight folks. With a name like Fallwell (as in Reverend Jerry), what did you expect, the East Coast version of Haight-Ashbury? HA! This town is so conservative the local movie theater only shows G-rated movies. ANYWAY, Elvira doesn\u2019t exactly receive a warm reception upon arrival. She instantly runs afoul of Chastity Pariah (McClurg, Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off), one of the town\u2019s puritanical leaders. You just know she\u2019s going to make trouble for our vampish heroine. The town\u2019s teenagers, on the other hand, love their new neighbor.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At the reading, Elvira learns that she\u2019s inherited her great-aunt\u2019s old rundown house, her pet poodle Algonquin (who immediately gets a punk makeover from his new owner) and her recipe book. That last item is something the great-uncle, Vincent (Sheppard, Wild at Heart), would love to get his hands on. Unbeknownst to Elvira, it\u2019s actually a spellbook that once belonged to her mother, a witch. Vincent, a warlock, wants to use it to conquer the world during an upcoming eclipse. But let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Realizing that she\u2019ll be stuck in Fallwell for a while, Elvira tries to become part of the community but is blocked at every turn by Chastity and the uptight town council who see her as a bad influence on the town\u2019s youth. She makes friends with the theater owner Bob (Greene, Hands of Steel), something that doesn\u2019t go over well with Patty (Kellerman, Beetlejuice), the local bowling alley owner with designs on Bob. An extremely jealous and vindictive type, she sabotages a midnight screening of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes by dumping tar and feathers on hostess Elvira. Once word gets out about Elvira\u2019s connection with witchcraft (still a crime in Massachusetts), she\u2019s arrested and sentenced to burn at the stake in the town square.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I won\u2019t lie. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong> isn\u2019t what you call quality cinema. It\u2019s a New World movie, for Pete\u2019s sake! Since when do they make prestigious films? HA! Seriously though, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong> is a seriously silly movie with more than its fair share of booby jokes. It\u2019s also a goof on the kinds of B-level horror movies its star used to show on her program. Witchery afoot in a modern small town; sounds like the premise for a cheapie fright flick from Hammer or American International (or, dare I say, New World). Elvira\/Peterson is a commanding presence. She really fills out the screen (snicker, snicker!). Her sense of humor steers towards the ribald without being outright crude and vulgar. Building a movie around a pre-existing character is tricky business. Sometimes it works. Ernest Goes to Camp is a very funny movie (I can\u2019t say much for the sequels though). Sometimes it doesn\u2019t. Nobody went to see The Jerky Boys movie in \u201995 (I liked it a lot myself). Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong> works more often than it doesn\u2019t. That is, if you approach it in the right frame of mind. It\u2019s pure silliness like Saturday the 14th<\/sup> and Transylvania 6-5000.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The cast, which includes Jeff Conaway (Grease) and Frank Collison (The Last Boy Scout) as Vincent\u2019s two incompetent henchmen, looks like they\u2019re having fun. Sheppard camps it up as the villainous great-uncle. McClurg plays a character who might very well be related to Mrs. Poole, the busybody she played on the sitcom The Hogan Family (1986-91). Kellerman is just right as mean Patty. Also, the dog is really cool. The cheap special effects are actually pretty good. In one scene, Elvira makes what she thinks is a casserole (she doesn\u2019t yet know what the book really is) and ends up creating a monster that wants to eat her and Bob.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I had fun with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong>. Sure, it\u2019s predictable. Yes, it\u2019s dumb. However, I suspect everybody involved knew that going forward. Director James Signorelli (Easy Money) has the right touch for the material. Some of it doesn\u2019t work (like I already said) but that can easily be forgiven. It may not be a great film, but Elvira, Mistress of the Dark<\/strong> is a pretty good movie. It has plenty of laughs and knowing winks at the audience. If you\u2019re the type that snickers at PG-13 level dirty jokes, chances are you\u2019ll be snickering a lot at this one.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Comedy-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexual innuendo and jokes, some violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Signorelli\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Sam Egan, John Paragon and Cassandra Peterson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James B. Campbell\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Hanania Bier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 30, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Cassandra Peterson, W. Morgan Sheppard, Daniel Greene, Susan Kellerman, Edie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-cool-cult-flicks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Elvira-Mistress-of-the-Dark.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8043,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990\/revisions\/8043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}