Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)

In addition to being a passable comedy-horror film, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988) is probably the most extravagant breast fetish movie since the days of soft-core pioneer Russ Meyer’s films. Some critics have counted no less than fifty-six breast jokes in the film, fifty-seven if you count the movie’s tagline, “Here comes the best DOUBLE FEATURE ever made!”

Lest you think that the leading actress is being exploited, however, it’s important to know that the character of Elvira was created by Cassandra Peterson, the actress who plays her, and she’s only too happy to exploit what God (or plastic surgery) has given her.

A largely unsuccessful actress, singer and dancer who had bounced around between the US and Europe in the 1970s, Peterson eventually settled in Los Angeles, where, in 1981, a casting call went out for a “horror hostess” for a late-night movie series at KHJ-TV.

Peterson won the role, auditioning against two hundred other actresses. She was given carte blanche to create the character’s image, and she and her best friend Robert Redding came up with the Gothic punk vampire look that the character has to this day.

Originally, she was going to call herself ‘Vampira’, after Maila Nurmi’s similar horror hostess character of the 1950s, but shortly before the initial taping, the producers received a “cease-and-desist” letter from Nurmi, who was still living in Los Angeles. Peterson changed the name of the character to Elvira, and a star was born.

Elvira’s Movie Macabre became a huge hit and was quickly syndicated around the country. Elvira’s low-cut black costume sported more cleavage than had ever been seen on local television up to that time, and her sexy but slightly air-headed Valley Girl persona (with just a hint of Mae West) brought viewers back again and again, even when the movies she was hosting weren’t very good.

In fact, the whole basis of her act – along with rather naughty double entendres – was to lampoon the movies themselves.

John Paragon, who produced the TV show, was hired to co-write Elvira, Mistress of the Dark with Sam Egan. James Signorelli, a veteran director-producer of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, was assigned to direct, although it’s pretty evident that Peterson directed herself.

Her TV character is virtually unchanged in the film: Still showing as much cleavage as a PG-13 rating will allow, still self-deprecating, still making corny jokes (in fact, the plot, such as it is, is really just an excuse for the jokes).

Art imitates life when Elvira, the hostess of a horror movie program, inherits her great aunt Morganna’s spooky old mansion in Falwell (named for Jerry Falwell, the televangelist who represented the right-wing Christian “Moral Majority” movement) – a sort of misplaced Bible Belt town in New England.

She discovers that her aunt was a well-known witch, and her evil warlock uncle Vincent Talbot (W. Morgan Sheppard) is trying to uncover her black magic secrets, putting him in direct conflict with Elvira. Meanwhile, the townspeople – except for the hip young folks, of course, and cinema owner Bob Redding (Daniel Greene) – find Elvira to be rather inappropriate in her manner of dress, her manner of speech, and her manners in general.

This small-minded attitude is perhaps best expressed by Chastity Pariah (Edie McClurg), who attempts to come to Elvira’s “defence” in front of the townspeople: “Please, I don’t think we need to resort to name-calling. I think what Calvin is trying to say is that Elvira is a person of easy virtue, a purveyor of pulchritude, a one-woman Sodom and Gomorrah, if you will. A slimy, slithering succubus, a concubine, a streetwalker, a tramp, a slut, a cheap whore.”

After serving the townspeople a “pot luck” dinner spiked with aphrodisiacs (“Believe me, when they open that pot, they’ll need all the luck they can get,” says the Mistress of the Dark), Elvira is accused of being a witch and is about to be burned at the stake.

Before the match is struck, she pleads to a friend: “And if they ever ask about me, tell them I was more than just a great set of boobs. I was also an incredible set of legs . . . and tell them . . . tell them that I never turned down a friend. I never turned down a stranger, for that matter. And tell them . . . tell them that when all is said and done, I only ask that people remember me by two simple words . . . any two, as long as they’re simple.”

In a scene that carries breast worship to a nearly unparalleled height in world cinema, Elvira escapes her bonds by using her breasts as weapons. Breathing heavily, she breaks the chains, and all ends happily when she recreates a scene from Flashdance (1983) while tar and feathers are dumped upon her.

As previously noted, there isn’t much of a plot, but Peterson is so amiable and unflappable – with an almost Groucho Marx–type delivery of one-liners – that she’s impossible to dislike. The movie may be indifferent, but Elvira lives on – and keeps on stretching the fabric of her tacky black dress.

Elvira
Cassandra Peterson
Chastity Pariah
Edie McClurg
Randy
Kris Kamm
Sean
Scott Morris
Bo
Ira Heiden
Mr Rivers
Bill Morey
Mrs Meeker
Pat Crawford Brown
Mr Lesley Meeker
William Duell
Robin Meeker
Ellen Dunning
Travis
Jeff Conaway
Billy
Frank Collison
Bob Redding
Daniel Greene
Patty
Susan Kellermann
Bartender
Lynne Stewart
Charlie
Deryl Carroll
Mrs Morissey
Marie Sullivan
Vincent Talbot
W. Morgan Sheppard
Mr Bigelow
Jack Fletcher
Calvin Cobb
Robert Benedetti
Mr Harold Glotter
Kurt Fuller
Anita
Kate Brown
Sheriff
Hugh Gillin
Rudy
Mario Celario
Earl Hooter
Lee McLaughlin
Cameraman
Bill Swearingen
Manny
Charles Woolf
Lawyer/Game Show Host
William Cort
Director
Phil Rubenstein
Technical Director
Larry Flash Jenkins
Associate Producer
Damita Jo Freeman
Anchorwoman
Tress MacNeille
Hairdresser
Edwina Moore
Gonk
Binnie

Director
James Signorelli

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