Archive for Elvira

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001) movie review

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Halloween, holiday, movies, pop culture with tags , , , , , , on October 11, 2019 by Paxton

Fangoria Movie Friday

So, I’m finishing out the first two weeks of Elvira with a review of Elvira’s second movie, Elvira’s Haunted Hills from 2001.

Like Mistress of the Dark, I had never watched this one, so with the surprise of actually liking that first movie, I sat down to watch this one hoping to also like it.

And I didn’t.  It’s more of the same but not done as well.  Elvira is Elvira.  Double entendres abound.  It feels like it wants to be something like Young Frankenstein, or, to be more accurate, Haunted Honeymoon.  But the charisma of the cast (or lack thereof) can’t overcome the poor script and attempts at humor.  I know this was made on a shoestring budget, and it’s lampooning old Vincent Price Poe movies like The Pit and the Pendulum (the poster for which even had the giant swinging blade on it) and The Raven, which I honestly haven’t seen.  But it still didn’t land, meaning mainly the humor.

The sets for this movie were pretty great though.  The giant castle, as a set, worked very well and had lots of cool elements incorporated into the design including a small hidden door in the side of the giant fireplace (sidenote: I love giant stone fireplaces in castles).  And the overall story was actually not that bad, but this movie lives or dies on the humor and the humor just doesn’t work as well in this one as it did in the previous movie.  It was so MEH that I didn’t really have anything I wanted to talk about more in depth by pulling out screen grabs.  It’s just not as fun a movie as I wanted it to be.

I wish it wasn’t so, because I still love the character of Elvira.


Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Elvira video games

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Halloween, holiday, video games with tags , , , , , on October 10, 2019 by Paxton

Awesometoberfest 2019

So, the last few days I’ve covered Elvira’s pop culture appearances in movies, TV shows, and comic books.  Today, let’s take a look at her appearances in a few video games.



Elvira by Accolade was a PC game from 1990. It followed the events of the 1988 movie, Elvira Mistress of the Dark.  After the death of her Uncle Vincent (spoilers for the movie! Sorry!), Elvira has inherited the castle and plans on opening it as a tourist attraction for horror fans. In doing so, Elvira has inadvertently awakened the monstrous followers of a powerful witch, Emelda. The followers have imprisoned Elvira in the castle and plan to use her to resurrect Emelda. The player is tasked to help Elvira stop the witch’s resurrection.



Elvira II: The Jaws of Cerberus was the 1991 sequel to the above game. It seems a bit odd to me that the previous game was successful enough to get a sequel, it’s named ELVIRA, and yet Elvira is barely on the cover. If you look close she’s in the lower left.  Well, that may be because the main character is Elvira’s boyfriend.  And the task is to save Elvira.  The player must navigate through a horror studio that has had it’s movie props turned into actual monstrosities.

Elvira was also the star of two pinball machines from Midway (images from Internet Pinball Machine Database).

Elvira and the Party Monsters was released in 1989. It was one of the first pinball machines to require 2 quarters instead of one. The flyers for the machine announced this by saying that “Elvira is no cheap date”. Scared Stiff was released in 1996 and since pinball wasn’t as popular then as it was in 1989, that table is a bit harder to find. Both Midway machines offered vendors a special “modesty decal” that they could optionally attach to the backglass to cover up Elvira’s famous cleavage.

Tomorrow is the final day of Elvira Week(s) and I plan on reviewing Elvira’s second movie, Haunted Hills.


Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Elvira’s House of Mystery

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, comic books, Halloween, holiday, pop culture with tags , , , , on October 9, 2019 by Paxton

Awesometoberfest 2019

Continuing my chronicling of Elvira’s pop culture appearances, let’s take a look at comic books.  One comic book in particular.

In the 80s, Elvira was so mainstream that DC comics licensed her image to become the new host of their classic horror anthology comic, House of Mystery. She would debut in the first issue of Elvira’s House of Mystery in 1986.

Elvira HOM 1 Elvira HOM 5

Elvira would introduce the stories and provide an epilogue. While the host, she introduced many different stories based on horror, science fiction and even westerns all written and drawn by a revolving door of DC talent.  The cover of the very first issue was drawn by Brian Bolland.  The cover for the final issue would be drawn by The Rocketeer’s Dave Stevens.

Elvira HOM 10Elvira HOM 11

Ultimately the series would last 11 issues.  Towards the end of the run, around issue 9, the original host of the House of Mystery, Cain, returns.

And then Cain’s brother, Abel, who normally hosts the House of Secrets, also returns.

It’s interesting because Cain and Abel had been “in retirement” for a while.  Then Alan Moore brought them back towards the end of his Saga of Swamp Thing run.  Then Cain shows up in Blue Devil when he discovers the House of Weirdness.  Then they show up in Elvira’s book.  Cain is trying to find out where they’ve been but no one can remember.  He tells the things he can remember and it’s all the things I just mentioned.

After this, Elvira would last another issue then disappear.  There was no real tie up to why she left.


Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Elvira’s crazy cameos

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Halloween, holiday, movies, pop culture, TV shows with tags , , , , , , on October 8, 2019 by Paxton

Awesometoberfest 2019

The character of Elvira has become pretty ubiquitous over the years popping up in everything in pop culture including movies, TV shows, beer ads, MTV specials and video games.  In the next few articles over the next few days I’ll take a look at some of Elvira’s strangest pop culture appearances.  Today, let’s take a look at movies and TV shows.

Like I said, Elvira has popped in all all kinds of TV shows and movies.  Sometimes she’s in costume, sometimes it’s Cassandra Peterson as herself.  Here are a few cool, random appearances of Elvira in costume in different movies and TV shows.


Elvira showed up as a race car groupie in the 1983 Burt Reynolds NASCAR comedy, Stroker Ace.  There are a lot of mixed opinions about this movie, but I love it.


Elvira showed up on an episode of CHiPs in Season 6, episode 21 titled “Things That Go Creep in the Night”. Ponch and Jon are protecting a woman who seems to be stalked by a comic book character. Elvira shows up at a comic book/horror convention.


Elvira starred in an episode of The Fall Guy that was written specifically for her. It was Season 4, episode 7, titled October 31st. Colt Seavers (Lee Majors) is filming a Halloween Special with Elvira in an old mansion that is supposedly haunted.


Elvira also showed up in a couple of live action segments of the Super Mario Bros Super Show from 1989.

Cassandra Peterson had a few fun movie cameos that I always forget about.


Cassandra Peterson had a small part in a sex comedy called Jekyll & Hyde: Together Again from 1982.  She played the busty nurse.  I love this movie and I hope to do it one day on Cult Film Club.


Cassandra is good friends with Paul Reubens. Consequently, she appeared in the biker scene in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

And there are several others I could bring up but I think that’s a good random sampling of appearances for the Mistress of the Dark.  Tomorrow I’ll take a look at one of Elvira’s first, and most mainstream, forays into comic books!


Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Elvira Scream Greats poster

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Fangoria, magazine with tags , , , , on October 7, 2019 by Paxton

Awesometoberfest 2019

Last week I did a full week of Elvira.  All Elvira, all the time. I had so much fun, I’m going to do it again.  So this week is going to be all about Elvira as well.

As you saw last week, Elvira has been all over Fangoria, especially in the 80s. Along with articles there were several pinups, which you also saw. Elvira even made it onto one of the coveted Scream Greats posters.

Scream Greats

I thought this image seemed an odd one to choose for the Scream Greats poster.  It looks like they’re still building the sets behind her.  But, now, after seeing the movie just recently, I realize that *was* the set.  They were restoring an old house in the movie and that’s where this shot was taken.  She’s even wearing those weird buckle pants in the movie.


Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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