Featured Blu-ray Review: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
May 5, 2020
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark: Special Edition - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark hit theaters in the late 1980s. At the time, it wasn’t able to win over critics and was mostly ignored by moviegoers. It did become a bit of a cult hit on the home market and now, more than 30 years later, it is getting a special edition Blu-ray release. Does it deserve its Cult Classic status? If so, does the Blu-ray do it justice?
Cassandra Peterson stars as the titular Elvira. (“Titular” means the movie was named after the character Elvira, by the way. Get your minds out of the gutter.) In the movie, just like in real life, Elvira is the host of a TV show that plays bad low-budget movies that she makes fun of during the host segments. Bad news, the station has a new owner. Worse still, he’s a complete creep. She rightly goes after him in a tirade that accidentally goes on the air. She’s fired, and at the worst time, because she needs $50,000 to put on a Las Vegas show. She does get some good news, sort of. Her Great Aunt Morgana died, which is sad news, but she left her something in her will, and all Elvira has to do is travel to Fallwell, Massachusetts to find out what it is. That’s all the convincing she needs to head to East.
When she gets to Fallwell, she makes an immediate impact, because Fallwell is a small, conservative town and Elvira is neither of those things. Her car breaks down and before she can get help, she gets into an argument with Chasity Pariah… The writing in this movie isn’t subtle, but that’s part of the charm. Elvira gets a room at the local motel, run by Mrs. Meeker, who really doesn’t like Elvira right away, but Elvira befriends their teenage daughter, Robin, who suggests she goes to the bowling alley as the only source of fun. There she meets Bob, the love interest of the movie, as well as Patty, her romantic rival. When Bob finds out Elvira was related to Morgana he admits he admired her, because she was a non-conformist in a very conformist town. Unfortunately for Elvira, the rest of the town just uses this as another reason to hate her. Bob isn’t particularly well-liked either, because he runs the local cinema and that means he butts heads with the very puritanical elements of the town.
At the reading of the will, Elvira learns what her inheritance is: Morgana’s mansion, her dog, and a book of recipes. Her uncle Vincent gets nothing, but it is clear he wanted that book. He even offers to buy the book from Elvira for $50. At this point, Elvira still thinks it is a typical recipe book, but fortunately her new dog knows more than she does and hides the book before she can sell it. One dream sequence later and Elvira decides to fix up the old house in order to sell it, because if she can sell it, she can get the money needed for her Las Vegas show. She has a lot of help from enthusiastic teens, which is yet another reason the conservative town leaders hate her. That hatred is turned up to eleven after Elvira convinces Bob to hold a horror film festival. It’s a big success, up to the point where Patty humiliates her. Elvira heads home with Bob and decides to cook him dinner using the recipe book. It is at this point she learns the truth, which I’m going to call a spoiler.
Cassandra Peterson earned both a Razzie nomination for Worst Actress and a Saturn nomination for Best Actress for her performance as Elvira. I think this says a lot about the overall quality of the movie. Your opinion of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark will depend heavily on how much you like the lead character. If you are a fan of her cheesy shtick, then you will have a blast. If not, then this film will be a slog to get through. Even if you do like the character, there are still some issues. She’s insufferable during the reading of the will, which does cost her sympathy points. Elvira is the highlight of the movie, as the plot is nothing special. It isn’t bad, but it is a rather predictable story about being yourself and not bowing down to peer pressure. This is the plot of practically every Disney Channel original movie, just with more cleavage.
Speaking of cleavage, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark has a strong sex positive message. Elvira is attacked for how she looks, but the movie makes it clear those attacking her are the bad guys. Furthermore, the movie makes it clear that just because she has a positive attitude towards sex doesn’t mean any attention is acceptable and she has the right to say no when she wants. This message is still important in the era of #metoo.
The extras begin with a minute long intro by the director, James Signorelli. It is less of an intro and more of a demonstration of why the man became a director and not an actor. “Maybe we can fix it in the edit.” The real extras begin with not one, but two, but three audio commentary tracks. The first is with the two stars, Cassandra Peterson and Edie McClurg, as well as one of the writers, John Paragon. The second track as the director joined by Tim Timpone, the former editor of Fangoria magazine, which was at the time the largest horror magazine in the world. The final audio commentary track is with Patterson Lundquist, who produced the next extra. That extra is Too Macabre, a nearly 100-minute long making-of featurette. This isn’t technically new, but rather a new edition of a 2018 documentary. Cassandra Peterson is of course interviewed, but so are a lot of the other people involved in making the movie a reality, from the producers to some of the people who worked on the special effects. Recipe for Terror is a 22-minute look at the special effects in the movie. There is also an image gallery as well as trailers.
Had we just had the audio commentary tracks or the feature-length documentary, then I would have been happy. Getting both with another featurette and some promotional material is above my expectations.
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark isn’t a great movie, but it is a fun and cheesy one that doesn’t take itself seriously. I really enjoyed the lighthearted charm. The Special Edition Blu-ray is loaded with extras, so much so that fans will easily want to pick it up.
The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Susan Kellerman, Edie McClurg, Cassandra Peterson, Daniel Greene, Pat Crawford Brown, John Paragon, W. Morgan Sheppard, Eric Gardner, James Signorelli