Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

...reviewed on October 4th

****

I thought I would end Friday night with a little Elvira. A little Elvira is never a bad thing for this guy who always wondered how she could keep those jugs in her dress from plopping out. After recently happening upon a nude pictorial of her under her real name absent the persona, red hair and all, I had a newfound appreciation for just how delicious her body is. But there's nothing like capping off a rather troublesome, exhausting work week with some Elvira. Yes'ir.

After dropping a matinee title letter on Elvira’s noggin, Bob asks her, “Oh, Elvira, how’s your head?”

Elvira responds, “I haven’t had any complaints yet.”

I’m always quite fond of Elvira’s double entendres, and there are plenty of them in this film. It kind of loses steam to me as it continues, but the “sex spell” that drives the “Morality Society” in the Falkville town into getting all hot and bothered, disrobing from their clothes, and getting jiggy with it (Elvira gets even with them after all they do to make her life miserable; such as boycotting her just because she dresses like a hot slutty goth chick, from getting a job, selling her inherited residence, and keeping their kids from associating with her) had me laughing until I hurt. The subplot ,dealing with the dead aunt who left her a book of spells (she was a witch) for which the witch’s warlock brother (played by a cantankerous, driven, and nasty W Morgan Sheppard) is dead set on retrieving, never truly meant that much to me, but it does allow Elvira to cook up a monster accidentally because she thought the book was full of recipes (!), not knowing that she was preparing a dangerous concoction from the jars in the kitchen cabinets. The township’s morality squad is led by the consummate scene-stealing Edie McClurg who is an absolute riot throughout…her facial reactions are priceless. Cassandra Peterson’s sex appeal is always centerstage, and she’s fully committed to the character. The boob jokes are tiresome to some, but I can’t get enough of them. The film descends into witchcraft special effects with Elvira and Vincent Talbot (Sheppard) dueling magic towards the end after the town nearly succeeds in torching her at the stake! I wasn’t all that crazy with a lot of the supernatural black magic stuff in the film, but Elvira’s clashing with the square environs of small town America was a treat. So good times to be had. I have her “Haunted Hills” but it will be a wait-and-see approach regarding if I can fit it into the October schedule this month.

I think during the Halloween season, we tend to watch a lot of intense horror fare, so on occasion a horror comedy does the trick. I can't see any reason, although this is as much a bit of campy nonsense Elvira might lampoon, to use Elvira, Mistress of the Dark as a way to unwind and shut off the intellectual functions of the brain. I know at least my libido got a workout.