Morbius Fitzgerald I came into this film with just the barest of knowledge on who Elvira was. I knew she was a horror host in the 80s and some of the 90s and she took off a lot more than any others did (unless you count MST3K) and...that probably would've been it. So, rather curiously and in a way that I can't really explain why, I decided to watch this to get a firm foundation for her character and maybe her show. In the end, it was quite an enjoyable little film.Okay so the plot will probably sound familiar in one way or another - A horror show host named Elvira quits her job as a horror host at a local TV station after finding out its being bought by a pervert who wants to take sexual advantage of her and wants to start up a show in Vegas but to achieve that, she has to come up with $50 000 and, by coincidence, her Great Aunt has just died and the reading of her will is in a few days in a town thats...conservative, to say the least. She is mostly treated badly from everyone there with the exceptions being the teenagers of the town and the local film theater manager, whose the love interest. And it turns out her inheritance is the house from The Munsters (no joke, its the same house!), a punk rock dog and a recipe book which her only other relative (her Great Uncle) wants to get his hands on, on the grounds that its a spell recipe book and wants to use it to become the "Master of the Dark".Okay, whats good here? Well a lot of the jokes do hit the nail in the head, most of the time, in getting a laugh however corny they may be, its a surprisingly creative way to make a film about a horror host, all the actors do well for their parts and its great to just see the film play out. What do I mean by that? A lot of the time Elvira has a "conspiracy" planned against her by the head of the town, Chastity Pariah. Maybe its different for some people but the amount of times the supposed "moral figure" of the town proves just how insane she is and how Elvira the "harlot" is probably one of the few voices of reason in the entire film is just funny to me. My favourite scene is just as Elvira discovers she's a witch and she can do all this, the townsfolk that have all wronged her have a "morality" picnic, as a celebration of the fact that they've kept their morals and values in check. She puts in a potion she brewed up which...turns it into an orgy (well as much of an orgy as you can get from an M rating) (also, while I'm doing this, as much as it will be hard to believe, considering Elvira's reputation the whole 'turning the picnic into an orgy was completely by accident!) and the very next scene is of a town meeting where they constantly blame the other person they were with for coming on to them and being "sex crazed deviants". Again, your opinion may vary on how funny that is.Whats bad? I'm not going to act like there isn't anything. Sometimes the fantasy sequences are a bit tedious, some of the jokes didn't quite make it with a few leaving me groaning but the worst thing, for me at least, was that after everything's done, spoiler alert, Elvira achieves her dream of going to Vegas and we see what her act is. Which goes on for 4 minutes and while the film wasn't awful by this stage my reaction was along the lines of "Movie...your over. Why are we focusing on this when its not even funny?"So is it for everyone? No. The best way to describe this film is "imagine if Hocus Pocus (1993) and The Addams Family (1991) had a child that happened to star one of the most successful horror hosts ever". Get that image in your head, add a tonne of cheese to it (yes, even more than either of those two films had combined) and thats this movie. So if your in the right mood, go check it out.

gwnightscream Cassandra Peterson, W. Morgan Sheppard, Daniel Greene and Edie McClurg star in this 1988 horror comedy. Peterson plays the title character who is a horror hostess and heads to Fallwell, Massachussetts for her late, great Aunt's will reading. She inherits her old house, a powerful recipe book and a shape-shifting dog. She also finds romance with nice guy, Bob Redding (Greene) who runs a local movie theater and meets her great uncle, Vincent Talbot (Sheppard) whom she learns is an evil warlock who wants the book. McClurg (Carrie) plays Chastity Pariah, a woman in town who doesn't like Elvira very much. I grew up watching this and always enjoyed it. It's a good 80's horror comedy that pays tribute and pokes fun at horror & b-movies and Peterson & the cast are great in it. I recommend this and "unpleasant dreams."

BaronBl00d Well, this movie is about Elvira and her breasts more than anything else. Take the references and jokes and leers and squeezes and ogling out and 60% of the film is gone just like that. The film opens with Elvira on the set of her television show when just as she loses her job for refusing to play horsey to the new station owner, she discovers she has inherited something in Falwell, Mass.(Nice use of Jerry Falwell's name here too by the way!). Well, the town is uber "moral" and Elvira is...Elvira. Eventually she discovers she has spell powers, etc... and battles her uncle for her life and property. In between we get all kinds of silly humour such as a dog with a punk hairstyle, an orgiastic picnic with Edie McClurg(need I say more?), a rather tame and pedestrian romance with some imbecile in town, Elvira quipping one-liners like the sleazy Oscar Wilde of her time, and breasts. more breasts. More cleavage. More suggestive uses for those breasts. We get innuendo by the truckload. Naturally all this makes for a silly and stupid film, but Cassandra Peterson as Elvira is indeed more than two large fleshy orbs - she has other talents. She is funny. She can act - at least for a film like this. She has a great screen persona. Sure, the sophomoric obsession with her bazooms, her bosom, her jugs, her boobs, her mammaries, her ample bounty get a bit tiresome for me(and I assure you I am not only a big fan but a dedicated one with regard to those assets), but they are funny an not really made to be anything other than that. There is absolutely nothing erotic here. Elvira is having fun and likes people to see her - much of her - having fun. There are lots of pretty good verbal and visual gags throughout. My favourite is when a letter from a movie marquee hits Elvira in the head. Bob, the dull romantic lead, says, "How's your head?" To which Elvira says, "I've had no complaints."

lost-in-limbo I never saw any of the TV shows, but we know where the eyes will be heading, but it's the character's main draw-card and this aspect is played for the laughs. 'Elvira' is light-headed in its context, but quite low-brow with its humour, as a sizzling siren Cassandra Peterson laced up in her spunky Gothic wardrobe resembles a Mae West with her sharp-witted (although not always funny, but they're either bad and good) wisecracks. This film is pretty much a living parody, as it follows horror TV show hostess Elvira quit her job in the dream of performing in Las Vegas… but to keep that show alive, she needs money to pay for it. She learns she will be receiving an inheritance from her deceased auntie in a quaint, conservative little rural town. Hoping for money, she ends up with the house, dog and a family cook book (or is it just a cook book?). Which for some reason her uncle Vincent would do anything to get his hands on that book. Its loopy camp of a very one-joke kind, which patterns itself into contrived silliness. It moves by fast enough, even though it does become starved of gags due to simply relying on its same-old collection of its 'fish out of water' gags of a performance that's more than just an act. Director James Signorelli colourfully spruce handling uses cheeky references and builds a certain likable charm. William Morgan Sheppard and a dynamically ripe Edie McClurg are quite fun their roles… in what you can call the meanies of the film. In the end it knows what it is, and purposely keeps it to that; simple-minded, crude and carefree kitsch.