Elvira's Movie Macabre

Elvira's Movie Macabre
Title card
Also known as	Movie Macabre with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
Genre	Comedy Horror Science fiction
Presented by	Cassandra Peterson
Starring	Cassandra Peterson John Paragon
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	140
Original release
Network	KHJ-TV (1981–86)
Release	September 26, 1981 (1981-09-26) – November 2, 1986 (1986-11-02)

Elvira's Movie Macabre (titled on-screen as Movie Macabre with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark in its original run), or simply Movie Macabre, is an American hosted horror movie television program that originally aired locally from 1981 to 1986. The show features B movies, particularly those in the horror and science fiction genres, and is hosted by Elvira, a character with a black dress and heaven bump hairstyle, played by Cassandra Peterson. Elvira occasionally interrupts the films with comments and jokes, and in some episodes receives phone calls from a character called "the Breather" (John Paragon).

The popularity of the show led to a feature film, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, which was released in 1988. The character returned in the 2001 film Elvira's Haunted Hills. The show was revived in 2010 as Elvira's Movie Macabre, in which Elvira hosted public domain films. This revival aired on This TV until 2011. Elvira returned as a horror hostess in 2014 with 13 Nights of Elvira, a 13-episode series produced by Hulu. In 2021, she recreated her show for a one-night movie marathon on the streaming service Shudder to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary. The special was called Elvira's 40th Anniversary, Very Scary, Very Special Special.

In 1981, six years after the death of Larry Vincent, who starred as host Sinister Seymour of a Los Angeles weekend horror show called Fright Night, show producers began to bring the show back.^[1]

The producers decided to use a hostess. They asked 1950s' horror hostess Maila Nurmi to revive The Vampira Show. Nurmi worked on the project for a short time, but quit when the producers would not hire Lola Falana to play Vampira.^[2] The station sent out a casting call, and Peterson auditioned and won the role. Producers left it up to her to create the role's image. She and her best friend, Robert Redding, came up with the sexy goth/vampire look after producers rejected her original idea to look like Sharon Tate's character in The Fearless Vampire Killers.^[3] They created the Elvira look by drawing inspiration from a Kabuki makeup book and the hairstyles of The Ronettes.^[4][5]

Shortly before the first taping, producers received a cease and desist letter from Nurmi. Besides the similarities in the format and costumes, Elvira's closing line for each show, wishing her audience "Unpleasant dreams," was notably similar to Vampira's closer: "Bad dreams, darlings..." uttered as she walked off down a misty corridor. The court ruled in favor of Peterson, holding that "'likeness' means actual representation of another person's appearance, and not simply close resemblance." Peterson claimed that Elvira was nothing like Vampira aside from the basic design of the black dress and black hair. Nurmi claimed that Vampira's image was based on Morticia Addams, a character in Charles Addams's cartoons that appeared in The New Yorker magazine.^[6]

Peterson's Elvira character rapidly gained notice with her tight-fitting, low-cut, cleavage-displaying black gown. Adopting the flippant tone of a California "Valley girl", she brought a satirical, sarcastic edge to her commentary. She reveled in dropping risqué double entendres and making frequent jokes about her cleavage. In an AOL Entertainment News interview, Peterson said, "I figured out that Elvira is me when I was a teenager. She's a spastic girl. I just say what I feel and people seem to enjoy it." Her camp humor, sex appeal, and good-natured self-mockery made her popular with late-night movie viewers and her popularity soared.^[7]

Elvira was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and other talk shows. She also produced a long-running series of Halloween-themed television commercials for Coors Light Beer and Mug Root Beer (her trademark cleavage was concealed for the Coors campaign). She appeared in guest roles on television dramas such as CHiPs, The Fall Guy and Fantasy Island and appeared on numerous awards shows as a presenter. Although she is known primarily as Elvira, Peterson has made out-of-costume appearances as herself for television interviews and specials.

Two million pairs of $0.99 3D glasses were reportedly sold for the 22 May 1982, broadcast of The Mad Magician.^[8]

In 1982, with the success of Movie Macabre, Knott's Theme Parks hired Elvira to replace Seymour as the host of its annual Halloween Haunt during October. Elvira appeared nightly at the park, live on stage with a Halloween-themed musical comedy revue similar to her Mamma's Boys act from the 1970s.

The Elvira character rapidly evolved from obscure cult figure to a lucrative brand name. She was associated with many products through the 1980s and 1990s, including Halloween costumes, comic books,^[9][10] action figures, trading cards, pinball machines, Halloween decor, model kits, calendars, perfume and dolls. She has appeared on the cover of Femme Fatales magazine five times. Her popularity reached its zenith with the release of the feature film Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, on whose script, written directly for the screen, Peterson collaborated with John Paragon and Sam Egan.^[11]

In the 1990s, Rhino Home Video released Midnight Madness, a collection of films hosted by Elvira, on VHS.^[12]

• Eegah
• Frankenstein's Daughter
• Killers from Space
• The Giant Gila Monster
• The Mask
• She Demons
• Night of the Ghouls
• I Eat Your Skin
• The Brain That Wouldn't Die
• The Brain from Planet Arous
• A Bucket of Blood
• The Crawling Hand
• The Wasp Woman
• The Hideous Sun Demon
• Missile to the Moon

In September 2010, Elvira's Movie Macabre returned to television syndication in the United States, airing on This TV.^[13] This revival saw Elvira hosting public domain films. 26 episodes were produced; six were left unaired, but were released on both DVD and iTunes.

13 Nights of Elvira was produced for Hulu by Brainstorm Media. A new episode streamed each day through Halloween.^[14] The series teamed with film distributor Full Moon Features; it provided the majority of the films chosen for the series.

To celebrate the original show's 40th anniversary, Cassandra Peterson revived her role for a special one-night movie marathon, which premiered live on Shudder, the horror streaming service. The special came out on September 25, 2021, the same week as her memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira.^[15]

In 2004, Time Life released a series of special Elvira DVDs titled Elvira's Horror Classics, which was done in a similar fashion to Movie Macabre. There were seven films total in the series. There was a 3-DVD box set for six of the seven films titled Elvira's Box of Horrors. This box set consists of three double feature DVDs. The films featured were all in the public domain. They included:

• The Little Shop of Horrors and The Brain That Wouldn't Die
• Dementia 13 and Carnival of Souls
• House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead

The films were also released on four stand-alone DVDs. Three of the four DVDs were double features under the Elvira's Horror Classics title. Night Of The Living Dead was a single feature DVD without the Elvira's Horror Classics title branding on the DVD case art. It was titled as Night of the Living Dead "Hosted by Elvira". The disc itself does have the Elvira's Horror Classics branding on it.

• The Little Shop of Horrors and The Brain That Wouldn't Die
• Dementia 13 and Carnival of Souls
• House on Haunted Hill and The Terror
• Night of the Living Dead

Shout! Factory has released a small number of Movie Macabre episodes to DVD, in both single and double feature format. The DVDs allow the material to be shown either complete with Elvira's interruptions or uninterrupted. Unlike the original broadcasts, the films are complete and uncensored.^[16]

• Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks
• Count Dracula's Great Love
• Legacy of Blood
• The Devil's Wedding Night
• The Doomsday Machine
• The Werewolf of Washington

• Blue Sunshine and Monstroid
• Gamera: Super Monster and They Came from Beyond Space
• Maneater of Hydra and The House That Screamed
• Count Dracula's Great Love and Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks
• Legacy of Blood and The Devil's Wedding Night
• The Doomsday Machine and The Werewolf of Washington

Following the revival of Elvira's Movie Macabre in 2011, E1 Entertainment began releasing episodes of the new series on DVD. Unlike the Shout! Factory editions, these films were released in their edited format as aired in syndication.

• The Satanic Rites of Dracula
• I Eat Your Skin
• Night of the Living Dead
• The Brain That Wouldn't Die
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
• Beast from Haunted Cave (previously unaired)
• The Terror
• Hercules and the Captive Women
• The Wasp Woman (previously unaired)
• The Wild Women of Wongo (previously unaired)
• Untamed Women

• Night of the Living Dead and I Eat Your Skin
• Satanic Rites of Dracula and The Werewolf of Washington
• The Terror and Eegah
• The Brain That Wouldn't Die and The Manster
• Scared to Death and Tormented
• Lady Frankenstein and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Beast from Haunted Cave (previously unaired)

• Wild Women featuring Untamed Women, The Wild Women of Wongo (previously unaired), Hercules and the Captive Women and The Wasp Woman (previously unaired)
• Giant Monsters featuring The Giant Gila Monster, Attack of the Giant Leeches (previously unaired), Teenagers from Outer Space, and Monster from a Prehistoric Planet (previously unaired)
• Bloody Madness featuring A Bucket of Blood, The Killer Shrews (previously unaired), Manos: The Hands of Fate and Don't Look in the Basement

• List of films in the public domain in the United States
• List of Cinema Insomnia episodes
• List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes

• Movie Macabre at IMDb
• Elvira's Movie Macabre at IMDb
• 13 Nights of Elvira at IMDb
• Elvira's 40th Anniversary, Very Scary, Very Special Special at IMDb
• Elvira's Movie Macabre E1 Entertainment releases via TVShowsOnDVD.com