ELVIRA'S HAUNTED HILLS
PLOT-Elvira finds herself in nineteenth-century Transylvania, stuck in a creepy castle filled with weird motherfuckers and silly goings-on.
VIOLENCE-This is a comedy, so there's not much blood here. I think there's like one gross skeleton at some point, but that's it.
SEX/NUDITY-Although there's quite a lot of sexual humor, no nudity or sex is shown. However, if you get past the fact that Elvira is probably old enough to be your grandma, you may enjoy staring at her trademark cleavage throughout the film.
WHY I BOUGHT IT-I'm not ashamed to admit that I loves me some Elvira. And no, it has nothing to do with her tits. Well, maybe a teensy bit. But not much. People talk about having grown up on stuff like THE TWILIGHT ZONE or CHILLER, perhaps seeing a guy like Zacherle on TV late at night or something. Me? I grew up watching Elvira's show. I still remember some of the fucked-up B-movies she had on there, which probably has something to do with why I still love them today. And way before there was such thing as MST3K, there was Elvira, wisecracking her way through countless old cheeseball films. Making fun of that type of stuff is something I will always love to do. And hey, did I mention that Elvira made her own feature film in the 80's called ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK? That's right, and it was damn good too. It was the first time I ever saw somebody get a high heel stabbed into their forehead, first time I ever saw a monster come out of a casserole dish, and the first time they almost showed Elvira naked. Hell yeah, what a thrill for a young lad that was! So why wouldn't I wanna see her new film, ELVIRA'S HAUNTED HILLS? After all, not only is she the star, but her co-star is none other than Richard O'Brien, creator of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (the one who played the infamous handyman Riff-Raff). Sounds like a great formula to me.
THE DOPE-Elvira goes in a totally different direction for this movie. It takes place in 19th-century Transylvania for starters. Second, she and the filmmakers went to great lengths to pay tribute to the old Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films of the 1960's, and did a fantastic job. This film has more in common with those movies than with MISTRESS OF THE DARK, but Elvira's tried-and-true wiseass humor is still present. The movie is funny, the production value is spectacular, and the supporting cast is full of great characters that reminded me of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN in a lot of ways. In fact, if I had to compare HAUNTED HILLS to any other film, it'd have to be that. This really is a good movie, even if they did have to make it PG-13.
MEMORABLE SCENES-Elvira is in a bathtub playing with toy boats, and says, "Please mister evil pirate, don't pillage my booty!". I loved that.
DVD NOTES-The disc has a great making-of featurette that has interviews with Elvira and a lot of the principal cast & crew, and follows the genesis of the project and what went into making it. Definitely a thorough and informative piece, and you get to see Cassandra Peterson without the Elvira gear on (she looks kinda like an older version of Ginger from GILLIGAN'S ISLAND). There's also an interview with Richard O' Brien, where he talks more about ROCKY HORROR than the Elvira film he's being interviewed for.
(November 2002)