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.

History

Peterson dressed as Elvira at the 2006 San Francisco Gay Pride parade

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.

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,^[8][9] 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.^[10]

Episode list

Revivals

Elvira's Movie Macabre (2010–11)

The logo used for Elvira's Movie Macabre (2010–11)

In September 2010, Elvira's Movie Macabre returned to television syndication in the United States, airing on This TV.^[12] This revival saw Elvira hosting public domain films. 26 episodes were produced; six were left unaired, but were released on both DVD and iTunes.

s#e#	Film shown	ep	Week of
s1e01	Night of the Living Dead	1	September 20, 2010
s1e02	The Terror	2	September 27, 2010
s1e03	The Giant Gila Monster	3	October 4, 2010
s1e04	The Brain That Wouldn't Die	4	October 11, 2010
s1e05	The Satanic Rites of Dracula	5	October 18, 2010
s1e06	Scared to Death	6	October 25, 2010
s1e07	The Werewolf of Washington	7	November 1, 2010
s1e08	Eegah	8	November 8, 2010
s1e09	Teenagers from Outer Space	9	November 15, 2010
s1e10	Santa Claus Conquers the Martians	10	December 20, 2010
s1e11	I Eat Your Skin	11	January 17, 2011
s1e12	Don't Look in the Basement	12	January 24, 2011
s1e13	Untamed Women	13	January 31, 2011
s1e14	Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter	14	February 7, 2011
s1e15	Lady Frankenstein	15	February 14, 2011
s1e16	The Manster	16	February 21, 2011
s1e17	Tormented	17	April 25, 2011
s1e18	Manos: The Hands of Fate	18	May 2, 2011
s1e19	Hercules and the Captive Women	19	May 9, 2011
s1e20	A Bucket of Blood	20	May 16, 2011
s1e21	Attack of the Giant Leeches	21	unaired
s1e22	Beast from Haunted Cave	22	unaired
s1e23	Monster from a Prehistoric Planet	23	unaired
s1e24	The Killer Shrews	24	unaired
s1e25	The Wasp Woman	25	unaired
s1e26	The Wild Women of Wongo	26	unaired

DVD releases

See also

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

References

External links

• 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