Lousy Lottery 38: Elvira Comes to Town
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 38! This week we get a little vava voom in our life with 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark! But first, let’s talk plot.
Elvira hosts a late-night TV show where she shows old movies and then chats about them at the commercial breaks. She’s sick of being stuck doing the same movies and jokes night after night. The straw that breaks the camel’s back comes when the new station owner sexually assaults her. She don’t take no shit and quits on the spot. Problem is, she has no money, no real skills and doesn’t know how she’s going to make rent. While she wonders what the hell she’s gonna do, she learns a long lost aunt has died and she’s in the will! So, she heads to the small town where her aunt lived to get the goods.
When she arrives, she learns this small town is run with an iron fist by the town council. That council runs something called the Morality Club that makes sure the town adheres to their conservative family values. The movie theatre only plays movies rated G. The library has nothing even close to scandalous. The closest thing to a party is the annual potluck. Elvira fits in like a mouse at a cat party. She goes to the attorney’s office and learns that she inherited her aunt’s house, dog and a recipe book. She’s bummed because all she wants is that sweet sweet cash. She tries immediately to sell the house and happily sells the recipe book to her long-lost uncle. Little does she know dear ol’ uncle is a warlock with nefarious deeds on his mind.
Luckily the dog hides the recipe book, which isn’t a recipe book at all but a book of spells, and Uncle Algonquin can’t get his hands on it. Elvira starts finding her place in the town as she waits for the house to sell and makes some friends. She cleans the house up, meets a guy and makes him dinner. Problem is, she uses the ‘recipe book’ and accidentally summons a weird demon worm thing. Wanting to get back at the stuck up conservative town council, she decides to use the book to summon the demon worm thing again at the annual potluck. Somehow she messes it up and her casserole ends up getting the town super horny and high. It’s, yeah, the best part of the movie. It clues Algonquin into the fact that she still has the book and has started using it. So, he takes action.
He convinces the town council Elvira’s a witch and gets them on board with burning her at the stake quicker than you’d expect. Will someone rescue Elvira or will she go up in flames? Will Algonquin get the book and begin a reign of terror? Will she ever get the cash together to realize her dream of becoming a Vegas showgirl? I guess you’ll have to tune in and find out.
God, Elvira is such a freaking icon. In the mid-80’s, I was a little horror loving kid who watched as much b-movie goodness as possible. Back in those days, we had a ton of great horror shows on TV and among them shows where hosts would talk about horror movies before and during showing them. Sure, Joe Bob was awesome and, as a Texan, I revered him. The Crypt Keeper is just classic. I loved others too, like that Up All Night lady. None of them compared to Elvira. She was the absolute best. I grew up in a house full of ladies and tough, no nonsense ladies at that! I had seven sisters and each one would cut a bitch. There was something about Elvira’s attitude and vibe that just stuck with me and I think they would play perfectly today. I’d love to see a resurgence!
She was body positive, sex positive, accepting of the weird and maligned and had a caustic, irreverent sense of humor that flipped the bird at the uptight. I mean, come on, the whole premise of the movie is sticking it to the uptight conservatives whose false narratives and hypocrisy make them, like, total assholes. It’s just delicious, start to finish. Here comes Elvira with her pentagram steering wheel and open minded ideas about sex and ruffles every last feather in this conservative little town. This movie came out in 1988 too, which means we got it at the very tail end of the Reagan era. It was the absolutely perfect time for this exact style of comedy and, you know what, now it’s ripe for some Elvira too.
This movie has lots more to love too. It has all the silly humor of a good b-horror ‘80s flick and even has a punk rock poodle! Sure, the acting isn’t always fantastic and the writing is corny as hell, but it all works when mushed together. While the acting isn’t always great, the cast as a whole is like an ‘80s wishlist. Besides Elvira, you also get John Paragon from UHF, also known as Jambi from PeeWee’s Playhouse. There’s Edie McClurg, who you’ll know from all your fav ‘80s flicks, like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Small Wonders. Hell, there’s even Kurt Fuller as a smarmy city counselor, who you’ll remember from Wayne’s World or Ghostbuster’s 2. The list goes on and on. There’s even a rare onscreen appearance from iconic voice actress Tress MacNeille!
Want some fun trivia? Yeah you do. When Elvira was growing up, she became a go-go burlesque dancer, like, seriously, while still a teen. At the end of this movie, part of the finale is her doing a nipple tassel dance, showing off her skills. More? Elvira was an alum of second city, just like many members of this cast, as well as Paul Reubens, aka PeeWee. She’d seen and loved PeeWee’s Big Adventure and her only choice for director of this movie was the director of that movie, Tim Burton. She worked on developing the movie with him and he was all set to direct, then his movie Beetlejuice got greenlit for production at the same time and he chose Beetlejuice. Sure, it’s not scary in the least and it’s sorely lacking in nudity or gore, but it’s still a silly blast.
Catch it streaming on Tubi or Hulu. Don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 39! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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