Review: 'Rocky Horror by Mick Rock'

Mick Rock was a rock star photographer both in the sense that he photographed rock stars and that he was something of a rebel star himself. He gravitated toward the most visually electrifying artists of his time, including Queen, Bowie, Iggy, and T. Rex. So he was the perfect fit to serve as set photographer during the making of that most visual, rocking, and rebellious of seventies cult classic films, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

Review: 'Yours Cruelly, Elvira'

Struggling actress/improv comedian/showgirl/monster kid Cassandra Peterson wrapped up all her skills and loves into a single package when she got the chance to become the new Vampira for an L.A. TV station in 1981. Thus was born entertainment juggernaut Elvira, infamous for her sexiness, sassiness, dagger wit, and self-assuredness. 

The woman behind the wig is just as sexy and witty as her iconic character, but she wasn't always completely self-assured, which is what makes Yours Cruelly, Elvira a very unexpected autobiography. Peterson's life was hardly as smooth as one of Elvira's effortless one-liners. Alcoholism and drug-addiction ran in her family. Because Peterson made a career of showing as much skin as possible, it is rather shocking to learn that she suffered serious burns as a toddler that scarred a large percentage of her skin for life. Her mother was often cruel and ridiculed young Cassandra's appearance. 

Review: 'Elvira: Mistress of the Dark' Blu-ray

It’s been less than a year since I last reviewed a Blu-ray edition of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. I’m not sure what kind of loosey-goosey rights issues brought us to this place, but it is now time for another.

To recap, RLJ Entertainment’s Blu-ray of Elvira’s spooky, kooky film debut was generally underwhelming. According to 2019-me, the disc’s image is “soft and dull” and its colors are “muted.” “Extras are non-existent aside from a trailer.”

Review: 'Elvira: Mistress of the Dark' Blu-ray

Someone should have given the Razzies a Razzie for nominating Elvira the “worst actress” of 1988 for her “acting” in Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Firstly, Cassandra Peterson does no act in this film. She just delivers 90 minutes of her Elvira character and all of the sassy one-liners and double-entendres that come with it. Her performance requires no more acting than she was expected to bring to an episode of Elvira’s Movie Macabre.

Secondly, Elvira is awesome: as self-aware and self-possessed as Mae West, as quick-witted as Bugs Bunny, and as tough as Rosie the Riveter. Throughout Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, she dispenses with leering sexists, exposes the hypocrisy of conservative Little Town USA, and disperses her one liners with equal aplomb. Plus director and SNL-veteran James Signorelli does a fine job of playing Tim Burton-on-an-extremely-tight-budget and the script by Peterson and John “Jambi” Paragon piles on the one-liners so high that it’s fairly pointless to gripe about their quality. Also: Edie McClurg. If you don’t agree that Edie McClurg makes everything better, I don’t want to know you. Her performance during a scene in which a magic casserole transforms a church potluck into a Roman orgy is worth the price of admission alone.

Look, I’m not arguing that Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is the Citizen Kane of horror comedies, but I will argue that it’s the best Elvira: Mistress of the Dark it can be, and a much more agreeable shot of retro-eighties fun than Top Gun, Sixteen Candles, Red Dawn, and a dozen other poorly-aged artifacts wrapped up in one, great, walloping cheeseball.

I’ll also argue that it may be somewhat pointless to gripe about the quality of RLJ Entertainment’s new Blu-ray edition of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. The image is on the soft and dull side with a palette that should pop like a bag of Skittles but looks a bit muted and grey; however, it’s very clean. Audio lacks range, hovering somewhere in the middle. Extras are non-existent aside from a trailer. Nevertheless, this is still a presentable and extremely affordable edition of a movie that is—I reiterate—not Citizen Kane. Diehards may hold out for a more luxurious edition, but this one will probably get the job done for most fans.

Review: 'Retro Fan' Issue #2

Michael Eury’s new magazine Retro Fan has a very singular purpose: to hit the nostalgia sweet spot. With the arguable exception of Christmas, no holiday hits that spot like Halloween, so you can bet that Retro Fan’s autumnal issue will give you that deep bath in ghouls you crave at this time every year. Articles cover such gruesome yet wistful topics as horror hosts (including a brief interview with this issue’s cover-girl, Elvira), 1960s monster TV (specifically Bewitched, The Munsters, and The Addams Family), The Groovie Goolies, and those delightfully garish Ben Cooper costumes.

While these topics have all been discussed many times before, the Retro Fan writing staff always hits just the right note. The writers’ references to their own, very relatable, childhood experiences maximize the nostalgia value without upstaging the topics. The tone is friendly, but the articles are almost absurdly in depth. Did I previously know that Bob Clampett was preparing an animated feature with basically the same premise as The Munsters way back in the 1940s? Nope. Do I now ache for the existence of such a film? You bet your abbie-normal brain I do. Did I know that there were also plans for a sort of Muppet Babies-esque spin off of The Groovie Goolies in the 1980s? Hell, most ex-employees of Filmation didn’t even know that!

For those who do not have a predilection for monsters and the macabre, there are also articles about such non-Halloweeny topics as Sindy: the British Barbie (good to see a female writer being invited to the show this issue…hopefully there will be more in issue #3), a now defunct dinosaur theme park in San Diego, a fab collection of lunch boxes, and super hero View-Master reels. If I have any beef with this issue, it’s that I wish the lunch box photos were bigger and it would have been nice if the View-Master article were more seasonal, focusing on those wonderful adaptations of creepy classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein featuring creepy dolls. I loved those.

But the biggest disappointment is not Retro Fan’s fault at all. As soon as I glanced at an article about a pop culture museum in Baltimore, I was poised to buy a bus ticket to Charm City—then I read the sidebar explaining that the museum closed for business between the article’s writing and the magazine’s publication! It’s just another reminder of how quickly things change, how constantly the past replaces the present. At least we have Retro Fan to memorialize such lost things with humanity and love.

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 353

The Date: September 17

The Movie: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

What Is It?: The plot is about as insubstantial as Elvira’s wardrobe, but she keeps the movie rolling with her constant stream of Mae West/Borscht Belt one-liners and director James Signorelli does a pretty good Tim-Burton-on-a-tight-budget routine. Sure, the movie stifles once it gets to its one-millionth boob joke and the stupid pseudo-apocalyptic battle at the end, but most of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark is really entertaining. The church cook-out-turned-orgy scene really gives Edie McClurg a chance to shine.

Why Today?: On this day in 1951, Cassandra Peterson is born.

Track by Track: 'Spook Along with Zacherley'

In this ongoing feature on Psychobabble, I’ve been taking a close look at albums of the classic, underrated, and flawed variety, and assessing them Track by Track.

Like most American families, mine spent Christmas with the usual choir of vinyl carolers: Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole, and since my dad loved Rock & Roll as much as I do, Phil Spector’s stable of stars. Most American homes, however, had no annual carols for my favorite holiday. Mine did though. As soon as my mom had affixed the final cardboard jack-o-lantern to the living room windows, I was begging my dad to take his yearly trip down to the basement and brush the cobwebs off an old record called Spook Along with Zacherley.

Diary of the Dead 2011: Week 3

I’m logging my Monster Movie Month © viewing with ultra-mini reviews every Friday in October (this year I’ll only be discussing movies I haven’t reviewed elsewhere on this site). I write it. You read it. No one needs to get hurt.



October 14th

Frankenstein Unbound (1990- dir. Roger Corman) **

Roger Corman hadn’t directed a movie in nineteen years when he made Frankenstein Unbound. Why he decided to make his comeback with this insane hooey is anyone’s guess. John Hurt is a scientist in the year 2031. He creates a WMD that somehow produces a Hun on horseback who zaps him and his Knight Rider car back to 1817. There he meets the similarly disaster-prone scientist Dr. Frankenstein (Raul Julia). For some reason, Percy (Michael Hutchence!) and Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda) coexist with her literary creations. Corman holds up Frankenstein and his monster as forerunners of all the bad, bad science that would wreak destruction in the future. An interesting idea, and Hurt and Julia are great actors, but the package is just so damn silly. Corman plays it totally straight, so Frankenstein Unbound never achieves the campiness that is its true calling.

October 15th

The Evil Dead (1983- dir. Sam Raimi) ***

Once you’ve seen its brilliant sequel/remake, The Evil Dead is tough to view as anything but a rough demo. Sam Raimi intended his first feature to be serious horror, but the cheesy script and acting prod it toward camp. By fully embracing that inclination, he made Evil Dead 2 one of the funniest and most energetic horror/comedies. Its predecessor