“That was just improvised, spur of the moment,” she laughs in recollection. “It wasn’t planned or set-up or anything. It was actually the director’s idea. I was trying to get through the gate, and I sort of stuck my boobs through and he goes, ‘Oh my god, keep that! Do that again!’ and just sort of threw that in there.”
Elvira gained iconicity as a gothically-erotic, Morticia Addams-styled horror hostess in TV show Movie Macabre (1981-1993), with her satirical wit and comical charm countervailing her spooky appearance. Elvira’s on screen charisma and seductive costume titillated audiences, enabling widespread popularity of the show. Following several film appearances including a feature film titled Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the Elvira character swiftly extended beyond cult figure and into the horror mainstream, spawning Halloween costumes, comics, action figures, pinball machines and more throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s.
“Elvira’s a combination of three things: sexy, spooky and funny. And I think it’s really equal parts, and I think I attract different types of audiences for each of the different things. I obviously attract the ‘dirty old man – boobs part’ but I attract people who like [Elvira] for the comedy sense, and then I attract the Goths and the horror buffs for the spooky part. So it’s funny how I get this very, very odd fan base that like me for completely different things. It’s not just the people you would think coming out, like horny old guys, it’s the Goths too and it’s gay men and it’s regular families who look normal,” she pauses, “well, on the outside anyway”.
“Everything and anything, it’s very bizarre…it’s from little children up to, well I even had somebody so old that they were dead. Somebody’s son brought their dad’s ashes to a signing I was doing recently and he said, ‘My dad always wanted to meet you and he passed away a month ago and I’m bringing him to see you now’, and I signed on this box of ashes: better late than never.
“It’s absolutely 100 per cent real. I have a picture signing the ashes. The guy was like, ‘My dad is smiling down right now, you can’t imagine’”.
In speaking with Peterson, it becomes clear that the comedic element of Elvira largely finds its basis in the actress herself, who learned much of her improvisational skills in comedy crew The Groundlings, who also claim alumni such as Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig.
“When you have to host that type of low budget B-[grade] horror films, you’ve got nowhere to be but humour. Nobody can take them seriously that’s for sure. You’ve got to try do something to make them palatable or nobody would watch them anymore; they’ve been around for so many years and people have seen them so many times, that’s sorta the reason we chose to go with [making] fun of them.
Elvira will be visiting Australia for the inaugural Monster Fest – which labels itself as a celebration of the “weird and wonderful in the international cult cinema palette”. Monster Fest will feature a hunt for Australia’s next Elvira-influenced horror star, and the winner will become a horror hostess on their website and social media.
“One thing that’s really fantastic about playing a character like this is that I look completely different and nobody ever recognises me, so I can go about my regular business and no-one knows who I am, so I have a life outside of the character. I love playing the character because I can get away with murder. I joke people, insult them, anything I want to, and they just think it’s adorable; nobody gets upset. The character is really ballsy and confident; a lot more confident and ballsy than I am in my real life. Fortunately a lot of freedom to just be silly and whacky and sexual and outgoing and stuff that I wouldn’t do in my everyday life. It gives you a lot of freedom to just be really insane and people don’t hate you”.
BY NICK TARAS
