Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: This movie is about Elvira having big boobs and a big mouth. That’s really it. But if you really want a more detailed recap, I’ll explain it in between cleavage pictures and one-liners (most of them painfully unfunny):

Elvira plays Elvira, dark mistress of boobs and hair (which is poofed up on top and short in the front, so I’m technically classifying it as a mullet). She’s working at a local TV station introducing bad horror movies (which really serves no purpose but it’s harmless fun), but she has aspirations as big as her boobs. She needs to scrape together $50,000 to help pay for her own show in Las Vegas, which sounds like some kind of Nigerian Prince scam. But she gets fired from her hosting job for spurning Texan Earl Hooter’s advances. Now how is she going to earn that much money in a short amount of time?

Earl Hooter: Sounds like your looking to get yourself fired little lady. 
Elvira: Yeah, go ahead and fire me. I need this job like a leper needs a three-way mirror!

Earl Hooter: [Grabbing Elvira’s breasts] It’s milkin’ time! 

Out of the blue she gets a letter that her aunt has died in Massachusetts and she was in the will. So she loads up her boobs and heads out there in her Macabremobile.

When she arrives, right off the bat she makes heads turn and runs afoul of local prude Edie McClurg. At the reading of the will she meets her long-lost uncle Vincent, who also doesn’t like her, I guess because he’s related to her and her boobs have no power over him. Vincent is after her aunt’s cookbook, which is actually a book of powerful spells, because everyone in her family is a witch or warlock I guess. Elvira gets the house, the cookbook and a dog in the will, which seems like a good haul for nothing but she really wanted cash like any working girl.

Chastity Pariah: Well, I never. 
Elvira: Yeah, and you never will with those soup cans on your head.

Turns out the house is garbage, and so is the dog, although it can shapeshift. Fortunately for Elvira, she has big boobs, so with the help of all the horny teen boys and girls in town, she fixes up the house in like one afternoon so she can sell it for 50 grand. However, they paint Elvira’s house ridiculous multicolors, and she wonders why it isn’t selling. Elvira really doesn’t think this part through.

Elvira: Grab a tool and start banging.

In the meantime, Elvira falls for a local movie theater owner, Bob, but runs afoul of his current squeeze, Patty, because she has big boobs. She also runs afoul of Vincent’s henchmen: that one guy with the weird face that you’d recognize if you saw him, and Jeff Conaway, who is very clearly being paid in coke to do this movie.

Elvira: Bloody Mary.
Bartender: No hard liquor served past eight o’clock. Do you want a virgin?
Elvira: Maybe, but, ah… I’ll have a couple of drinks first.

Elvira thinks of an amazing way to make tons of money by convincing Bob to let her host a bad movie night at his theater. So she makes about $60 showing Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and talking over it in the most unfunny and annoying way, but its ok because she has big boobs. After the movie she does a Flashdance thing but Patty ruins her night when she tars and feathers her from the rafters.

Bob Redding: I, ah… I can only play G-rated movies.
Elvira: Oh well, there’s nothing wrong with G-rated movies, as long as there’s lots of sex and violence.

Elvira uses the cookbook to make dinner for Bob, but ends up making the food come alive as a lizard, which tries to eat her boobs. Because of this, she realizes that it’s actually a spell book. She makes a horniness potion with it and all the puerile prudes in town eat the potion at a puerile prude picnic. Elvira gets into fisticuffs with Patty and Patty’s shirt rips off somehow and it’s revealed that her boobs are actually very small, which is no good because in this world big boobs are everything.

Patty: Seems to me it’s all this cheap little tart’s fault.
Elvira: Cheap. Who are you callin’ cheap? What’s that perfume you’re wearing, catch of the day?

Long story short, Vincent convinces the town board to arrest Elvira for crimes of witchcraft and boobery in the first degree. They’re actually going to burn her at the stake for it, which seems harsh. However, as she’s about to burn she suddenly realizes her ring is magical so she uses it to make rain to douse the fire, but not the one in our loins.

Cop: Do you smoke?
[Offering a cigarette]
Elvira: Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, uncle Vincent and Jeff Conaway go to Elvira’s house and steal the cookbook. Apparently Vincent can become a powerful ghoul by doing some kind of witchcraft with the cookbook during an eclipse. After his ritual he comes after all the townsfolk, regardless of boob size.

Bob Redding: How’s your head?
Elvira: I haven’t had any complaints yet.

Elvira ducks into a hardware store, turns into Rambo and shoots Vincent with a rocket launcher, but it does nothing. But then she hits him in the head with her shoe and the pointy heel goes right through his skull. Makes no sense.

So she opens a locked gate with her boobs and runs home. Unfortunately for Elvira, she runs into Jeff Conaway at her house. I’m not sure what happens to Jeff Conaway. She throws some leeches on his face and I guess that kills him? Did he “blow” town?

Anyway, Elvira, fights Vincent back at the house, and after chopping his hand off she kills him very easily with the ring, but the house burns down. Fortunately, she escapes with her life and boobs.

Bob Redding: Well, at least you still have the ring.
Elvira: Yeah, but now all I can make it do is look cheap.

The townsfolk realize that Elvira is the best thing that’s her happened to their town somehow, and offer her all their help and hospitality because she has big boobs. But as luck would have it, apparently Elvira is the sole heir to her now-dead uncle’s estate. Is that really how it works? I guess it’s sort of a booby prize.

Elvira: I’d bend over backwards. I’d bend over forwards!

Anyway, now she has the money for her Vegas show, which we end with. The show is awful. Aside from Elvira’s boobs, it’s extremely homoerotic, with half-naked dudes prancing around. She actually raps at one point and sets back hip hop 500 years. There’s no way anyone would pay money to see this crap. Which I guess is pretty attributable to this movie.

Is It Actually Scary: YES.

How Much Gore: Just a little blood when Elvira’s shoe goes into Vincent’s head, and when she cuts his hand off.

Dumbest Moment: Wow, that’s like picking which scene shows Elvira’s cleavage more. But if I have to pick one, I’ll go with the Vegas show at the end. It’s just mind-boobingly atrocious. There would be a vicious riot in the streets of Vegas started by the people who paid to see it.

Any Nudity: *sigh* No. But did I mention that Elvira shows a lot of cleavage?

Overall: This is as good a movie about Elvira’s boobs and hackneyed one-liners revolving around witchcraft that it can be. It’s pretty borderline between being a total waste of your time and being a fun little nostalgia trip (with cleavage). If you didn’t grow up in the ’80s, you’ll probably hate it. Although I’m not sure what Elvira actually did to become famous besides have big boobs, the movie is definitely a whimsical product of its time, and I’m kind of a sucker for that……….. and big boobs. It’s dumb and hokey, but at least it knows it’s dumb and hokey. As Elvira would say, watching this may give you unpleasant dreams, wet or otherwise.

Score: 5 big boobs (out of 10) (  .  ) (  .  )