Elvira's Haunted Hills

Color, PG-13 (mature themes, language, bawdy humor, comical gore) 90 min., VHS $14.95, DVD $19.95

Street: Oct 1, Prebook: now

First Run: L, Sept. 2002, <$1 mil.

Cast: Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), Richard O'Brien (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Mary Scheer (The New Women), Scott Atkinson (Windtalkers)

Director: Sam Irvin

Story Line: In 1851, Elvira (Peterson) is on her way to join a Parisian can-can dance company when she's stranded in a Carpathian castle ruled by eccentric Lord Hellsubus (O'Brien), who is alarmed to see that she looks like his long dead wife. Our heroine soon stumbles onto a sinister plot involving a deadly pendulum.

Bottom Line: Oh, why not? Wise-cracking, breast-obsessed (and bodacious!) pop icon Elvira pays daffy homage to the Roger Corman/Hammer horror films of the '60s in this well-constructed, joke-a-minute send-up. Spoof elements are secondary to Peterson's sarcastic persona as she gets off memorable zingers and treads confidently into lower-level Mel Brooks territory--who else delivers visual puns these days? The Romanian production looks appropriately cartoony and the cast is clearly on board. The buxom camp queen with the push-up bra could do sizable business beyond Halloween with the right kind of push-up. --Buzz McClain

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