Jan 9, 2025
Scott Atkinson.
seen from South Korea
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Chile
seen from Türkiye
seen from Netherlands
seen from Norway
seen from Türkiye
seen from Spain
seen from Norway
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from France
seen from Netherlands
seen from Russia
Scott Atkinson.
W A T C H I N G
The a FreeVee version is a terrible 4:3 transfer with mono audio.
Watch the Free TUBI version of the movie!
Elvira's Haunted Hills
Bad horror films that take themselves seriously are a lot more fun to watch than bad horror films that are trying to be funny. You’re so busy not laughing at the sorry attempts at humor and poorly timed bits, there’s no time to laugh at the awfulness. That makes watching Sam Irvin’s ELVIRA’S HAUNTED HILLS (2001, Shudder, Tubi, Plex, Prime, YouTube) almost as painful as watching Cassandra Peterson come a cropper. Her first film, ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK (1988), worked because sending that character, a horror hostess combining equal parts valley girl and Mae West, into a conservative small town provided a great vehicle for humor. When the blue noses weren’t being shocked by her comic sexuality, they were appalled at her love of horror films. But the follow up, intended as a satire of Roger Corman’s HOUSE OF USHER (1960) and THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961), seems to have forgotten who Elvira is. In the 19th century, Elvira is an entertainer trying to get to an engagement in Paris when she’s forced to spend the night in Castle Helsubus, whose master (Richard O’Brien) can’t abide sensory stimulation and keeps a torture chamber in the basement. They get the look of Corman’s Poe films right, from the credits played over swirling paint to the desiccated castle. But for the joke to work, the Mistress of the Dark would have to find all the creepy goings on quaint and maybe get a sexual kick out of being tortured. Instead, she’s a wise-cracking, randy coward — Bob Hope with bosoms. The slapstick bits lack grace because the film cuts between preparation and result. You don’t get the joy of watching a well-executed pratfall, and that’s just clunky. There are only two elements in the film that work. Scott Atkinson does a great George Sanders imitation as the family’s sinister doctor, and there’s a good bit with the hunky stable hand (Gabriel Andronache), whose lines are so poorly dubbed Elvira can’t figure out why his lip movements don’t match his words. The rest is just depressing, but at least I got through eight rows of knitting.
Scott Atkinson.