European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 31, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse Viva Elvira by Hillel ital1e associated Pressw to s Elvira Stio s Mae West mortician Addams and Cassandra pole son caught up in a cuisinart. Who s Cassandra Peterson she s Elvira. Elvira was always Elvira i was always Cassandra now Iho line is kind of blurring. Sometimes i Don l know who i says Pellison the hoi of a horror movie series who s just made her first movie Elvira mistress of the dark. Elvira becomes like my real sell which 1 try to do. Sometimes i become like Elvira. I meow Elvira isms into whal i do and say depending on my most of those Elvira isms Are unprintable they go far beyond Beulah Peel me a people say i have a lot in common with Mae West pole son said. I was a novel a big Tan of hers but 11 can get mainly now see the common thread. We re both kind of the bad Gal with a heart of Gold character. Lots of double entend fes " they also share a similar Anatomy Peterson is Well endowed. For the uninitiated Elvira is the Host of movie macabre broadcast locally in los Angeles. Her lame quickly grew moving beyond talk show appearances and commercials into a tar club and marketing Windfall with Elvira records greeting cards to shirts comic books and key chains. Peterson developed her alter ego seven years ago. I thought the movie would be a great idea for this character Peterson said. The film companies did t think i had enough nationwide Appeal but then i got spots on Johnny Carson and Bob Hope. Anco i became National Abc saw the potential and signed to As for Peterson she is Quile unlike her alter ego. She has Long red hair and dressed very simply in jeans and a Leonard shirt for a recent interview. She is married to Mark Pic son. Her manager. Elvira was born Cassandra Peterson in Colorado Springs colo., and had the Good Fortune to have a Mother who owned a costume shop. I dressed up All Ltd time t would dress like miss Kilty from gun smoke. By aunt sent to this Tunny picture of me As a Witch when i was 5 years old. I be got on a Black wig and a Witch dress. I look like a 5-year-old she said. Her love Tor switching costumes and identities did not equip her Tor the Slago. In tact she flunked her High school drama class. I was playing in our town. I kept Lellig jokes making Lunny faces. 1 got kicked Oul o the part. I was the class Clown i was making a lace of she said. Our town was never for pole son Viva Las Vagas is More her style. In fact in the 1960s when she was 17. She worked As a Las vegas showgirl. I try to keep it really she said. The film company thinks it a men s cult. Ii s straight Camp. It s a very self depreciating character. It s All a kind of setup. Some people Don l get it and some do. It s like being a cartoon character. It s like a male pee we Herman. A her costume and alter ego allow her a certain amount of privacy she says. That is one of the great things. I m the world s Luckiest celebrity. If i want to put on no makeup and put on curlers and go walking Down Hollywood Boulevard nobody will know it s me Peterson said. However lame caught up to her last month when Ulaila Vampire Nurmi a Borrner horror hostess tiled a $10 million suit in . District court in los Angeles claiming she had developed the Elvira character in the 1950s before Peterson horror hostesses Are All wearing just about the same audit Peterson said. You be got pretty slim parameters. Mine were that i had to he in Black and had to have Black hair and look sexy. Any similarity is purely coincidental. Ii someone told you to look like Dracula whal would you Wear but Elvira in t just a Black dress and wig. It s a whole other person. I always compare it to someone at a costume party. Ii you re in a total disguise you kind of go wild. Nobody knows who you Are. You might do things you otherwise would t do. They suddenly become Theau wild animals. When i put on this costume and wig i become this wild underside of my Camp Vamp Elvira to s mistreat of the Darin splatter is out suspense is in on the big screen by John Horn associated press listen. You can come out from under you seat now. The really Gross parts Are , masochists will shed a tear. But the Ilmic Lun of flying body parts exploding brains and Chainsaw haircuts is lading. Today s horror filmmakers abandoning the Point Blank plasma of recent years Are returning to psychological thrillers with a we ally of Lively style replacing heaps of dead Leen agers. Dead fit igers sleeps away irom the entrails so prevalent in director David Cronenborg s previous Elt Orts the Fly and scanners. George Romero who charmed us with cannibalizing zombies in 1979 s Dawn of the dead just delivered Monkey sni nes a Laul chiller with hardly any viscera. While the splatter is gone the suspense is Back both dealt ringers and Monkey shines critics agree Are profoundly frightening. There s been a lol of Good scaring in the last 15 to 20 years and you can t do the same old thing anymore said Wes Craven director of the acclaimed original Nightmare on Elm Street. The audience was bored. They had seen it. They were ready for something Hack and slash movies championed in the mid 1980s by the blockbuster Friday the i3h series and later instalments of the halloween sequels Aren l producing the packed houses they once did. In act. This summer s grisly shockers Tho Blob and phantasm ii. Both croaked at the Box office. Ii your film is All a Butcher Block collection of deals i Don t think you re working with As Large an audience As you could be said pen Densham director and co producer of the kiss a spooky supernatural thriller. The Challenge now is to take the audience into your few have succeeded at thai better than Cronenberg. While his films have always been upsetting the Shock value in dead ringers is in a twist. As fancied As it is real. Among the most disturbing scenes in the movie a tale of psychotic twin doctors is the simple unveiling of a Hall dozen malformed gynaecological devices. The instruments Are physical things that i m using to represent a state of mind Cronenberg said. It s Only an extrapolation irom what we used to eel silting in a dentist s chair. Suddenly the fray of Little instruments is wheeled up. You know that technically they Are to help you but exponentially they re going to the Challenge for today s fright masters is to snare the mainstream nol just those who. Lor Lack of anything belter to do. Love being scared to death. Toward Hal goal directors Are concen Raling on More traditional storytelling with a greater emphasis on inventive visuals tighter More logical polls and creative music and sound effects the directors who Are committed to the genre Are maturing said Veteran horror specialist John Carpenter director of halloween and the thing and the upcoming they live. Honor newcomers too Are exploring unusual strategies to induce fear in the kiss director Densham gives we to a swimming Pool a wind chime and an escalator. My goal is to try to fuse vision with emotion Densham said. In a news Way opening in the United Stales in november director and co Wriler Tom Holland has created a fresh and sometimes Tunny White Knuckles about a toy doll with a really bad attitude. We Veall become much More sophisticated in what we be grown accustomed to on the screen said monday. October31, 1988 the stars and stripes Richard Hubin Slein producer of Stephen King s pet so malary duo out Early next year. Ii the audience cares Aboul the characters then they will care when they gel into trouble if you introduce a group of teen agers who climb Olf a bus nobody cares when they gel popped furthermore the dead teen Ager movies focused on one fear fear of attack. When manipulations of that emotion grew too frequent the genre lost its original snap. When you got Down to Hal level with Anonymous children dying Anonymous death what you re ready doing is pornography Carpenter said. You re Only setting the audience up for the said Craven there Are Dildo real kinds of terror. One is just terror of having your body harmed something like Friday no 13th Wilh Jason coming Afler you with a Maehelen. Bui there Ara other kinds. There is the terror of whether you re sane or not or whether your perceptions Are accurate or not or whether your dreams arc real. Those sorts of things to me Are much More interesting and much More Complex and have More of a potential for Craven new unfilled movie scheduled for release next year will focus on premonitions hallucinations dreams religious trances and still there will be some Gore. Unless you have one scene that really scares.,. People that really makes them Leel that not Only is the killer beyond Normal rational actions but the filmmaker is too then the audience is not really Craven said. But once you do that you Don t need to do it Over and Over again entrails enthusiasts need not panic completely. While there is room for style in Hollywood there will always be a place for Low budget slice and Dice. Coming soon to Heaters dealt spa slaughterhouse Rock and demented death farm massacre. Page 17
