Elvira's Haunted Hills

Title - Elvira's Haunted Hills
Language - English
Genre - Horror, comedy

Elvira’s haunted hills is the second film outing for Cassandra Peterson’s Elvira but it is not a sequel to Elvira mistress of the dark.

Set in 1851 Elvira and her assistant Zou Zou are traveling through the Carpathian Mountains on the way to put on a show in Paris.  Out of money the two have to run form an inn and find themselves stranded on the road.  A coach stops to pick them up after the other passenger, Dr Bradley Bradley recognizes Elvira from her promo posters..

Doctor Bradley is on his way to one of his patients who let Elvira stay the night with the doctor promising to take them away the next morning.  As soon as Elvira enters castle Hellsubus lady Hellsubus sees her and runs screaming and this is the reaction she gets from most of the residents the first time they meet her.

Elvira is told that she is the spitting image of Lord Vladimere Hellsubus’ first wife, Elura who died in mysterious circumstances.  

The members of the Hellsubus family believe that they are cursed never to be able to leave the castle and, it is this that lead to Elura’s death.  The curse also manifests itself in other ways in some of the family members,  Vladimere has sensitive hearing and vision and his niece, Roxanna keeps fainting.

Doctor Bradley is called away to treat the plague in the next village stranding Elvira and Zou Zou in castle Hellsubus and with Vladimere’s insanity growing will any of them get out alive.

Elvira’s Haunted Hills is a spoof of the old ‘Hammer Horror’ films and is even dedicated to Vincent Price.  It has all the trappings of the haunted house style of film  from the creepy castle to the Dracula like Lord Vladimere.  The film is played of laughs and is definitely more of a comedy than Mistress of the Dark which keeps it’s humor dark.  The jokes range from cleavage/boob jokes to Elvira spouting anachronisms which, until you get used to them can throw the flow of the film.

As the film is a parody the acting is over the top with a great performance from Richard O'Brien as Lord Vladimere Hellsubus.  we get lots of sneaky looks to the camera with Elvira even addressing it in one scene.  the character of Adrian the Stable Stud has an English voice over dubbed on to his own in homage of the dubbed foreign films of the past.

Elvira’s Haunted Hills has a few things in common with Mistress of the dark, Elvira is trying to put on a show, she has no money and of course there are plenty of cleavage but it  is a noticeably different film from Mistress of the Dark in tone and story.  It is, however still a fun and enjoyable film so give it a watch after all it’s not every day you see Richard O'Brien's over acting stand out more than Elvira.