Words Seem Out Of Place

As everyone knows, jump scares and subversive fun make Christmas infinitely better. Watching movies like Black Christmas , Krampus , and Christmas Evil this time of year is a favorite custom of misanthropic scrooges everywhere. Hey, I like Christmas just fine, but I like it even more when you ratchet up the body count. Calm down, I mean  fictional body count, yeesh! "I saw Mommy being naughty with Santa Claus " : In  Christmas Evil , Santa skips the cookies and milk but still eats out, if you know what I mean. And yes, I just channeled my inner R-rated Joe Bob Briggs commentary with this caption. #sorrynotsorry So, in the spirit of Our Lady and Savior Cassandra Peterson, AKA Elvira Mistress of the Dark , I'm wishing you a very scary Christmas season. Here's where I could make the obvious joke about unwrapping Elvira for Christmas, but nope, I'm keeping it classy. There probably won't be any new content here over the next week o...

Rhonda Shear and Cassandra Peterson, together in one room: hearts and minds everywhere melt. This photograph warms our horror-hosts-loving hearts: Rhonda Shear and Elvira herself, Cassandra Peterson, together. For kids in the ‘80s and into the ‘90s, Elvira was our foremost educator in the school of cinematic snark as host of Elvira’s Movie Macabre , while Rhonda continued our education during the '90s with USA Up All Night!  Rhonda and Elvira are, without question, two of the most formative ladies in the childhoods of pre-adolescent and teenage geeks during those years. Those of us with encyclopedic knowledge of bad movies, sarcastic senses of humor, and a serious appreciation for low culture, wouldn't be who we are today without these two women.  Joe Bob Briggs, host of Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater and later  MonsterVision , and Gilbert Gottfried, Rhonda's Saturday evening counterpart on Up All Night! , were also important to our developing bad movie afic...

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark The After Movie Diner is now running my appreciation for the one, the only, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark . I'm excited to be included as part of their "Horrortober" series this October, and doubly excited that I got to write about the Queen of Halloween herself. It's been thirty-five years since actress Cassandra Peterson first donned the bouffant wig and low-cut, high-slit black dress and became Elvira, our most cherished of horror movie hosts and icons. Through Peterson's good humor and easy charms, Elvira has become a national treasure. I was originally intending to simply share the link to that article, but Elvira is so iconic that a little more fawning from this fan is not only warranted, but practically necessary. How can you ever say enough about Elvira in just one article? I can't, so here's a little bit more for the truly devoted. But you love guys without hairy chests too, right?!? Asking for a friend. El...