'Elvira: Mistress of the Dark: Timescream' is wholly entertaining and funny. And understanding and respectful of Elvira. It was made for her. It suits her character - her legacy - very exquisitely.
The tit*ular Mistress of the Dark, who hasn't changed a bit since the eighties, is suddenly sent back in time via a coffin in her movie studio, and in subsequent time jumps she meets famous horror literature and movie icons; from Mary Shelley in her ghost story castle, to Edgar Allan Poe, to Bram Stoker, and to Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester (though the actors are given different yet similar names due to copyright laws and them not being public domain yet, something that Elvira calls out on). Exacerbating the madness is [redacted due to spoilers]. Yes, the [redacted due to spoilers], who is chasing Elvira across time, and is also caught in this time travel "game" of someone's nefarious doing. Or they're just bored and killing time. Heh.The jokes keep coming, and they mostly land. There are puns, fourth wall breaks--no, obliterations, sexual innuendoes, pop culture references made into actual punchlines, historical jokes, classic horror jokes, self-deprecating comic creators and publishers, easy jokes, childish jokes, subtle adult jokes - it's all a riotous party and everyone is invited.
I'm surprised - nay, amazed - that Elvira never crossed over with MST3K. Or did she? I'm not that familiar with her and everything she's done.
It's very recently that I started to look into Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira. I'd heard of her before, but extremely rarely, as a blip on the radar of my life - the life of a nineties British girl. Even then I may've gotten her confused with Barbarella. Or Booberella. But I wanted to know a little about this famous, universally beloved female icon and personality - the absolute Queen of Halloween - who is most associated with B-movie shlock horror and fantasy. And comedy and riffing. Her appeal should be niche, yet she has managed to achieve such popularity; talked about even decades later. She is a dream for every geek of every gender and taste. The Mistress of the Dark's got colour to her.
How the hell has the archaic, BS consensus, "women aren't funny", persisted (it still rears its grotesque, tiny penis-sized head every now and then to this day), when Elvira and women like her have been around for nearly forty years? She's not really barbaric, in her humour and affectations - those "wah! women aren't funny I'm so fragile and insecure!" men are.
I saw YouTube clips of Elvira, and her two films, 'Elvira: Mistress of the Dark' and 'Elvira's Haunted Hills'. I now own 'Mistress of the Dark' on DVD. I may not know much about the shows she's done, but I know about her and her style and outrageous sense of humour. She holds nothing back, and she's genuinely funny and witty a lot of the time. Never mind her cleavage, that's part of the joke, too. Ever since her grand debut onto the world, she's been open about her sexual deviancy and is utterly unabashed and unashamed. Elvira is in control; her looks, her clothing, her writing, her humour, her body, her prop knife - it is all about her and her agency.
Elvira is her creation. She's the star, and let's no one forget it.
Her campiness, drag queen style, and proud, eccentric outsider disposition have earned her masses of LBGTQ fans, and she has always supported gay rights, which is another reason to greatly admire her. Cassandra Peterson was also revealed to be queer herself in her later years.
(Elvira is canonically a witch, too, or is plain witchy, which is the chocolate shavings on top of the cake and the crepe as far as I'm concerned.)
So she's awesome. And her comic is awesome.
However, it does end abruptly on a cliffhanger for the second volume (how cheap), and since humour is subjective not everyone is going to find it particularly funny, and not every gag is going to work; maybe not on any level. Moreover, in general I don't much care for pronounced sex appeal and fanservice on main female characters, and not when it's done in a *nudge nudge wink wink* we-will-sell-it-as-a-joke-and-we-will-shame-and-ridicule-the-straight-male-gaze-but-will-still-encourage-them-to-buy-the-comic-because-of-boobs-and-no-other-reason kind of way. I'd argue that's worse. At least Elvira is never drawn in any ridiculous, pornographic poses, I guess.
But the comic is damn funny. And empowering. The art is fantastic, to boot. It should be read for every reason but the cleavage. It is an unapologetically silly, self-aware, clever, and campy horror comedy romp.
Final Score: 3.5/5
*I just realised I could have made an obvious, immature and boorish pun at awesome Elvira's expense there. Oh. Wait. I just did. Just by mentioning it. Crap.
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