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Elvira, Mistress of the Dark shot her spooky movie in Eastern Europe in 2001 with her then partner Mark Pierson (they divorced in 2003) and was more than happy to tell me ALL about it. (the movie, not the divorce)

Maynard: Cassandra Peterson. Why has it taken so long for a second movie? Is there an easy answer for that?

Elvira: I’ve been out there selling movies ever since my first one came out. First, the studio went bankrupt, then I wrote another one, sold it again. Then the studio executive changed and he put the kibosh on that project.
Elvira: Finally, my only answer was to make it myself or I just never get another movie out.

Maynard: You and Mark are partners.

E: That is correct

M: Must put a lot of strain on any relationship and to have to shoot the movie in Romania. How do you two get on so well?

E: Who said we got on so well? Who are you talking to? It is tough. It is tough to work together and to be married. It’s really difficult and we’ve been doing it for 23 years. I think that’s a world’s record here in Hollywood. Look, I think we should get an Academy Award just for that.

M: You shot the movie in Romania. You used a lot of your own money, I believe. I’ve heard the figure mentioned of 1 million American dollars. Is that about roundabout the budget or is it more than that?

E: Actually under that, to shoot it, by the time we finished it with all the post-production, the music and everything else, it was about a million and a half dollars for the whole thing, which seems like a lot of money to a regular person just slogging away at a job, but for a movie, that’s a spit in the bucket, it is. Absolutely nothing. Compare that to any movie made by a big studio right now, and it’s, that’s what the costs are for the catering.

M: Elva Haunted Hills was made in Romania, and you got Richard O’Brien for it.Richard O’Brien is best known for the Rocky Horror Show and for his work on stage and his musical work. How did you get him?

E: It was just a fluke. I tell you. It was so strange. We actually had signed Richard Chamberlain, which is so strange. Of Thornbirds fame. I’m sure you’ve heard of Dr. Kildare? Richard is a very good friend and I thought he would be fantastic playing the part because I always saw a big similarity, believe it or not, this is a compliment for me to say this. Between him and Vincent Price. They’re both stage actors. They both have this look about them, that they’re Americans, but they seem like they come from England. So we were going ahead with Richard until he actually got a job that paid money. I don’t know why, but he took that one.

M: He ditched you?

E: He did, but in a nice way. We didn’t feel too bad. He actually had a job, like I said, that was going to pay rather better than we were. My brother-in-law, who’s from Romania mentioned that he knew Richard O’Brien. I was like, oh my God, that is so perfect. And we called Richard and he said, I’d love to do it. And that was that.

M: I couldn’t believe that you actually had all these fantastic sets built. You had all these amazing things built that just did not seem within your budget at all.

E: That’s Romania for you, and that’s why we had to go there to do this. We could have never built these sets. We really wanted the very same look that all the old Roger Corman and Hammer films had. We even took pictures to these set designers in Romania of what those particular sets look like, and My God, they did such an incredible job. We were just blown away. We had no idea that they were going to do that amazing of a job for the money we were paying them.

M: Films like The Pit and the Pendulum.

Elvira: Another one was Haunted Palace and the House of Usher. The movie was set in the 1800s.

M: But you didn’t have to dress any of the locals any differently, did you?

E: No, we didn’t even have to dress any of the locals. They came as they were. People are always saying, oh my God, where’d you get these?
Fabulous costumes and the peasants carrying the sickle and the scythe would be herding the geese. As I said, we just walked out the door and there they were. One of the, my favourite moments in the movie is the musical number from the show.

M: Because you’re a showgirl, you’re touring your show.

Elvira: Big musical number, which comes outta nowhere there.

M: I thought you, you could have put a few more musical numbers in there.

E: Exactly. That’s what I thought too. I originally wanted the film to be a musical, kind of in the style of Rocky Horror, but that would’ve probably tripled our budget because just to shoot that one number took an entire day.
That may not seem like a lot, but when you just have a two and a half week schedule, a one day is a lot of time.

M: Within the budget, there was the money for some State orchestra to play the score for you.

Elvira: We went all the way to Russia to have this done, and it was done by the Russian Symphony Orchestra who were incredible and again, costs, a dime on the dollar of what we would’ve paid over here.

Maynard: In Romania was you couldn’t get a good stunt double, could you?

E: I couldn’t get a good stunt double. No. We got maybe the only female stunt girl that we could find. She unfortunately was missing a couple of things that she needed to play Elvira.

M: You have a rather voluptuous figure, which not all stunt doubles would probably have. It’d probably be a bad thing for their profession to, to have the, yeah.

Elvira: That, yeah. True. It just gets in the way. It could be a good thing, it does help cushion your falls, but that’s true. I don’t know. She was. Flat as a board. A wonderful girl and very talented as a stunt person, but flat as a board. So when it came to the scene for the pit and the pendulum, I actually had to do my own stunt work, which doesn’t seem like much to lay around all day on a slab.
But when you think about a 500 pound pendulum, even though it was made from fiberglass, it still weighed 500 pounds and it was so sharp, hanging right over your nose and swinging back and forth for several hours. Let me tell you that, that was no picnic.

M: I thought, on your right boob, there was a mark.

Elvira: Actually, there was a scratch mark there. What I did I there was I took a deep breath and the blade swung past me and made quite a large scratch across my breast. So just imagine if I would’ve sat up, I really think I would’ve been split in two. Anything that’s 500 pounds swinging back and forth at you, if it hits you going at quite a speed it’s not gonna be good. It was pretty damn frightening. I gotta tell you.

M: I heard you were gonna retire the Elvira character. Is that true? You gonna do some more Elvira work? What’s gonna happen Cassandra?
E: I’m working on a few projects right now. Another film that’ll probably be for video, it’s for a younger audience and it’s a film of one of the books I wrote a few years ago Camp Vamp, but I am moving the character toward eventually someone else playing the character.
I’m also working on an animation project right now, which is great because, I don’t have to look good. Also, I’ve been doing various voiceovers for a new channel here in United States called the Monster Channel, and I’ve been doing a lot of voiceovers for them. But eventually I’d love to see someone like, anybody, Angelina Jolie or whatever, play Elvira in another film.
To stretch herself as an actress in her most challenging role.

M: How do you cast that? If you had to say in a paragraph, this is what the character is and this is what you’ve gotta do, what would you say?

E: Oh my God, actress wanted to wear slinky dress, must have generous physical attributes and be pretty confident.

M: And sassy.

E: Sassy! That’s it sassy.

M: If nothing else, you are sassy or Elvira. I think we’ve sum up the whole character in one word there. Elvira’s Haunted Hills, it’s at video shops around the nation at this moment. What’s your favourite scene? What’s the one we should look out for?

Elvira: I think my favourite scene is the kind of the love scenes that I do with the handsome hunk, who I am chasing throughout the film. The guy we hired only spoke Romanians, so we dubbed his voice, dubbed it in the old style from the old fifties and sixties. Old Hercules films, very bad dubbing job.
That scene just cracks everybody up. It’s hilarious. I’m talking to him. He’s the only person who’s dubbed in the entire film. When you’re first watching it, you’re just like, what? What? Huh? It really throws you for a minute. Tthat was just a lucky mistake because we couldn’t find a guy with big muscles and long hair who could speak English.
So we took what we could get and it turned out to be a big asset.

Maynard: Cassandra, could you give us a big Elvira goodbye and we’ll see you next project.

Elvira: Alrighty. Unpleasant dreams, darling! from Elvira.