Season One of Elvira's Movie Macabre

On September 26, 1981, Elvira's Movie Macabre aired for the first time on KHJ-TV in Los Angeles. The debut movie, Grave of the Vampire, might be seen as an odd choice in retrospect in that it was legitimately gory and violent, whereas many of the subsequent episode feature more tame, even campy or schlocky films with far more humor and much less violence.

Movie Macabre replaced the popular Fright Night that had been hosted by Larry Vincent, who had died six years earlier. The show was an immediate smash, resulting in a lawsuit by Maila Nurmi, who had hosted a similar show in the 1950's as the character Vampira. Although Vampira had originally been tapped to consult for the revival, she bailed out when her choice to succeed her, Lola Falana, was not hired. Cassandra Peterson was instead cast out of a cattle call of 200 applicants, and when chosen quickly began to work on her Elvira character, portraying her as a smart-alecky valley girl type who was generous with her jokes and her cleavage.

Season one of Movie Macabre spanned 46 episodes, featuring such movies as Deathdream, The Brotherhood of Satan, The Baby, Blacula, and The Devil's Rain. The series ended after 140 episodes in 1986, ending in a bang with Nightmare City. Movie Macabre originally aired on KHJ-TV channel 9 Los Angeles 8-10 PM Saturday and was rebroadcast 4-6 PM Sunday.

By 1985 Elvira, Mistress of the dark was a household name, and marketing force, appearing everywhere from Coors Light commercials, Wrestlemania 2, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and during the week of Halloween was virtually ubiquitous, appearing nightly at Knot's Berry Farm. Thriller Video decided to capitalize on the popularity of Elvira by releasing 24 title hosted by Elvira. These were movies not shown on Movie Macabre, and included The Monster Club, The Silent Scream, Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, and Alabama's Ghost. Many of the tapes had been fifty minute episodes of Hammer's House of Horror series, often with some deleted material not seen by the British audience.

The cancellation of Movie Macabre did nothing to hurt the popularity of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, as she has released two movies, a series of records, and Movie Macabre was revived in syndication and ran 26 public domain films in 2010-2011.

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Elvira's Movie Macabre Season 1 Episode 28: Legacy of Blood

"Tonight's movie is Legacy of Blood. Legacy is an Italian word. Like, this is my leg yacee? And this is my other leg yacee?"

Movie Macabre intro to Legacy of Blood. April 10, 1982

I'm very excited because this is the first time since I saw any of the original episodes in the early 80's as a teenager that I will be watching one of the original broadcasts as it aired then, with Elvira's intro to the movie and pop-up comments (hopefully). So far all of the reviews I have done of Movie Macabre episodes have been of the movies themselves, without the intro or Elvira's segments. I found a handful of the episodes at ShoutFactory. I have never been able to find a complete episode of Elvira's Movie Macabre anywhere else before this. I wonder if they all exist somewhere. 

This movie, Legacy of Blood, also known as Will To Die, aired originally on April 10, 1982, and was episode 28 of season 1. The show had already become a runaway hit by this point. I know Legacy of Blood primarily because it was included in the horror compilation Drive-In Movie Classics. 

Legacy of Blood begins with the most cliche of premises: the children of a wealthy man assemble to hear the reading of the will, which (of course) stipulates they must stay at the estate for at least a week or get nothing, and if one of them dies, the remaining portion of the 136 million dollars shall be divided among the survivors. If all the children dies, his faithful three servants get the dough. I wonder what will happen next.

Reading IMDB reviews as I try to slog through the film one more time, I find that I disagree with most of the reviews. I enjoy this film. true, I watched several times at a time in my life when I had nothing else to watch, but I like it.

This guy is in the movie. His name is Igor. I'd have to say he's an obvious cypher as the killer. Maybe he is. I honestly don't remember. 

This is also something that apparently happens in the movie, but I don't recall this either. I think it happens when they come downstairs late at night to make a roast beef sandwich and this guy's head is in the fancy platter. I think there's also an electrocution and the dog bites it and someone gets poisoned and at the end someone is going to get the money even though they just killed seven people and no one is ever supposed to investigate that. All of that improbability taken into account, I'm a sucker for the house and the estate this is filmed on. They have a really nice pool table, and twenty minutes in Elvira hasn't said anything yet. 

"Sheesh. Just give a guy an inch..." 23:35

At about 1:04:30 mark Elvira says "This is getting a little heavy. Time for a musical interlude," then there is about a sixty second montage synched up to the Elvira theme. Then, unfortunately, more movie.

One more break at 1:12:48 to lament her life as a horror movie host, then back for the gripping finish to Will To Die, err, Legacy of Blood.

At 1:23:00 Elvira is back to read letters from ladies and their bad dating experiences. "I don't trust a man who let's his dog eat cabbage." "I don't trust a man who sleeps with his socks on." "I don't trust a man who likes to sit on his umbrella (triple rim shot)." etc then she ends the segment by being hit with rotten vegetables.  

I think at the end of the movie it even turns out that John Carradine is alive. Maybe. 

Elvira returns one last time for the post mortem to rightfully point out that the movie is both dumb and the ending is one of the biggest cliches in movie history. "I get paid for watching this garbage, but what's your excuse?"

I don't think it's a good idea if I answer that question. 

Unpleasant dreams. 

Executive producer Dick Johnson? Of course he is. 

Only two things could have made this more fun: if I were fourteen again, and if my six year old weren't somewhere behind me the whole time. 

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Movie Macabre Season 3 Episode 13 Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Hype, or There's a Monster In My Garbage

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype appeared on Elvira's Movie Macabre March 17th, 1984, exactly one week after Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and you better believe I was watching. It was season 3 episode 13. At the time I had no awareness of who Oliver Reed was or exactly what it was about this goofy horror comedy that I would still remember 32 years later when I just saw it again for the second time, but there's definitely something about it that is memorable. 

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype is a completely original story never told before about an ugly podiatrist who really like this very attractive blond woman he sees at the bus stop every morning on the way to work. She's not interested because she only dates ears, nose, and throat men. But unbeknownst to Dr. Heckyl, his colleague,  Dr. Vince Hinkle is working on a potion that will turn overweight women into stunning blondes. Does Dr. Heckyl take the serum and transform into a dashing, albeit bloodthirsty ladies' man who becomes homicidal whenever he believes his appearance has been slighted in any way? 

Duh.

Is this a really dumb movie and perhaps one of the most pointless and idiotic adaptations of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel?

Doi.

Don't ever let them convince you that everything exists on the internet, because I'm unable to find a picture of Mr. Hype's first kill, and the scene I remember most vividly from first seeing the movie in 1983, where let's just say he uses a lamp in a very creative way. Foot fetishists will be especially drawn to Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype, but what comes to mind for me is the epic bender I read about Oliver Reed going on in Spain before he died. Downing rounds and rounds of drinks with sailors, and ending the night polishing off three bottles of rum. But back to the movie.

It's perfectly stupid and semi-sweet at times, and the violence is mostly comical. There's not much like it. I'll probably even go and finish watching it now.

Update: I decided to finish watching the movie this afternoon, and as I watched my six year old create a very elaborate drawing of the video he was watching it occurred to me that I, too, didn't have to rely o the internet to furnish pictures of these movies I am reviewing, especially of the particular scenes I want to remember and highlight. 

This is the particular scene that emblazened this movie onto my memory.  Dr. Heckyl has just taken the serum his colleague concocted, and discovers he is handsome, His first visit is to his downstairs neighbor. Things are going swimmingly, because he's Oliver Reed, until he feel she has insulted his face. What happens next I must advise you occurs in strobe lights, so the screen grab is insufficient. I guess my whole family was home when we watched this because I remember we laughed and laughed. It just seemed like the funniest thing that ever happened.

"That's no monster, that's my podiatrist."

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Why USA Network's Night Flight Was So Important In the 1980's

USA's Night Flight aired from 1981-1988

MTV debuted on August 1st 1981. USA Network's overnight video and music show Night Flight debuted June 5th 1981, featuring not only a healthy dose of videos from alternative bands, but B movies, interviews with artists and cultural figures, cult movies, short videos, cartoons, and stand up comedy. It was a lifeline to those of us living in small towns where there was little to no access to anything alternative or weird. In fact, in the town I lived in MTV was banned until 1985, but since they couldn't ban an entire network I looked forward to Friday and Saturday nights and Night Flight. 

The show began at 10 p.m. Central time, and lasted four hours. It was then reshown at 2 a.m., and the rising sun often found me sitting there watching that second showing in its entirety even though I had also watched the earlier showing. 

There was no "host" in the early years, just the voice of Pat Prescott doing an introduction to the individual pieces. It was the first place I encountered the Church of the Sub-Genius in the segment Love That Bob, and most likely the first time I saw the Devo video for "Whip It." other segments included New Wave Theater, featuring punk and New Wave bands, Atomic TV, featuring Cold War era videos, The Video Artist, and Tales From Tomorrow. No doubt about 99% of it was going right over my head at 13 years old, but I knew I liked it and longed for a world that was more like Night Flight than the small town reality of conformity and Revenge of the Nerds type bullies I existed in. The 80's really were a lot like the high school John Hughes' type movies about cool kids and jocks and freaks and geeks. Despite current fashion standards that geek is sheik, and being a nerd is cook, it sure wasn't in 1983. And that's what made Night Flight such a lifeline to geeks like me who were so outnumbered and so isolated in small towns across America.

Night of the Living Dead, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dementia 13, Eraserhead, and The Terror were shown in their entirety on Night Flight. There was nothing like it. MTV was nothing like it. Nothing like it existed before, during, or after its original run from 1981-1988. I guess you had to be there and know what it's like to live in a world without 24 hour access to every cool and new and interesting thing, and social media blasting out and sharing it all so we all virtually instantaneously can share in every new zeitgeist to understand what it meant to have just that one source of connection to someplace out there that contained people who thought and believed and created the way you did, and weren't punished or ostracized for it, they were revered. 

By the time Night Flight left the air in 1988 the era of grunge was about to sweep out the long national nightmare of Reagan, hair metal, and blind conformity. By 1990, everyone in America was cool, and  Night Flight was just one of dozens of ways one could access what was cool and hip and new. It was there for those who needed it at a time where there was almost no alternative. 

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