Elvira: Mistress of the Dark(1988)

SHORT VERSION:
On a suggestion from Elvira’s evil great-uncle Vincent, the Morality Club exercises an old Salem witch trial law against Elvira and have her arrested for practicing witchcraft, and she is sentenced to be burned at the stake that night, along with her poodle Gonk. When Bob visits her in jail, she tells him where she has hidden Morganna’s spell book in her house and instructs him to bring it to her because it is her only hope. He finds it, but he is then surprised by Vincent and his goons, who knock him out, tie him up, and take the book. Shortly afterward, Gonk reveals himself as a familiar to Elvira by morphing into a rat and then escaping the cell, and he goes over to her house, turns into a Rottweiler, and chews off Bob’s ropes just as he awakens. Elvira is taken outside and tied to the stake, and after the fire is ignited, Bob and Gonk show up. As Bob tries to put the fire out, Elvira looks at Gonk barking at her in his Rottweiler form and remembers Morganna’s words about how she carries the power with her, and she realizes that that power lies in her ruby ring. She thus gets her ring hand free and uses the ring’s magic to create some rain that douses the flames. The townsfolk flee, and after Bob frees Elvira, he warns her that the lunar eclipse has started and that Vincent has the spell book.

Vincent then appears on a nearby street and yells for Elvira. He soon traps her, Bob, and Gonk in an alley and quickly subdues Bob and Gonk, and when Elvira tries to use her ring on him, she accidentally flings it off her finger and onto his. He then chases her back to her house, and she arrives there just as the moon is completely shadowed. Vincent soon breaks in and breathes fire at and around Elvira, setting the house ablaze, but he then steps on one of the loose floorboards, which hits him in the nuts and makes him drop the spell book. Elvira reclaims the ring and points it at Vincent just as he fires a shot of fatal energy at her, which deflects the energy back at him and destroys him. Elvira tries to salvage the book, but she remembers Morganna’s words and decides to let it burn along with the house while she gets safely outside.

The next morning, Elvira is sitting outside her house with Bob and Gonk, and she complains about how she won’t be getting any money from the insurance company and that the magic in her ring is apparently gone. Suddenly, a bunch of townspeople show up with supplies to help rebuild her home as a way of apologizing for misjudging her, and the lawyer Bigelow soon comes up to Elvira and tells her that she is the heir to Vincent’s sizeable estate since she was his only living relative. Now financially endowed, she gets her Las Vegas showgirl act started at the Flamingo Hotel, with her rightfully proclaiming herself as “Mistress of the Dark.”

LONG VERSION:
After getting tarred and feathered by Patty (Susan Kellermann) while hosting a show at the local movie theatre for the town’s teenagers, Elvira (“herself”, a.k.a. Cassandra Peterson) heads to her house with Bob (Daniel Greene), Robin (Ellen Dunning), and Randy (Kris Kamm) to wash up. As she does so, she vows to get revenge on Patty as well as Chastity (Edie McClurg) and the other members of the Morality Club for making her life in Fallwell more than a little difficult. Shortly after she dries off, she sends Robin and Randy home so she can become better acquainted with Bob, and Elvira decides to whip up some food to impress him using a recipe from her great-aunt Morganna’s recipe book. The casserole she makes turns itself into a ferocious monster when she serves it to Bob, but she and Bob quickly manage to kill it by putting it down the garbage disposal.

Elvira’s new poodle Gonk then takes the recipe book and runs up to the attic with it, and Elvira and Bob follow him up there, with the former realizing that she is living out the nightmare she had a few nights ago where she was drawn to the attic by a mysterious voice. They find Gonk and the book on top of a trunk, and Gonk communicates to Elvira that she needs to open the trunk, so she does and finds it loaded with assorted paraphernalia that belonged to Morganna. While rummaging through it all, Bob finds a letter that is strangely addressed to Elvira. In the letter, Morganna tells Elvira all about her hitherto unknown past: Her mother Devanna was the true Mistress of the Dark, but her power did not go unchallenged. For 300 years, her great-uncle Vincent (W. Morgan Sheppard) coveted her dominion, and ultimately destroyed her when Elvira was just an infant. Morganna got Elvira out of harm’s way, but knowing that Vincent would destroy her as well if he ever got to her, she decided to send her away. She left Elvira all the power she would need to protect herself, and then her familiar (a pet with powers of metamorphosis) dropped her off at the Pick & Save Orphanage, where she grew up. Morganna adds that she also sought to protect the recipe book – which is actually a spell book – because it contains Devanna’s magic, and she beseeches Elvira to keep the book safe and away from Vincent “when the moon falls under the Earth’s shadow” (a lunar eclipse), then tells her to remember that she carries the power with her. Elvira pledges to do as Morganna asks, but then schemes to find a spell from the book that will give her all the money she needs to get her Las Vegas showgirl act off the ground. She finds one that she thinks will do the trick, but after she recites it, all it creates is a big snake that ends up setting itself on fire. Moments later, she and Bob go to town on each other.

The next day, Elvira recreates the monster casserole and slyly sets it on the food table at the Morality Club’s annual picnic in order to get her revenge on them. However, nothing happens when Chastity removes the lid on the pot, and Elvira tells Bob – who found her hiding behind some bushes and joined her – that she blames this on running out of a key ingredient and substituting it with Hamburger Helper. However, when the townspeople consume it, it causes everyone to lose their inhibitions and engage in some risqué behavior. Elvira is then suddenly approached by Vincent, who comments on how everyone is acting so strangely after eating her dish. Knowing that this is a product of the spell book, he offers her even more money for it than before, but she firmly refuses to hand it over, after which he swears vengeance on her and leaves. Moments later, Elvira stops Patty from trying to seduce Bob, and after Patty pushes her down, she gets up and punches her, but rips off her shirt in the process and reveals to all that she is flat-chested and has been stuffing her shirts all this time. Later, as the Morality Club quarrels over everyone’s actions at the picnic, Vincent appears and fingers Elvira as the culprit, and he encourages them to punish her by exercising a long-forgotten but still legal Salem witch trial law to have Elvira arrested and burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft.

Elvira is arrested along with Gonk and placed in a jail cell, and when Bob visits her that night, she tells him that he must bring her the spell book because it is her only hope, and she informs him that she hid it underneath a loose floorboard in the living room. He finds it, but he is then surprised by Vincent and his goons Travis (Jeff Conaway) and Billy (Frank Collison), who knock him out, tie him up, and then leave with the book. Shortly afterwards, Gonk reveals himself as a familiar to Elvira by transforming into a rat and then escaping the cell, and we next see him entering her house, where he morphs into a Rottweiler (revealing that he was the very familiar that delivered Elvira to the orphanage) and chews off Bob’s ropes just as he regains consciousness. Elvira is taken outside and tied to the stake, and after Patty starts the fire, Bob and Gonk show up, and Bob tries to put the fire out. Elvira looks at Gonk barking at her in his Rottweiler form and then suddenly remembers Morganna’s words of how she carries the power with her, and she realizes that that power lies in her ruby ring. She wriggles her ring hand free and points it skyward, upon which a magical bolt of energy shoots out of the ring and causes the clouds to make rain fall and extinguish the flames. The rain makes the townspeople scatter, and Bob frees Elvira and shares a passionate kiss with her. However, Bob quickly points out to her that the lunar eclipse has started and that Vincent has the spell book (so he will soon gain the power to become Master of the Dark if he isn’t stopped).

Vincent – whose appearance is beginning to turn ghoulish – then appears on a nearby street and yells for Elvira, during which he crosses paths with Chastity and two other senior Morality Club members, Calvin (Robert Benedetti), and Glotter (Kurt Fuller), and turns them into pigs. He traps Elvira, Bob, and Gonk in the dead-end of an alley, and though Bob and Gonk try to defend Elvira, Bob is rendered unconscious again and Gonk is locked in a dumpster. Elvira tries to fight back against Vincent by using her ring, but she accidentally flings it off her finger and onto his. He then chases her back to her house, and she arrives there just as the moon is completely shadowed, and after she fends off an attack from Travis, Vincent punches through a wall near her and starts to choke her. However, she forces an ornamental axe hanging nearby to come loose and chop off his hand, which happens to be the one that the ring is on. Vincent then breaks through the wall and breathes fire at and around Elvira, which causes the house to get set ablaze. As Vincent stumbles towards Elvira and his severed hand crawls closer to her, he steps on one of the loose floorboards, which hits him in the crotch and makes him drop the spell book. Elvira impales the severed hand with a knitting needle and reclaims the ring, then points it at Vincent just as he fires a shot of fatal energy at her, deflecting it back at him and causing him to die and disappear in a magical light show. Elvira then tries to salvage the burning spell book, but she remembers Morganna’s words and decides to let the book burn along with everything else while she escapes with her life.

The next morning, Elvira sits and sulks on her front doorstep with Bob and Gonk, and as Bob consoles her, she complains about how she won’t be getting any money from the insurance company and that the magic in her ring is apparently gone. Suddenly, a big group of townspeople show up with supplies to help rebuild her house, and the motel owner Lesley (William Duell) says that this is their way of apologizing to her for misjudging her. The town mechanic, Rivers (Bill Morey), then shows up with her car fully repaired, and the lawyer Bigelow (Jack Fletcher) comes up to Elvira and tells her that he has some important papers that she has to sign. He explains that, now that Vincent is dead, she is the heir to his estate since she is his only living relative, and his estate is worth a considerable fortune. Now financially endowed, she gets her showgirl act started at the Flamingo Hotel, and her opening night show is a smash, with her rightfully proclaiming herself as “Mistress of the Dark.”