Too Macabre: The Making of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

It's important to understand the foundation of Elvira for many of us. The first time most of us saw Elvira was on Los Angeles (channel 9) KHJ, hosting a (cheesy) monster movie show, where she played Elvira before, after, and in between commercials. Her show came years after the end of a similar treatment (on a different local channel) by Larry Vincent playing "Seymour". Larry past away while his show was still running (not actually ON TV), so it ended abruptly, and left a sizable audience missing the formula. Obviously Elvira brought assets to the monster flicks that Seymour lacked.

Too Macabre is about 25% about the movie serving as a framework for the rest which is a mix of biography and backstory, of her career, the television environment at the time, the challenges she and others faced, and likely still face. This piece is great because so many people contributed to it, and it is clear how much work and love went into the editing of what had to be hundreds of hours of interview footage. The editing of accompanying footage and stills is also excellent. In fact, anyone wanting to produce a making-of or any kind of interview-intensive documentary would be smart to watch this one several times and take some notes.

Even if you're not an Elvira fan, this is still worth a watch if you like to learn about the inner workings of entertainment production.