Crapshoot: Horror host Elvira's titular games

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a newspaper column about tumbling the cube to bring random obscure games back into the light. This week, 80s B-movie repugnance has a new face. Though that's not exactly the first body part most of her devotees liked to focus on.

"Elvira who?" you might be asking, rudely ruining the best "Doctor, MD" joke in the world. Well, not without cause these days, especially extramural the U.S.. During the '80s though, TV air hostess Elvira was infamous for two big things, and they weren't taste or subtlety. Nor were they the two British people-made escapade games that both abide her name and proudly scrimpy her... ah, psyche.

Wait, wherefore am I bothering with innuendo? Seems pointless when dealing with a character who once proudly hoped citizenry would remember "I was much just a zealous set of boobs. I was also an incredible pair of legs." Screw it and then. She's Elvira. And these are her titular games.

Elvira ISN't a character I know that more about, to be honest. In composition this, I watched some YouTube clips, but I've never seen one of her shows, and just made it through half of the movie. Over in the UK, I don't remember us having much of an equivalent, and give the sack't really think of another one unless we go completely the way spinal column to Vampira, one of the stars/victims of Ed Wood's not-really-worst-film-of-wholly-installment plan 9 From Out Space. When you have to make to Male erecticle dysfunction Sir Henry Joseph Wood for a recognisable comparison, you're in pretty niche territory. Even then, the deuce aren't separated aside much except a few decades and the addition of humour. Elvira only exists because the actress who played Vampira pulled out of an attempted revival jut out, and indeed later lawyered-up o'er the similarities.

(By the way, did you know in that location was a Plan 9 From Outer Space game? Ready-made much later, course, gaming engineering science circa 1959 not being up to much. The Unreal Engine didn't even let coloured lighting away that point, though lens system flares were already well thought out passé.)

Still, never mind. Elvira's job—aside from holding the Sellotape industry in business—was to introduce, break, and snark at horror movies. She's a mix of toughie, goth, and valley daughter, throwing or so awful jokes and many, numerous double entendres, called into service by the saturnine of night to ensure everyone gets to see Attack of the Killer Tomatoes when they should be fast drowsy. Here's a few snippets of her doing her thing...

Over here, populate are more prospective to have seen a parody of this kind of thing, the obvious ones beingness The Simpsons' Booberella, and Grandpa Fred from the superlative movie of every metre, Gremlins 2. That is, unless you count the 1988 movie supported the fictitious character—Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark. I'm not convinced anyone's e'er actually watched altogether of this turkey, never mind its sequel, Elvira's Obsessed Hills: Yes We Know What We Did There, That Was The Item, But Congrats On You For Spotting The Boob Joke. A great many have nonetheless no uncertainty caught five minutes of it piece channel-flipping late at night and acquiring stuck in this classical bad movie wrinkled-brow-duckface stare of confusion.

Yeah. You know the one I base.

(That said, all this seems a lot less silly now that we'rhenium in the blip.goggle bo historic period, where you'atomic number 75 not allowed to live a critic unless you undergo magic powers, story arcs, superior-enemies, spaceships, and plans for a movie about your alter ego. I of course have no time for this self-aggrandising fatuity, what with the pressures of running a supernatural detective means 'tween reviews and everything.)

Given the giddiness of the character and what she did, the games are a little... odd. At least, the two that anyone really noticed at the time—adventure/RPGs from a company called Horrorsoft, which later became AdventureSoft and best far-famed for the Simon the Sorcerer series. The commencement 2 were pretty fun. The third was legendarily awful. Since then, there consume been another couple for reasons that have been known to make nuns shrieking "Ohio CHRIST Happening A ****ING BIKE, Wherefore?" But I depart.

"Elvira: The Arcade Gimpy" also existed, just was exploded to the adventures. Still, hardly from the name, you can tell a couple of things—that it's obviously a platform game, was never actually in an arcade, and that it's as closely connected to its source as the snot on a giant's finger after pick his nose.

Here's every last you really need to know about Elvira: The Arcade Game. While the basic jumpy-killy sidelong isn't awful, it's set in two evenly sterile biomes: Fire World and Frozen Earth. Slap Confect Ma, Music Land and Green Forest Where Water Is On the face of it Acerbic onto that, and you ingest what's technically known as every single platformer ever. The closest it gets to having anything to do with Elvira is having ii elephantine globes you want to prod to start the halt, which may not even be knowing.

But onto the adventures. They'Re... weird. Non in the sense that you start in a excitable castle and are then spirited away to become the saviour of the Pizza pie Citizenry, but that their tone is spectacularly inappropriate. Hither, let's compare directly. Present's the lagger for the original 1988 movie:

It should speak for itself, but just just in case, here's a quick précis. Elvira leaves her hosting gig to pick up an inheritance, which turns intent on be a flighty house in an ultra-fusty small town. She shows up, gives it an '80s style system shock by having breasts, listening to metal, and delivering zingers corresponding "There's nothing wrong with G-rated movies, as long-snouted as there's lots of sex and vehemence" and hardly avoids walk-to away with a Razzie. Information technology is very silly, very sensitive of this fact, and basically harmless.

(Well, up relevant I was too world-weary to watch whatsoever more. It may become a bloodstained, Satanic orgy in the last act, in which live chickens have their throats sliced and poured down the throats of innocent children while they're forced to service horses, but I doubt it. It's only rated 15 in the UK, which in censorship/assortment language some translates as "Oh, I read .")

The Elvira, Mistress of the Gloomful stake gage is more alike this...

And this...

And this...

Look, that's a squirrel. I mean of course, this....

If that seems weird, it gets odder when you take care at the plot. The game is kick in Elvira's... castle. It's not quite medieval, referable having a giving browse and a modern bathroom and a fewer similar things, but it is a big stone place full of knights and monks and vampires and witchcraft and like. The plot, which you can learn in its entirety hither, is that the place has only been infested with these creatures as the leave of cardinal of Elvira's ancestors, a witch called Emelda. Which justifies it all. Obviously.

Directly, if I was a cynic, this is the point I'd start to defendant that Horrorsoft just strapped a familiar face and with kid gloves concealed push-up bra happening a shameless rip-turned of an earlier game titled Uninvited that they were preparation to make in any event. The ii do characteristic a similar blueprint school of thought, more often than not revolving around cruel, unfair deaths out of nowhere, not-linear exploration, and being complete and speak up pants.

Just naturally, there's no prove for such claims. Likewise, I'm sure that that Knightmare along the Amiga perfectly wasn't a hastily rebranded Dungeon Master rip-polish off, so half-hearted that cipher saw any job in the kid contestants' mutual equivalents starting the game raw in the dungeon and having to lean basic t-shirts and shorts by the player. Nor indeed in them then header dead set hack upwardly monsters with weapons, which I definitely don't remember the actual show allowing.

But I digress.

The second game, Elvira 2: The Jaws of Hellhound, is just arsenic gruesome, but at least feels designed with the character in mind. Therein one, you play her hexed fellow who has to stop her becoming a putting to death victim, with the briny setting beingness her movie studio apartment. Each of its three stages is decked out in a different theme (which Horrorsoft would copy and spread with a slightly different context for its final, goriest game, Waxworks), and you have to work through all of them to save Elvira.

Your need is, however, ALIR from bonded.

Patc Elvira is practically an extra in her personal game, she's easily the most annoying matter in it—and this is a game with incomprehensible puzzles that lets you destroy important inventorying items, and whose approach to encounter design seemed to be "Does this hurt? How almost now? "

She's seldom around in person, only to remind you that her breasts and likewise the rest of her are in the game, she regularly shows upbound via extrasensory projection to move over advice, but by and large insult you for non going immoral enough, not being tough sufficiency, and generally organism a ineffective worm beneath her contempt.

This is not much of an incentive to rescue her. In fact, I shady for many players, the complete walkthrough could start a little something corresponding this. No posting to GameFAQs!

ELVIRA 2: THE JAWS OF CERBERUS

Region 1: Black Widow Productions

You start outside the Studio, where you need to se dormy with Elvira for your escort. The main room access is locked, and the gate is shut. As you look around, Elvira shows up in a flash of light.

ELVIRA: Blast! Testing. Testing 1... 2... 3. Finally I've got this spell to work. Listen, I've been captured by this triple-headed guy with a hard body hair job. He says he's gonna sacrifice me at midnight. Help Pine Tree State! You silent moose brain.

Immediately quit the game.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE COMPLETED ELVIRA 2!

Even if you can be bothered to continue, she keeps connected pop back busy berate you for existence crap at the spirited. Which while we'atomic number 75 on the subject begs a bit of a question—why the hell is she a damsel in distress, exactly? In the story, she's a powerful witch by this stage. Shouldn't she be the heroine, or at least a partner, rather than a little-thespian in her own game series? That way, the enemies could have been the targets of her scorn, there could take over been lots of quips about the revulsion elements and then-over the top gore instead of the game more or less playing them straight, and...

...oh, right. 1992. The gaming world wasn't yet deemed ready for a sassy, capable young-bearing protagonist back then. This was after each the year when Jill of the Hobo camp could be held ahead as a reall imperfect step for gaming heroines, simply because her ultimate goal was to rescue a prince.

Sigh. How far we've come, eh?

Jaws of Cerberus is one of those games where IT's sometimes difficult to tell if the designers were joking, and not in a good way. In the head for instance, there's a poster for a horror movie called The Return of the Killer Gherkin II. Alright. So this game has jokes in it, even if they're non rattling ill. Head downstairs into the basement though, and you immediately bump into the studio janitor... a Native American who actually greets you by saying "How!" I'd like to give them the gain of the doubt on it, but... well... they wouldn't be the only British people run a risk designer to think that counted as okay.

And speaking of things that aren't okay, here's a genuine puzzle from the same area. Butt the janitor is a boiler room, with a copper pipe connected the liberal that you can perk up. But when you blame information technology up, with no warning, a ghostly frost-demon hand thing just kills you dead. To have intercourse safely, you have to make a fireball spell, but Elvira 2's magic system is just as sadistic Eastern Samoa its puzzles. Each spell means collecting and using inventory objects Eastern Samoa reagents, and it's quite a willing to let you use plot-critical ones.

On the plus side, if you use an important one by chance event, you may never have to find out that a big chunk of the game takes topographic point in a spider-infested warren. Then thither's that.

Neither game is particularly long if you know what you're doing, with well-nig of your time taken rising past targe hunts and moribund to bullshit traps. Of the two, the second is the better one simply because it doesn't feel suchlike a reskin job. Neither is particularly worth tracking down, though Horrorsoft's magnum opus, Waxworks, is on GOG if you're in the mood for something that puts some the 'gross' and 'adventure' into 'that's a beautiful gross escapade, dude. Sure you'd not rather play The Next-to-last Express?'

Here are a couple of longplays of both games. Both have dying reels at the ending if you just want to go out the bloodshed. And just in case you were inquisitive, zero. At no point do you construe with any 'more' of Elvira, surgery eventide much of her in the first grade—unless you count the ending. That's weird in itself. Disdain obviously being deemed good to go through unfashionable deuce separate games, it looks similar her head's been occupied with Botox and her breasts have a life of their ain. Very creepy. And not remotely in a hot way...