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Cassandra Peterson -- AKA Elvira, Mistress of the Dark -- opens up about hew new Halloween haunt, shares just how hands-on she is with her merch deals, and spills on hiding with Linda Blair from a tornado at a recent fan convention.
After more than 40 years as horror hostess with the mostest Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Cassandra Peterson has approved her likeness for everything from beer ads to mouse pads and salt and pepper shakers highlighting her most famous assets.
For Halloween 2025, she lent not only her image, but her voice to the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride for a family-friendly maze inspired by her career and her 1988 self-titled movie -- which celebrates its 37th anniversary today. Along with the partnership between Peterson and Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group comes not just the maze, but a new line of merch, sold on location at all of the group's Halloween haunts this season.
"I'm a control freak," Peterson told TooFab at opening night of the Hayride, as her manager Scott D. Marcus added, "Cassandra approves everything."
"I drive him out of his mind," agreed the horror icon, who Marcus said is "especially" involved in approving -- and often rewriting -- anything written in Elvira's voice. "Sometimes you'll get the monocle out," he quipped, before revealing the one thing she refused to put her name on over the years.
"We tried to do a hot sauce, we did the deal and they could not come up with one that tasted good, so I just gave them their money back," said Marcus. "And I really love hot sauce ... I wanted to have a cool Elvira hot sauce," she added, saying the one the company came up with tasted like "ketchup with hot chili in it" and just "wasn't a good unique flavor."
"I don't want to put my name on something that everyone will know its crappy too," said Peterson, who owns all the rights to her spooky alter-ego. "If we don't think the fans will like it, we don't do it, it's not worth it," added Marcus, before they revealed the brand deal they had to "beg" to make happen.
"We had to beg Funko to make the first Elvira Pop, they would not do it," said Marcus. Added Peterson: "Begged them for years. Now we've made what, 9-10?"
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Another incredibly popular deal was the one she stuck with Mattel and Monster High, which has now released three different dolls modeled after Elvira -- and all sold out from Mattel's website. A variant of the 2025 Comic-Con release is still available on Amazon.
"I'll tell you, that Mattel doll, the Monster High doll, they were damn hard to get a hold of and fans were crushed that they couldn't get them," said Peterson. "Scott begged them when they made the first one to please make more and they were like, 'We don't know if it will sell.' It sold out in 3 minutes, it was gone and people were pissed."
Elvira being so in demand is clearly a good thing for Peterson, whose calendar -- especially during Spooky Season -- is packed with horror conventions and meet and greets with fans. While there are some pretty massive cons now -- including Midsummer Scream, and Spooky Empire, where she'll spend Halloween -- as horror continues to get even more mainstream, that wasn't always the case.
"It's really wacky because in 1981 there was a horror convention here in LA and they invited me and I'm telling you, it was like 8 card tables set up in a lobby of a hotel," Peterson recalled of the early days. "I had the flu, so they set mine up next to the bathroom so I could go in there and barf every five minutes. I gave free germs with every autograph. I made $5 with every autograph, like, 'What the hell, I made $100?!' I was so happy. That was like a convention.'
"Now, Comic-Con was there, but it was in a basement. I was the only woman there, the only woman guest, the only woman attendee, there was not another woman there," she added. "It was just groups of 2-3 guys roaming around for autographs. And it was in the basement of some kind of motel/hotel thing in San Diego. I'm not kidding! Now, look at how far they've come, they get bigger and bigger every year."
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Peterson then shared a story from a recent convention appearance in Massachusetts, giving some insight into the above video she shared with Linda Blair driving around in a golf cart.
"We were stuck in the basement because there was a tornado! And they made everybody in the convention go into the basement and Linda and I were trying to escape because we're stuck in the basement with all the fans," she revealed. "We love the fans, but not stuck in a basement! Get us out of here! Isn't that crazy? Tornado, in Massachusetts. And it was a very serious tornado. You should have seen the damage it did ... luckily, not where we were."
Blair is just one of the familiar faces Peterson always runs into at these events, after years of the convention circuit.
"I have a lot of people I'm really thrilled to see. Don Mancini, who did the Chucky movies, always happy to run into him. I love Kane Hodder, Freddy, I've been hanging around these people for so long," she shared. "Linda Is a favorite, who I've known for years and years and years. Bill, the Shat, but I've seen these people for so long. It's fun."
Because she's so in-demand this time of year, Peterson said she hasn't been home on Halloween night "for 100 years" -- adding, "I think I only was home one time and it's so fun because I love trick-or-treaters. I love seeing them, but that's kind of my night; I'm busy."
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But fans hoping to trick-or-treat with Elvira can do it at the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride all month long.
"The thing that sets it apart for me is that it's so LA, it's so intrinsically Los Angeles," Peterson said of her collab with the haunt. "I lived in this area for 45 years and, to me, it's like Halloween's finally come home. There are other venues, but they're kind of out and about, this one feels like hometown to me. Because Hollywood really is my hometown. I always felt like it's a little oasis in the middle of LA."
"Hollywood, LA, doesn't look that autumn-y, no matter what you do," she added. "So here you'd have the lights, you'd have the hayride, you'd have the pumpkins, mazes. It would feel all of a sudden like fall, because you don't get that vibe here."
Chris Stafford, CEO and Founding Partner of Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group pointed out that the fictional town of Midnight Falls the Hayride is set in is all about the '80s, making it perfect for the Mistress of the Dark.
"So it was fun to take what's always an annual crowd favorite and put the Elvira twist on it and bring her to Midnight Falls," said Stafford. "So you're going through the maze and she's bought the house in the front, she's moving into the neighborhood."
Peterson also praised the park's scary-go-round, which they re-themed this year so all the seats look like Elvira's beloved familiar, the pink mohawk-rocking pooch Gonk. "That blew me away that they could even do that," Peterson said of the change, before adding, "I feel like they've incorporated Elvira really, really well and I'm here in spirit."
