Although she’s spent greater than 40 years as a spooky and attractive icon, Cassandra Peterson ― higher generally known as Elvira, Mistress of the Darkish ― admits she’s felt a bit scared by the actual world as of late, and never just because Halloween season is in full swing.
“I feel pretty darn good about my career ― it’s still going, and I’m just kind of home free,” she advised HuffPost in an interview. As for what’s been just lately giving her a fright, she added, “Politics … that’s a scary consideration for not only me, but I think the rest of the country right now.”
With that in thoughts, followers could also be relieved to search out Peterson’s sense of campy humor intact on her newest venture, wherein she playfully rebrands herself because the “Martha Stewart of the Macabre.” Unveiled final week, “Elvira’s Cookbook from Hell” is a 222-page guide of colourful recipes she’s created to boost dinner events and social gatherings.
Would-be cooks can strive their hand at creepy dishes just like the “Transylvanian Ghoul-ash” and “Living Dead Lasagna,” and can recognize Peterson’s tips about signature cocktails and festive decor.
Courtesy of Cassandra Peterson, 2025
Extra adventurous choices embrace the “Roasted Brains,” that includes an oven-roasted cauliflower drizzled in a mint, lime and jalapeño chutney, whereas “Adraka Kozarole” is a wink at a memorable scene from the 1988 movie “Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.”
Nonetheless, the guide required Peterson to do some legwork.
“I’ve wanted to do this for literally 30 years,” she recalled. “Nobody was biting. It was always, ‘There’s a million Halloween cookbooks, we don’t need one more.’ And I kept telling them, ‘There’s a huge Goth crowd that would do Halloween 365 days a year if they could.’ I finally convinced a publisher to go with it after my autobiography [2021’s ‘Yours Cruelly, Elvira’] did well. They went, ‘Oh, maybe Elvira does have an audience.’”
New pursuits apart, Peterson hasn’t turned her again on the world of horror movies, citing 2015’s “The Witch” and 2024’s “Nosferatu” as latest favorites.
She additionally praised Demi Moore’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of a fading Hollywood star who goes to lethal extremes to look youthful in “The Substance,” noting, “I loved it. I thought it was hilarious and brilliant and kind of hit home for me.”
Whereas many followers look to horror as escapism, Peterson believes the style has a accountability to mirror the second wherein it’s being produced.
“In the 1950s and ’60s, there was the Red Scare, and people were worried about atomic bombs ― we got ‘Godzilla’ out of that,” she stated. Nonetheless, she feels Hollywood is prone to maintain off for a bit earlier than producing a horror film that displays the present sociopolitical local weather: “Right now it would get pulled off the screen.”
Nowadays, Peterson can also be embracing a newfound position as an LGBTQ+ rights advocate. Although she’s lengthy loved a queer fanbase, some of the headline-making revelations in “Yours Cruelly, Elvira” was her first public acknowledgement of her relationship along with her girlfriend, Teresa “T” Wierson.
Courtesy of Cassandra Peterson, 2025
Although she admits the information rankled some followers who have been “mostly male and older,” she has no regrets about her determination almost 4 years later.
“Keeping secrets is not good ― it gives you gas and a lot of other things,” she quipped. “And my middle name is Gay! That’s what happens when you get that name.”
On a severe word, she says she’s heard from “a lot of young people ― and I mean really young,” who’ve credited her for serving to them to embrace their very own queer sexuality or gender identification.
“Both women and men have come up to me and said, ‘You gave me the strength and the courage to come out to my family, or at my job.’ I mean, it’s heavy,” she stated. “I feel like if I can do that for even a few people, then being Elvira is worth it. Putting all that makeup on for all those years paid off.”
