Vampira The Movie. 2007. Alpha Video. Reviewed by Brian Kirst

With the recent passing of Maila Nurmi there probably isn’t a better time to seek out Kevin Sean Michaels’ fascinating and insightful documentary, Vampira The Movie.

Looking frail yet proud Nurmi recounts her life and times for Michaels’ loving camera. Nurmi tells of her impoverished childhood and of her days on the stages of theaters in New York. Her love of Charles Addams’ comics led her to create a costume variation on one of his characters (the future Morticia). This eventually led to her one year television hosting gig as Vampira. Intensely creative and magnificently proud, Nurmi soon found herself at odds with the traditional demands of television executives and by the time Ed Wood approached her for Plan 9 From Outer Space, she was financially desperate and willing to take on his poverty row project. Her silent, outstretched space vampire in that feature only added to her cult notoriety, though, and it is delightful to hear Nurmi talk of Wood and this project - especially as she expresses her regret that upon finding the dialogue so ridiculous, she bargained to make her character a silent one.

Even more informative is the appearance of the one and only Elvira - Cassandra Peterson. Nurmi famously sued Peterson, claiming that Peterson’s Elvira was too close in appearance and attitude to her Vampira. Peterson’s exclamation that when playing a vamp-like female your options are somewhat limited is well found. Even more interesting is Peterson’s revelation that Nurmi never showed for any of the court dates - hence forfeiting her claims. This reveals as much about Nurmi’s capricious nature and total enthrall to her own muse as anything she could say herself.

Others, though, say plenty about Nurmi and it is a particular joy to listen to horror actress Debbie Rochon’s intelligent analysis of Nurmi’s character. The enthusiastic and highly enjoyable Debbie Dutch and Debbie D (aka The Double D’s) also pipe in with admiring statements about Nurmi’s accomplishments and other genre veterans such as Sid Haig and Bill Moseley are also interviewed. Most fascinating are the revelations of punk rocker Jerry Only from the Misfits and guitar maker Jonny Coffin (in a bonus feature interview) whom both met and spent creatively enhanced time with Nurmi.

Nurmi eventually reveals herself, as many industriously imaginative types, as both highly modest and overly indulgent about her accomplishments. The fact that Michaels was able to get such a well rounded portrait of this magical idol just before her passing is a wonderful gift not only to the horror community but to history and society as a whole.