Elvira Shares How the Vampy ‘Mistress of the Dark’ Really Celebrates Halloween (Exclusive)

Forget the Great Pumpkin, Cassandra Peterson thinks her iconic character Elvira is becoming the Spooky Season equivalent of Santa Claus.

On Saturday, Oct. 19, the actress, 73, was among the Groundlings alumni at the storied improv troupe’s 50th anniversary party in Los Angeles where she spoke with PEOPLE about her hopes for Elvira’s lasting legacy.

“I have a lot of new things coming up in 2025,” Peterson revealed. “I’ve got two books and two movies, and maybe I’m being very over the top, but I kind of have a feeling that Elvira is getting into Santa Claus mode and that [she] might just be around every single Halloween with or without me.”

Peterson created the sexy goth character back in 1981, when she was hired to host a weekend horror movie program for L.A. TV station KHJ-TV. Peterson’s quirky commentary and jokes about the B-movies featured on the show turned Elvira’s Movie Macabre into a hit and launched the character to fame. She went on to star in two feature films based around the character, 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and 2001’s Elvira’s Haunted Hills, as well as multiple TV revivals of her original horror hostess format.

Over the decades, Elvira has become a camp cult icon, and Peterson hopes her character will outlive her.

“I feel like the brand of Elvira is kind of set and hopefully sticks around long after I’m gone,” she told PEOPLE.

At the same time, Peterson suggested that the character might be inextricably linked to her, noting that she did try to pass the torch on her 2007 reality series The Search for the Next Elvira.

“It was a giant bomb and it didn’t work!” Peterson said. “We picked someone who was very funny and very cute, and nobody wanted to hire her. It was kind of sad. I thought, ‘What a brilliant idea. Get somebody younger and go out and play [Elvira].’ It just didn’t work.”

Elvira has indeed become a Halloween staple, with celebs like Kylie Jenner and Lizzo notably dressing up as the Mistress of the Dark in recent years.

But for her part, Peterson said she’s looking forward to a “quiet” Halloween this year. “When Halloween falls on a weeknight, I am lucky enough to get to stay home on Halloween and actually see trick or treaters,” she said. “The last three years I’ve been able to do that for the first time ever. So, I love that.”

“When it’s on a weekday, Halloween is the weekend before,” she explained. “So of course I’m working that weekend, but I’m going to stay home [on Oct. 31]. I decorated my house and then wait for trick or treaters.”