Elvira’s Great Big October Cover Story [Interview]

Courtesy of Cassandra Peterson, 2025

As Cassandra Peterson sits in front of me, it’s immediately clear she’s just as stunning in person as everyone says. Outside of her iconic Elvira persona, she looks strikingly different. Her long, gorgeous red hair is mesmerizing, and I can’t help but tell her she reminds me of one of my all-time faves, Tori Amos.

“Now that’s a good compliment—I love her,” she tells me, pausing to think.

“What’s funny is, well, I was here thinking I looked more like Weird Al. But I like looking like Tori Amos better than Weird Al.”

Peterson’s first-ever cookbook is officially out after years of planning. But calling it a cookbook doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s more like a lifestyle survival guide for goths with good taste. Elvira’s Cookbook from Hell is a generously sized tome packed with inspiration for sexy, spooky soirées and celebrations for every occasion. In honor of the riveting new release, out now, Elvira has taken over Dread Central’s Digital Cover Story for October. And we couldn’t be prouder.

“I used to jokingly call myself the Martha Stewart of the Macabre because I love to entertain and cook. I have all of Martha’s books; I’m a big fan,” she tells me, then leans in with the goss. “But I’m not so much a fan of her calling herself the Queen of Halloween.”

Peterson is joking, but there’s only one true Queen of Halloween, and I’m sitting across from her. But as it turns out, Peterson really is a fan of Stewart.

“I have probably every book she’s written. And I always thought that Elvira should have a lifestyle book like Martha does. On cooking, flower arrangements … but for the goth lifestyle. I’ve been out there pitching this damn book for so long, you wouldn’t believe it. Years and years and no publisher would buy it. They’d go, ‘There’s a million Halloween cookbooks!’ And I’d say, ‘It’s not only a Halloween cookbook. It’s a goth lifestyle for all year round, 365 days.’ They didn’t think there was that kind of audience out there, but there is. I certainly know it.”

Cassandra Peterson, 2025. Photo by Matt Beard.

I ask if she’s ever met Martha in real life.

“No, I haven’t. I would love to,” she shares. “I walked by her house in East Hampton recently. I guess she’s not there anymore though. But I very much respect her. She is an older woman like myself, a little older, and she really came from not a wealthy background, pulled herself up. She was the first woman on Wall Street. I mean, it’s just amazing. She made this thing out of thin air that became so huge. So, as a woman, I very, very much respect her.

“And then she gets, of course, busted and put in jail. Meanwhile, 9,000 other guys who did the very same thing, much worse actually, walk free. But no, of course she’s a woman, so she has to suffer. And then she gets a bad rap about being so tough and mean, but that’s kind of how a woman has to do it. They don’t do anything differently than a man does. They just get labeled as you-know-what.”

Because Peterson is such a fan, I ask if she’s seen the recent Netflix documentary about Stewart.

“I sure have. I loved it. She’s a woman who I very much relate to. It’s a whole different world than Elvira, but I really look up to her.”

So, has Peterson ever considered doing a documentary of her own, in the spirit of Martha’s?

“Funny you should say that…” she tells me.

“I’m thinking about it. I have been asked quite a few times to do a documentary and I always said I wanted to wait until I wrote my autobiography, because I wanted the autobiography to be a blueprint for it. Like an instruction booklet. So yeah, but I can’t say much about that right now.”

Speaking of Martha, what sort of music would be played at an Elvira-hosted dinner party?

“I always like something mellow … creepy, slow, or sexy. Background music should be like you were watching a film and the music in the background is complimentary, not overwhelming. It’s what you want behind you, it’s not the star of the show. You want the food to be the star of the show. So in my case, for a dinner party, goth film scores would be the way to go.”

“Speaking of music,” she adds, “the movie that just knocked my socks off was Sinners. Now that wouldn’t necessarily be the music I’d play at a dinner party, but the way they incorporated music into that film, man, it just made it! I loved it. It was very emotional.”

When we discuss the famous intergenerational dance sequence at the center of the film, she lights up.

“I just loved that. It was the best utilization of music in a film I think I’ve ever seen. The way it melded music and what was going on.”

With Sinners firmly in the current Oscars conversation, talk turns to last year’s The Substance.

“I love The Substance,” Peterson says, laughing. “I just loved it! I went to a theater here, and I just couldn’t stop laughing. Everybody else was giving me these really angry looks, whipping around as though to say, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I was just hysterical during the whole thing. I thought it was so funny. I absolutely love that movie.”

So. Between Peterson and her partner, who’s the one doing the cooking?
“Oh, she’s fantastic. She does the prep work. She’s like my sous chef. And she does the dishes! I get to decide what we’re going to eat. She goes and buys it at the store. She preps it. And I make it. Isn’t that a fantastic partner or what? I mean, come on!”

From the entire Elvira’s Cookbook From Hell collection, what’s Peterson’s favorite cocktail?

“The Bloody Brewsky,” she tells me. “It’s basically a michelada and it’s fantastic. It’s not really a cocktail, but it is my favorite thing. I drink it all the time. I only discovered them when I was on a vacation down in Costa Rica. It’s beer and spicy tomato juice and a lot of lime—but I mean a lot of lime juice. And then you put Tajín around the glass and it’s the most refreshing, best drink. I love it. What’s great is I’m trying to cut down on alcohol, and so you’re drinking a big drink, but only half of it is actually alcohol.”

To unearth all of Peterson’s deluxe, goth-lifestyle secrets, you’ll want to take a peek into Elvira’s Cookbook from Hell. Like everything she touches, it’s equal parts outrageous and seductive, a reminder that after four decades in the spotlight, Elvira still knows how to make the darkness feel like home.

Courtesy of Grand Central Publishing, 2025

Elvira’s Cookbook from Hell is out now from Hachette and available wherever books are sold.

Tags: Cassandra Peterson Dread Central Cover Story Elvira Featured Post

Categorized: Cover Stories Interviews News