Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001) is an American comedy-horror film directed by Sam Irvin and written by Cassandra Peterson and John Paragon. Peterson reprises her role as Elvira, who travels through the Carpathian Mountains in 1851 with her maid Zou Zou, played by Mary Jo Smith. After becoming stranded, they are invited to stay at Castle Hellsubus, the home of the eccentric Lord Vladimere Hellsubus, played by Richard O’Brien. The film also stars Mary Scheer and Scott Atkinson and is a parody of the Gothic horror films produced by Roger Corman and Hammer during the 1950s and 1960s.
Elvira’s Haunted Hills was filmed in Romania between November and December 2000, with exterior locations in Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains. The production also used MediaPro Studios in Buftea, a town northwest of Bucharest, for studio filming. The studio complex has since been renamed Buftea Studios.
One of the film’s identifiable locations is Saschiz Fortified Church in the village of Saschiz, Mureș County, Transylvania. A doorway of the historic church was used to represent part of the entrance to the fictional Castle Hellsubus. Only this section of the building appears in the film, rather than the entire church being presented as the castle. The late Gothic church was constructed between 1493 and 1525 by the Transylvanian Saxon community and was designed with defensive features to protect the local population. Together with the surrounding village, it forms part of the UNESCO-listed Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania.
Additional exterior filming took place elsewhere in the Transylvanian region, although the precise locations of the other buildings and landscapes have not been firmly established. The production combined Romanian locations with studio work at Buftea to create the interiors and surroundings of Castle Hellsubus.
Saschiz Fortified Church
Saschiz Fortified Church appears in Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001). Only part of the building is visible on screen.