If you’ve been around on my blog for a minute, you’ve probably seen my cosplay/horror history series, A Century of Glamour Ghouls. That October, I threw together ten cosplays accompanied by tutorials and short histories of horror filmmaking over the 20th century.
Forthe 1950s entry, I covered Vampira in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and the intersection of sci-fi and horror. Alas, my hair was short back then and I own(ed) no wigs, so I paired my Vampira look with a generic 1950s hairstyle. Now that my hair is Too Long, and the season of the witch is upon us, it seemed like the right time to revive the horrifying horror hostess.
Inktober Day #30 is Vampira who was portrayed by Maila Nurmi. I won’t lie, I didn’t know of Vampira till about 2015 when I decided to look into the history of Elvira and learned that the influence of Elvira originally came from Vampira and I went all in trying to learn all I could about her. It’s such a shame when you read what happened to Maila Nurmi towards the end of her death and how Vampira faded into obscurity as opposed to Elvira and it’s sad because she was just as lovable as Elvira was and both characters are great in their own ways. And her role in Plan 9 from Outer Space, as cheesy as it was, I still enjoyed seeing her in it lol.
“Vampira was the first exaggerated woman I ever yearned to meet. As a child, she never looked scary to me; I thought she was pretty.” John Waters
The Vampira Show - starring original wraith-like glamour ghoul Maila Nurmi (11 December 1922 - 10 January 2008) - premiered on this day [30 April] on KABC-TV in 1954. Read my further reflections on Vampirahere.
