Vampira and Me (2012) User Reviews

"V" Is For Vampira, The Original Scream-Queen From Hollywood's Fringe Society

[strong-122-478885 · 6/10 · 4 June 2014]

With "Vampira & Me" director/producer R.H. Greene has put together quite an interesting documentary spotlighting the patchy acting career of Maila Nurmi (aka. Vampira) who, with her ear-piercing scream and hour-glass figure, became a minor pop-culture icon during the 1950s.

Through vintage film clips, stills, and interviews, we learn how Maila (seeking fame & fortune) moved up from being a cheesecake magazine model in the late 1940s, to doing TV commercials in the early 1950s, to her glory days of becoming Vampira, delightfully hosting her own late-night TV show in the mid-1950s which screened Sci-Fi and Horror films for all the fans.

Known as the "Glamor Ghoul", Maila never ceased to thrill her many fans with the wild combination of her eccentric (and, yes, sexy) make-up, costume and persona.

Sadly enough, by the early 1960s Maila had all but faded away into obscurity and seclusion. She was later discovered waiting tables at a second-rate diner to make ends meet.

In 1997 producer R.H. Greene sought out Maila (who was now 75) and interviewed her for this entertaining and informative documentary. And I'm glad he did.

Touching and interesting tribute!

[niels-4 · 8/10 · 8 February 2014]

I have always been interested in the Vampira character portrayed by Maila Nurmi. She created an iconic image as the ghoulish vampire woman surrounded by a web of mystery. During the 1980's, when I first saw her image, I became a fan. The fact that she was an Scandinavian like myself fueled the interest. Unfortunately there was never enough facts or information about Maila Nurmi to make me know enough of her career and life as a misfit in the Hollywood system. This documentary film is an excellent telling of her life and the creation of Vampira. An objective telling of how her short lived fame during the mid 1950's brought both happiness and tragedy into her life. Vampira was a character that grew out of an era in change, where teens became rebels and rock'n roll was the new beat. An underground culture that grew to the surface and changed a generation of young people. Like Bettie Page, Vampira became strong iconic figure with a look nobody could forget. The camera caught images that never aged and continues until today to attract peoples attention. "Vampira and Me" is like an unholy grail must see for anyone who love the character Vampira and the woman behind her creation. A story told with love and compassion from her number 1 fan and also supported by all the people who loved her image and kept her underground fame alive. It is especially interesting to see unseen and rare footage of Vampira that proves she also was a great comedienne. Also fun to the see images of her early days as a pin-up model. This documentary has much heart and at times you can not help feeling sad, her career and life deserved much better. But once you adventure into the road towards Hollywood in search for fame there is no telling of the outcome, everything is at risk, especially your life. Maila Nurmi was a woman with talent and intelligence, a survivor. This documentary tells her strange tale of the unexpected, almost like it was meant to be. See it, you will love it!

Quite emotional

[BandSAboutMovies · 8/10 · 7 October 2018]

Maila Nurmi was the first goth. She was Elvira before that was even a name. She was used up, spit out and stomped all over by Hollywood. But she still continues to inspire.

Vampira was an icon. Starting on May 1, 1954, The Vampira Show (the show actually premiered the night before, but it was not called that names and it was considered a preview) opened each night with the pale goddess walking as if in a trance down a foggy hallway, screaming, then reclining on a couch where she would make fun of the movies she was about to show.

She became a star, appearing in LIFE Magazine, running for Night Mayor of Hollywood, being used as the model for Maleficent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty and being nominated for a Los Angeles area Emmy Award as Most Outstanding Female Personality in 1954. She lost to Lucille Ball. And as soon as fame came to her, it went away.

She appeared in films like Too Much, Too Soon, The Magic Sword, I Passed for White, Sex Kittens Go to College, The Big Operator and The Beat Generation in a role that was as close to the real Maila Nurmi as any she would play. She started to refer to Vampira as another person. And her role as Vampira in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space has lived on and on.

What hasn't lived on are video versions of her in the role. Many TV stations constantly retaped over expensive videotapes, so until her later years, Maila never saw herself in the role.

That's why R.H. Greene's documentary is so good. He took his 2010 radio documentary (first broadcast by NPR channel KPCC and available here on their site) to the next level, including an extended interview with his subject from a 1997 interview.

The story is not happy. By 1962, Nurmi was making a living installing linoleum flooring and running an antique store called Vampira's Attic. Years later, in 1981, she was asked by KHJ-TV to revive her Vampira character. Working closely with the producers of the new show, she was due to be the executive producer but left the project over creative differences.

The station chose Cassandra Peterson to play the part, but was now unable to use the name Vampira. Renaming her Elvira, she shot to fame overnight.

Nurmi sued, by lost when a court ruled that "likeness means actual representation of another person's appearance and not simply close resemblance." Peterson stated that Elvira was nothing like Vampira. After all, the only similarity was that she wore a black dress and had black hair. Right? Wrong. Nurmi claimed that the entire Elvira persona, which included her pun-filled patter, was based on her. And she lost. It's still amazing to me.

After that, Nurmi nearly disappeared, other than playing with the band Satan's Cheerleaders and appearing with Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers in Rene Daalder's punk rock musical Population: 1 (in the interview on the film, the director said, "There was a wild lady living out in back in a shed. Tomata befriended her and found out she had played Vampira.).

In the early days of the internet - 2001 - she started running her own site, selling autographs from her small North Hollywood apartment.

The film doesn't shy from the saddest parts of her life, such as her rumored love affair with James Dean or the stalker who attacked her in 1955, years before the media even knew what a stalker was.

This is more than a documentary. It feels like a labor of love. I learned so much about the person behind the icon, which is what a true documentary should be all about.

Great Documentary on a Sad Character

[Michael_Elliott · 14 October 2015]

Vampira and Me (2012)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

The name Maila Nurmi might not jump out at you but that's because she's better known under her character name of Vampira. This touching and wonderfully detailed documentary takes a look at the life of Nurmi who is probably best remembered today due to her silent performance in Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE but many fans will always remember her as the horror television host who influenced Elvira.

Clocking in just under two hours, it's hard to imagine that any fan would watch this and leave it feeling disappointed. There really wasn't too much known about Vampira but this documentary certainly makes you feel as if you understand everything about her, her character and her rather sad life. The documentary features an interview that the actress gave before she passed away in 2008 and we get to hear her story from her own words. Stories include how the Vampira character came to be, how the show ended, her years of poverty, working with Ed Wood and her notorious relationship with James Dean, a relationship that would have many blaming her for his death.

This is certainly an extremely well-made documentary that features all sorts of terrific information. It was great getting to hear these stories from the woman herself but we're also given some terrific film and television footage. The documentary covers pretty much every aspect of her life and it doesn't shy away from any of the sadness that she felt. Sadly, the majority of the Vampire television show is lost forever with only two minutes of footage surviving and we do get to see that here as well as two other television appearances.

Meet the Original "Scream Queen"

[StrictlyConfidential · 6/10 · 14 November 2020]

(IMO) - "Vampira And Me" was a good (but not great) bio-documentary.

This 106-minute presentation takes a close-up look at the patchy career of Maila Nurmi (known as "Vampira") who hosted her own late-night TV show back in the mid-1950s.

Maila died in 2008 at the age of 85.

A great documentary that would make Maila Nurmi proud.

[ElectricWarlock · 10/10 · 26 June 2014]

This film explores everything about the life of Maila Nurmi from her childhood, to the height of her fame, her downfall, her death, her relevance on pop culture, relationship with James Dean, and so much more in all less than 2 hours. Very few details of her life go untouched and it feels like the complete life story on someone who is a very important icon. Most of the film is Maila being interviewed herself so you get to know each detail of her life in her own words. This allows you to feel you're experiencing the events along with her. She is the only one who is seen being interviewed on screen. All of the other interviews are only audio so this film feels like the true, authentic story of Maila's life. Her story is an inspirational one because it showed someone who worked so hard to achieve so much. Yet she was still thrown away like trash, taken advantage of, hurt, betrayed, and overcame all of it to still be an icon to horror/cult film fans, Goths, and a Hollywood legend in general. While she talked about her times of misfortune and fall from grace, she never seemed bitter or resentful; but rather she seemed to be someone who felt lucky to have achieved success and embraced it with gratefulness.

This is a great documentary which captures the life of an icon very well, and also lets you have an idea of what the 1950s were really like and how different Maila was compared to what other women of that time period were expected to be. She was a truly special, unique person who was one of a kind, and you could see that from this documentary. The director was a personal friend of hers and you could tell how much he cared about her from his narration and the fact that he produced such a documentary in memory of her at all. I would recommend this to any fans of Plan 9 From Outer Space (although it surprisingly doesn't get mentioned a whole lot, the documentary shows there is so much more to the person Maila was than just an appearance in a cult movie) and anybody else who wants to know about the mysterious character.

Solid doc with what they could use

[jellopuke · 8/10 · 7 July 2021]

There's not much surviving footage of Vampira in her prime, so there's only so much they could do here, but the interview with her in her old age was great and she was quite candid and sharp. Overall, a very well made doc about a legend that deserved better in life.

Great work...

[bap_tsagio · 10/10 · 24 February 2017]

A documentary that shows in great depth the life of Maila Nurmi and what she really was behind the character of Vampira. Mr. Greene did a great job to gather information that seemed to be lost for decades. He created a very good biography of a woman who is called "The Godmother of Goth". For a D.I.Y. documentary I think is a 10/10!

Tragic, Sympathetic, Unforgettable, VAMPIRA

[NotcherBizness · 10/10 · 15 June 2021]

This intimate and moving portrait of a lost goth icon brought tears to my eyes.

It's rare to see a movie and know that it was made with love, but I would say this is a film like that. Director R. H. Greene has excavated pretty much every frame of film featuring Maila Nurmi as her barrier-shattering goth creation Vampira, the majority of which was found and presented here for the first time in over 50 years. In that way, this film is quite a present to pop culture history.

But the core of this documentary is the on camera interplay between Greene, the unseen questioner, and Nurmi, the regal, coquettish, gleeful, moist-eyed interviewee. Nurmi was clearly bloodied by her adventures in Hollywood as Vampira but she comes across as (mostly) unbowed, or at least willing to make the sacrifices that were required to give the world her creation. Knowing Nurmi at least got respect and affection from Greene and other second and third generation fans makes the rest of her story--a real Hollywood tragedy--easier to bear.

Thoughtful comments by cult comedian Dana Gould stand out, as does the amazing side story of Voluptua, a rip-off character created by men to capitalize on Vampira's popularity. Voluptua proved by her sex kitten submissiveness just how radically feminist the self-sufficient Vampira really was--when men tried to recreate Vampira's success, they created a blow-up doll, where Nurmi created a feminist icon. An amazing story, for horror fans and anyone who cares about radical.depictions of women in the media age.

"And At The Fullness Of The Moon, I Was Surrounded By Lunatics!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 25 June 2021]

First, the bad / sad news: Only about 2 minutes of footage from Maila Nurmi's Vampira show are known to exist. Although, there was a news article some years back, that said that most of the full episodes were still around, held privately by an "anonymous owner".

Now, the good news: VAMPIRA AND ME is a loving, fascinating look at Ms. Nurmi and her alter ego, told -mostly- in her own words, in the flesh! Writer / Director R. H. Greene went to great lengths to present a tribute that isn't just some fawning fanboy fiesta.

Greene allows the triumph, as well as the tragedy and pain in Ms. Nurmi's life to emerge, filling in the blank spaces. From her first donning of the Vampira persona at a masquerade party, to her meteoric rise as the dark star of KABC-TV in Los Angeles, she was larger than life. Still, though she had her time with the likes of James Dean and Elvis Presley, she ultimately fell from grace, living in obscurity and poverty. In spite of this, Maila shows great dignity and poise in her interview.

Obviously, her part in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is covered, as is her wonderful recitation in THE BEAT GENERATION. Her later meeting with punk band, THE MISFITS is also discussed.

However, for me personally, the most arresting and haunting part of the entire documentary is Maila's singing / reciting the song, "Genocide Utopia" with the band Satan's Cheerleaders. This impromptu performance gives me the shivers, no matter how many times I hear it! The fact that she was 64 when she did it, tells us all we need to know about this incredible woman, and her blazing, undying spirit!

The movie ends with Maila and Satan's Cheerleaders performing, "I'm Damned" over the end credits. What a finale!...

Tragic, Sympathetic, Unforgettable, VAMPIRA

[NotcherBizness · 10/10 · 13 June 2021]

This intimate and moving portrait of a lost goth icon brought tears to my eyes. It's rare to see a movie and know that it was made with love, but this is a film like that. Director R. H. Greene has excavated pretty much every frame of film featuring Maila Nurmi as her barrier-shattering creation Vampira, the majority of which he personally found and presented here for the first time in over 50 years. In that way, this film is quite a present to pop culture history. But the core of this documentary is the on camera interplay between Greene, the unseen questioner, and Nurmi, the regal, coquettish, gleeful, sad-eyed changeling. You can feel the love, and knowing Nurmi at least got that kind of affection from Greene and others makes the rest of her story--a real Hollywood tragedy--easier to bear. Thoughtful comments by cult comedian Dana Gould stand out, as does the amazing side story of Voluptua, a character created by men to capitalize on Vampira's popularity who proves by her bombshell sex kitten submissiveness just how radically feminist Maila Nurmi as Vampira really was. An amazing story, for horror fans and anyone who cares about the media age.