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Elvira's House of Horrors Pinball Review

Pinball Pursuit·video·18m 0s·analyzed·Apr 11, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Elvira's House of Horrors scores 14.5/25 in home review; strong rules, weak accessibility.

Summary

Jon and Dr. C from Pinball Pursuit review Stern's Elvira's House of Horrors (Premium Edition), rating it 14.5/25 across five categories (Theme, Look, Sound, Feel, Play). While they appreciate the detailed backglass art and complex ruleset, they criticize the difficulty level, excessive video montages, repetitive music, and slower gameplay compared to their previous machines (Jurassic Park and Foo Fighters). The game ranks third among their three home machines.

Key Claims

  • Elvira's House of Horrors is the third Elvira pinball machine, after Elvira's House of Horrors and Party Monsters, and Scared Stiff

    medium confidence · Dr. C states this as historical fact but conflates titles; knowledge base confirms Scared Stiff is the second game (1996), but first game title accuracy unclear from review

  • Game designed by Dennis Nordman with software by Lyman Sheets, who may have passed away after this game

    high confidence · Dr. C explicitly states this; KB confirms Dennis Nordman as designer, Lyman Sheets as programmer

  • Elvira's House of Horrors currently ranks #9 on Pinside's Top 100

    high confidence · Mrs. J states this as current fact

  • The machine has very slim ball saves and extra balls, making it difficult for casual players

    high confidence · Mrs. J reports from personal gameplay experience after ~500 games

  • The front door shot is the primary mechanic and unpredictably returns the ball to different playfield locations

    high confidence · Both reviewers describe gameplay experience with this mechanic

  • Video montages in gameplay can be skipped quickly, except for the final trailer leading to endgame

    high confidence · Mrs. J reports from hands-on play; Dr. C confirms the final video cannot be skipped

  • The ruleset has deep complexity with stackable modes including House Party and Gappa Angry wizard modes

    high confidence · Dr. C describes learning the ruleset over multiple plays and achieving these modes

Notable Quotes

  • “The original was Elvira's House of Horrors and the Party Monsters, and the second one was Scared Stiff.”

    Dr. C@ 0:45 — Establishes the trilogy of Elvira games, though title accuracy is questionable

  • “If this were an MST3K machine, this would be getting like a 4 or 4.5 for me. With the same movies we're making fun of, same rule sets, but because it's Elvira, you know, not maybe the most child-friendly of themes.”

    Dr. C@ 4:42 — Reveals preference for Mystery Science Theater 3000 IP over Elvira for same comedy premise

  • “I just need to skip through it. I'm not here to watch a movie. I'm here to play pinball. If I wanted to watch Elvira, I would watch Elvira, but I don't want to.”

    Mrs. J@ 12:39 — Core complaint about video montage disruption to gameplay flow

  • “This is not going to be our easy, player-friendly machine. We had other people come over, and they struggled on it too.”

    Mrs. J@ 13:34 — Indicates the machine is inaccessible for casual/general public players

  • “The ruleset to this is deep, and I appreciated that. I felt like I was always having to think strategically.”

    Dr. C@ 14:59 — Contrasts with Mrs. J's difficulty concerns; appreciates strategic depth

  • “I got a lot better at some microflips, at some drop catches, at post-passing. I got better at those things because this machine requires it.”

    Mrs. J@ 10:40 — Acknowledges positive skill development from challenging machine, despite frustration

Entities

Elvira's House of HorrorsgameDennis NordmanpersonLyman SheetspersonGreg FlerezpersonCassandra PetersonpersonJon HeypersonDr. CpersonPinball PursuitorganizationScared Stiffgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Elvira's House of Horrors ranks #9 on Pinside Top 100, indicating strong community appreciation despite mixed home-arcade reception

    high · Mrs. J: 'Elvira's House of Horrors (Premium Edition) is at number nine on Pinside's Top 100' — suggests tournament/engaged player preference differs from casual home market

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Game's high Pinside Top 100 ranking (#9) indicates strong appeal to competitive/engaged player base despite low home-arcade scores

    medium · Contrast between Pinside ranking and home reviewer scores (14.5/25) suggests tournament/location play value exceeds casual home value

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Excessive video montages and cutscenes disrupt gameplay flow; final video cannot be skipped, forcing players to watch content rather than play

    high · Mrs. J: 'I just need to skip through it. I'm not here to watch a movie. I'm here to play pinball.' Confirmed as ongoing issue even after ~500 games

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Deep, stackable ruleset with strategic mode selection (House Party, Gappa Angry wizard modes) creates puzzle-like gameplay complexity that appeals to skilled/engaged players

    high · Dr. C: 'The ruleset to this is deep... if I stack this and this and this, that's how I can try and beat my high score.' Game evolved from 3 to 4 as complexity was discovered

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Cassandra Peterson (original Elvira performer) returned to perform character voiceovers and callouts for the pinball machine despite being approximately 60 years old

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.054

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to Pinball Pursuit. I'm Mrs. J. And I'm Dr. C. And today we're going to be going over our review of the latest machine that we have in our basement. It's Elvira's House of Horrors. That's correct. Yes. Yeah, so are we going to burn for Elvira? find out let's find out you're gonna know real quick if i'm burning or not i know right so this is the third game that we've had in our basement um elvira's house of horrors has a little bit of history it is the third in a trilogy of elvira pinball machines i knew that there were a few out there i did not know that there were three and i didn't know that this was number three this is number three so uh the original was elvira and the party monsters and the second one was Elvira Scared Stiff. Okay. Yeah.
0:55
A little bit about the character of Elvira. She was birthed in 1981 as a character that would introduce late-night L.A. bad horror movies to the masses. She caught on and became kind of a cult classic.
1:12
So this game was designed by Dennis Nordman. The software was Lyman Sheets. I think it may have been his last game at Stern before he passed away. Okay. And then our quirk was by Greg Flerez.
1:26
So, and currently, Elvira's House of Horror is at number nine on Pinside Stop 100. Really? It is number nine. Oh, well, interesting.

  • “Whenever I could get an extra ball, because they are hard to come by, man, did I feel like I was amazing at pinball, even though I'm really not.”

    Dr. C@ 15:38 — Illustrates the difficulty tuning and rarity of extra ball achievements

  • “Clearly at the bottom. Clear three for me. Definitely a number three on the list.”

    Both reviewers@ 16:45 — Final ranking among their three home machines (Jurassic Park, Foo Fighters, Elvira's)

    • Elvira's House of Horrors and Party Monsters
    game
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Mystery Science Theater 3000game
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Pinsideorganization

    high · Dr. C: 'the fact that she came back in her, I don't know, she's gotta be like 60 years old. To do all of this and make all the jokes. I think that's great.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Lyman Sheets (programmer) may have retired or passed away after Elvira's House of Horrors, marking potential end of tenure at Stern

    low · Dr. C speculation: 'I think it may have been his last game at Stern before he passed away' — unverified, presented as uncertain opinion

  • $

    market_signal: Reviewers emphasize home arcade machine selection strategy and rotation, suggesting cost/commitment sensitivity to machine performance fit

    medium · Discussion of rental process to determine home arcade fit; Elvira ranked third of three owned machines; anticipation for next machine to replace it

  • ?

    product_concern: Machine difficulty tuning heavily favors skilled players; slim ball saves and rare extra balls make it inaccessible to casual/general public players

    high · Mrs. J: 'Ball saves, very slim. Extra balls, slim to none.' Also: 'We had other people come over, and they struggled on it too.' Dr. C notes extra ball rarity as achievement

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Dr. C's appreciation of the game increased over time as ruleset complexity was discovered (initial 3 → final 4 rating)

    high · Dr. C: 'This game probably started off as a three... But as I learned to do more ball control, the game started to open up... I gotta give this a four'

    • 1:35
    I'm going to have some hot takes then. Yes, you're going to have some hot takes. As always, we are going to do this with five categories. We have the theme, the look, the sound, the feel, and the play. Yep. And we rank everything from 1 to 5. Do you want to give a kind of a brief explanation of what 1 to 5 means? Yes. So everybody must know I work in HR. So evaluating people and now pinball machines is what I do best. So the way that we do it at my company, this is not the way everybody does it. One is not great. Basically, if you're an employee, you're on your way out the door and you probably know it. And a five is basically an employee that we've never seen before or a pinball machine in this case that we've never seen before. It is perfection. It's perfection. And it's groundbreaking. It's the best thing you've ever played. Something definitely to write home about, you know. And then so that's one to five. But three is the middle ground, of course. And three is a meets expectations pinball machine. It's a pinball machine. It meets your expectations. It does what it needs to do. if you see it at an arcade you're like sure I'll play that one it's maybe not your main destination when going there but it's a machine I'll play it so that's kind of you know how the lay of the land works when it comes to scoring a two you know not exactly up to stuff and four is like okay this is better than your average machine so that's how we will be scoring things along the way and I do have a question for you oh can we use decimal points oh of course Okay, I love myself a good .5. Yeah, no like .17s. I love myself a good .63. No.
    3:18
    No, no, I'll keep it to one decimal point. You're welcome. Okay, we can do that. Yeah. So let's get started with the theme. The theme of Elvira's House of Horrors. Yes. Let's give you your takes first. Okay, this is why I asked about the decimal points. Because I'm teetering between a 2.5 and a 3. And this is all just personal Jane Anne's thoughts. I don't love campy horror films I don't love horror films in general don't know that I love Elvira herself I have never watched Mystery Science Theater is that what it's called? 3000 no experience there I just didn't feel like I connected with the theme I did like the haunted house-y aspect of it that's why I think I'll give it a 3 do I absolutely love it? no but could I deal with it? sure so it's a middle of the road it's a meet expectations it's a theme don't hate it don't want to go anything above don't hate it so yeah okay uh for me see this is this is where i come a little bit weird i like cheesy horror movies if they being made fun of right and that what i can really appreciate about Elvira I think the comedy of the theme is really funny But there a property out there and Mrs J mentioned it that does it better And it's Mystery Science Theater 3000. Oh. Or MST3K. Yeah. If this were an MST3K machine, this would be getting like a 4 or 4.5 for me. Okay. With the same movies we're making fun of, same rule sets, but because it's Elvira, you No, not maybe the most child-friendly of themes. Yeah, yeah.
    4:58
    Not that she's terrible or anything, but for me, there's just a better theme out there to get at the same type of idea, and that's MST3K. I mean, you can see it over there, but Mrs. J said, I've got Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy, right? I love MST3K. So because of that, for me, I also give this a three. Okay, three. Middle of the road. Three. Fine. It's fine. It's good. Yeah. It's good. It's fun. All right, now we have the look. The look. Okay, you go first on this one. All right. I think the look of this machine is pretty fantastic. I think that the back glass art is really detailed and has a lot of little hidden jokes in it. The haunted house itself looks really cool. I love how the windows light up when certain things are done with little hands that are creeping in. I love the cellar and the dead heads are really cool looking. I love the little like gargoyles that are all around the play field the ones that hop up and also the ones that are like drawn and like inner tubes and stuff like that super fun super well done matches the theme that they're going for so for me I give this look a 4 a 4? okay yeah it's not like a 4.5 but it's not it meets expectations I think this goes above and beyond what the theme was yeah deal okay well I along the same lines of view. I don't mind the look of it. I like the haunted house in the back. I like the style in which the things were drawn. I think that that's very cool. It's a bit unique. It's fun. I also liked the fun little aspects in there, like the coffin that you can lock balls in that's, you know, along that. Yep, exactly. The trunk. I also like the deadhead aspect, the little skull that pops down. I think that that's fun. Overall, the case of it, I like the, you know, the playfield part but up the sides and you know across the top uh not your favorite i feel like it's like you know pinup girl style that's definitely what they're going for exactly and i'm like okay i don't know that i'd want this in my house it's not exactly my style um so that's my only complaint but i do like the playfield and the things going on in there so i'm gonna give it middle of the road three you three okay so if we average our scores together we're giving this 3.5 3.5 yep deal okay so 3.5 for the look uh now we have the sound of the machine the sound do you want to go first i will go first i feel like the sound matches the machine it's like yeah exactly haunted kind of creepy i don't love it like i like i said i get that it matches the style of the machine but it just isn't something that i'm like okay this is cool I don't love like the voices of the characters I just don't love it I go back to like the music machines or even things that have iconic soundtracks like Jurassic Park exactly I don't know if Elvira does or doesn't have a soundtrack to her like maybe she sings a song in one of her movies I know that oh well I mean something cool that would have been more of a throwback I think would have been really cool but yeah there's just a lot of theremin and ooh spooky and I was like That's true. So that's how I feel. I gave it a two. Oh, you gave it a two? I gave it a two. Wow. Okay. Okay, that's low. Yeah. I think that the sound effects are fun. I like when you hit the gargoyles and it makes a little... I think a lot of the sound effects with the crypt opening or the haunted house is really cool. I think Elvira herself does a great job with the call-outs. You obviously didn't like her as much. I was familiar with Elvira before discovering this pinball machine. I have kind of an appreciation. My little brother loves Elvira. I think that was really done well and the fact that she came back in her, I don't know, she's gotta be like 60 years old Oh she's old, right?
    8:42
    To do all of this and make all the jokes I think that's great I love the little like Dracula guy that's doing some of the call outs So the call outs are great the sound effects are great It the music I don like she said The the theremin spooky is fun for a little bit but i put about 500 games onto this machine i a little sick of it yeah um i think that when you get house party and you get the um shout like that's super cool there are fun aspects to the sound and i wish it was more throughout yeah that's kind of so for me i gave this a three Yeah, okay. So you gave it a two. Are we going middle of the road again? 2.5. 2.5? Yeah. Sorry, Elvira. Sorry. I'm the problem, it's me.
    9:33
    All right, next we have the feel. Oh, the feel. Next, sweet. Yeah. So do you want me to go first on this one? Yep, go first.
    9:42
    This is one that has definitely gone through stages for me. I think that the feel of Elvira is good, but not great. It's a two-flipper game, right? It is very reliant on that front door shot. The front door shot is everything. And the front door gives you back your ball in weird places, right? Sometimes it'll go to the right, to the pop bumpers. Sometimes it'll go to left, to the orbit. but sometimes it shoots back out at you towards the middle of the play field. Yeah. It's not as predictable, and it gets a little bit, it's a slower machine, too, than the last year we've had, right? Yeah. We've had Jurassic Park, we've had Foo Fighters, both very fast-playing machines. This was very slow. Yeah.
    10:34
    One thing that this game did for me, personally, it really made me work on my ball control. I got a lot better at some microflips, at some drop catches, at post-passing. I got better at those things because this machine requires it. And because it's a little bit slower, you have the time to do it. So for that, I feel like it had a good feel to it, but not a great feel. It's not a feel that I'm craving and going back to and wishing that I could play all the time. So I give this machine a feel of three. Deal. Meets expectations. There we go. I gave it a three as well. I mean, there's nothing crazy special about it. I like that once you got it going, I feel like you could get a decent flow. I like the pop bumpers in the top. You know, you've got your classic, just two right and left lanes. And that's about a ramp. Sorry. That's about it. When it comes to ramps, the rest is really what you talked about focusing on that front door door. And then, you know, you've got the dead head off to the side and a few other things you can do. I feel like it was pretty simple. Um, it was like you said, very much a slower game, especially coming off of Foo Fighters. Foo Fighters was a little bit faster. And so it was very interesting when they brought this one in right after having played that, and I was like, whoa. You know, just very different. Nothing I loved or hated about the feel. Just a solid three. It was nothing to write home about. It was a solid three. Okay, there we go. Solid three. Alright, and last but not least, we have the play of the game. This is where I think you and I are going to disagree the most. 100%. um do you want to go first yes i'd love to go first okay okay first off i'm giving the play a two and part of this i didn't know what category to put it in but there are so many like little video montages and stuff that i'm like you are just i just need to skip through it and you can skip through them somewhat quickly sometimes but then other ones like at the very end i'm like just come on just like skip through it i'm not here to watch a movie i'm here to play pinball if i wanted to watch albira i would watch albira but i don't want to i just want to play the game and so i feel like there is a lot of the video montages and i feel like that disrupts the play okay uh but i feel like i may be alone in that i know people like that but that's that's how i feel number two um constant training for me oh yeah you had a hard time I had a really hard time with this one ball saves very slim extra balls slim to none I feel like this is a really hard machine and maybe that just says something about me and that I'm not a very good player and I will take that but another you know thing that we're considering with bringing a machine into our house is how user is it to the general public I want this to be a machine that you know there are going to be harder ones there going to be easier ones because we plan on having multiple someday But I want This is not going to be our easy, player-friendly machine. We had other people come over, and they struggled on it too. And it just wasn't one that I was really gravitating towards. We've got a puzzle table down here, and me and Cameron would switch off playing, and I'd be like, nah. I'm done. I just didn't find myself gravitating towards it.
    13:55
    So that's my spiel on the play. That's how I feel on the play. That's some strong opinions. Similar to how we both had very different scores for the look, we have very different scores for the play. You gave it a two, I gave it a four.
    14:10
    Deal, there we go. And it's evolved for me. So this game probably started off as a three. I liked it. I thought it was meeting expectations, but as I learned to do more ball control the game started to open up um we learned pretty quick oh I can choose which haunt I want to do yeah and then I figured out the pros and cons of each haunt and that allowed me to start getting house party a lot yeah um being able to get to that mode quite a bit I eventually was able to get where I could get to gappa angry every once in a while um which is fun i had a pretty decent score i figured out the dead heads um you can skip through the little video modes which is nice not the final trailer like leading up to it yeah that annoyed me but i think the rule set to this is deep and i appreciated that i felt like i was always having to think strategically and i enjoy that when i'm playing pinball i love doing the strategic of thinking and it got to the point where i was like okay if i stack this and this and this that's how i can try and beat my high score or that's how i can get in my top four scores right so for me i gotta give this a four because i like the complexity of it i love the puzzle aspect of it and getting some of those like getting house party like i would actually start dancing i loved i I love doing it. He would. He's not lying. And whenever I could get an extra ball, because they are hard to come by, man, did I feel like I was amazing at pinball, even though I'm really not.
    15:47
    And the, like, three times I've gotten the gap at angry, oh, my gosh. I was so excited that I drained, like, right away.
    15:56
    Sorry. But so for me, I think this is a four. So with you a two, me a four. Three. Gets a three again. Yeah. All right. So now we got a total of, and I wasn't keeping track while we were going. I was not either. So we got a three for three. Yes. We have a three from the two of us for look. Look, correct. So that's six total. Uh-huh. Sound. I gave it a two. And I gave it a three, so it was a 2.5. Yeah. So that's 8.5. Mm-hmm. The feel. I gave it a three. And then. So we're up to 11.5. And then an additional three for the play. So that's a 14.5 out of 25. Yeah. Ooh, that's a rough score. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you feel. I think my score's definitely dragged it down. But, I mean, out of the three that we've had in our basement so far, Jurassic Park, Foo Fighters, and now Elvira.
    16:44
    Clearly at the bottom. Clear three for me. What about you? Definitely a number three on the list. Like, for ranking, yeah, definitely a number three for me. So, 14.5. If I did the math wrong, I will come in and I will change that. You'll figure it out. In the editing process. so but we're gonna put the sheet up yeah with all the final scores you can read them all right here total 14.5 and uh for us number three on our machines that we've had in the house i'm excited for a new one i'm excited for our next machine i'm very excited for our next machine we're not gonna spoil what it is yet but uh let's just say it's a newer one and it's gonna be super i'm really excited i'm really excited too well thank you for joining us in our quick little review of Elvira's House of Horrors. Any parting words?
    17:32
    Give it a shot. Yeah. Find a local arcade. This machine is for some people and not for others, and that is totally cool. Oh, yeah. That is why we're doing this whole rental process, is to figure out, you know, what's going to work well in our home arcade someday. Yep. And we're going to get there. So, yeah, that's all I got. That's all I got. Okay. Hey, please like, comment, and subscribe for more Pinball Pursuit, and until next time. Keep flipping.