So being the eager little beaver that I am, I packed my bags and headed for the modern day capital of Scream Queendom - LA. It wasn't long before my journo's instincts led me to a bar. Not just any bar though; this one happened to be upstairs of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, an unconventional convention which boasted a veritable smorgasbord of fabulous femme fatales. Holding court were mistresses of mayhem, Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens, while the pretender to the throne, Monique Gabrielle pouted energetically on the sidelines, exhibiting a heaving cleavage that would have even Russ Meyer reaching for the smelling salts. Linnea was there to shoot and promote her new photo book, SKIN which aims to be a satire of Madonna's much-hyped SEX. Conventioneers were invited to attend a shoot for this dressed in their most outrageous gear, the dubious reward being the opportunity to appear in some unspecified role in Ms Quigley's forthcoming masterpiece. Deciding that the world wasn't quite ready for my modelling talents 1 headed instead for a stand in the corner where a squad of Scream Queens were busily engaged in signing steamy pictures of themselves and generally getting acquainted with the motley horde that is horror fandom. Boldly brandishing my dictaphone ('Steady on old chap - there has to be a pun here somewhere!') I approached this bevy of beauties, mentally congratulating myself on having had the foresight to wear my baggy trousers. My quest was to get the lowdown on the hot new faces on Scream Queen alley. How does someone get into Scream Queening? Is it demeaning to women? Is it demeaning to men? Does anybody care? Melissa Moore was first port of call, and what a port to steam into! This striking blonde is already making quite a name for herself on the Scream Queen circuit; fans of straight-to-video shockers and zero-budget slice and dicers may recognise her from the likes of SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II, VICE ACADEMY II and CAGED FURY. Her many eager fans can look forward to more Moore in SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE Ill, ANGEL FIST, CAGED FURY and KICKING FURY. However, it is STORM SWEPT, her most recent project, which Melissa gets most excited about. "STORM SWEPT is definitely the best shot film that I've done," she says in a deadly serious manner that makes it sound like CITIZEN KANE II, "I have one of the leads. I play an estate agent who leases this house to an actress. When I show her the house I have this flashback to when I was 16 years old. I was raped and my best friend was killed in that house, but I don't remember this, so throughout the film I have these flashbacks. We get trapped in the house and the personalities of the six people trapped there gradually change." Yup. CITIZEN KANE II to a tee. The presence of sexual violence in a film always poses ethical problems. How did Melissa feel about this element in the film? "The way the director shot it," she says, "it was done very beautifully. Just reading the script, I had a problem with it, but after talking to the director I felt it was okay because he dealt with it tastefully." Are women exploited or victimised in the genre? "Maybe," she shrugs. "A lot of the time they do victimise women, which upsets me. But there are different facets to it. Take STORM SWEPT, where my character is the heroine and actually saves some of the other characters, which evens things out a little. Women are victimised but it's something you have to learn to deal with. You can be exploited by the press, but I don't feel that's unfair because you choose to put yourself in that position. By becoming a Scream Queen or promoting yourself in a sexy manner you're asking to be exploited. You're pretty much in control." Would Melissa consider herself a Scream Queen? "I certainly started out as a Scream Queen," she explains. "But then I didn't do any horror for quite a time until I got the part in STORM SWEPT - though the director doesn't call it a horror film, but an erotic thriller. But, yeah, I'd still classify myself as a Scream Queen as well as a mainstream actress. I feel it has definitely been a positive thing. For some girls that's all they want to do, which is great, but I've gone on to do other things on top of that. I still love the conventions though and it's still great fun to do horror films." Seated beside Melissa is the svelte figure of Deborah Stevens. What are her contributions to the World of Scream Queening?, I enquire. "I've done a couple of horror films, THE THINGS and THE PAGAN, which are both in post-production," Deborah responds. "I worked with David Lynch at the end of '92 in a project which comes out around Thanks-giving, and I've done BAYWATCH and a bunch of other things which aren't anything to with horror. Like the PLAYBOY GRAPEVINE due out in a week or so in the section about up-and-coming actresses. I'm also featuring in a forthcoming FEMME FATALE magazine." She is, however, keen to stress that Scream Queening isn't the only string to her bow: "I do a variety of other work, including commercials and body double stuff. I recently body doubled for Michelle Johnson in an upcoming film with Robert Patrick from TERMINATOR 2." But horror is in Deborah's blood. She explains: "I love horror movies. I used to watch them by myself when I was young, but now I get kinda scared. I saw THE EXORCIST three times: first when I was 13 and I loved it; next when I was 15 and I started getting scared. Then when I saw it at 19 I was petrified. There's something about a good scare and having the suspense build up which I love. They're fun to make because you get to see how all of the creatures and special gore FX are put together before they get to look real on the screen. I think that's really neat." Neat it may be, but does it bother Deborah ending up as the victim so often? "Not really. It comes with the territory, and 1 think it's been like that from the beginning. Besides, horror movies are a lot of fun. Nowadays you're going to see a lot more of the man being the victim. You will see a change coming about. There'll be more movies with a female villain, which is great because I love playing the bad girl." If you recognise the next face on my Scream Queen menu, it could be because she featured in the first pack of the highly popular SCREAM QUEEN trading card set that Imagine put out a few years back. But the charming Ms. Wendy McDonald has been no slouch in the acting field, with such credits as DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, L.A. GODDESS, MAYHEM, LEGAL TENDER, TOO YOUNG TO DIE, HEAT STREET, AMERICAN BORN and NAKED OBSESSION all at your local video emporium or awaiting imminent release. And that's not including her extensive career treading the boards. Not much of her output has been strictly horror, so is Wendy a true Scream Queen? "I'm not your average Scream Queen," she asserts. "In fact I only became involved in this because I was invited on the Joe Bob Briggs Show in October, which was horror month. Six months later I was a Scream Queen, because of Joe Bob Briggs. I did one really horrible movie called BLOOD FRENZY a long time ago, that was bloody. MAYHEM's kinda bloody too, and in DARK SIDE OF THE MOON an evil entity enters me and I become a monster. Then I force all of the men on the spaceship to make love to me in order to transmit the evil entity." Sounds reasonable. But I wonder what PINK FLOYD made of it? Does Wendy enjoy the life of a Scream Queen? "It's not the highest paid job I've ever held," she confides. "But it's good news, it's a lot of fun. Doing the conventions is great, you get to meet the fans and realise there's a lot of people out there that follow your movies religiously." According to Wendy, a typical Scream Queen fan is: "Pretty wild. They're not your Wall Street crowd, thank God!" She must get some odd fan mail. "Oh yes! I don't know if I can describe some of it in print. I get some underwear, things like that. A lot of my fans are in jail!" Before or after they became fans? "I don't know - I just hope they don't get out! No, I hope they do get out, but that they're great guys as well." Next up is the sultry Jasae, fresh from modelling in Linnea Quigley's SKIN. But does Jasae have any other horror credits? "Of course," she says, as if I should really know such stuff. "I was in BAD GIRLS FROM MARS, WIZARDS OF THE DEMON SWORD and TEENAGE EXORCIST. I've also just shot a book with David Lynch which should be out in November. I locked my boyfriend out of the house, which was pretty horrific. My favourite movie of all time is HALLOWEEN..." Jasae says her latest work also has a genre feel to it. "I'm pretty pleased with my new movie. It has just gone through a retitle and I think they're calling it FISTS OF FURY now. I play a hooker. It's based on a true story about this serial killer and I am one of the girls he gets. It's only a supporting role, but there is some dialogue and it is a strong role." Does Jasae think women get exploited in horror films? "Women are always exploited. It's how much you allow someone to exploit you. But nobody is forcing anybody into anything, there's always the option to say 'no."' Last, but by absolutely no means least, is the irrepressibly bubbly Deborah Dutch. "I started out in my first horror film with Linnea Quigley, which was called GRADUATION DAY," Deborah enthuses. "Then 1 did a lot of different kinds of movies, such as a Kung Fu movie - I was very big in Japan. (She's pretty big everywhere from what 1 can see). Then I started getting back into horror with stuff like SORORITY GIRLS AND THE CREATURE FROM HELL, TOO HARD TO DIE, THE HAUNTING OF MORELLA, 976 EVIL 2 and, most recently, DEATH DANCERS. My most recent film shows it's the year of the woman, we're starting to take these most awesome roles. In my new film I start as a young innocent who's in love with her Romeo. I'm also having an affair with his older brother which I'm kind of sucked into. He abuses me and I become pregnant. "Then he beats me up and I lose the baby. Once I have my miscarriage I turn completely psycho and change into this kind of cat-woman. I murder my best friend by seducing her and possessing her body with a kiss - there's some lesbo stuff but not too much. In this movie the woman takes the power and gets her revenge. I create a web, draw in these men who are known women abusers, and murder them. It's a touching movie as well as scary and sexy." Who's directing - Dickie Attenborough? Still, it's nice to see a woman turning the tables once in a while. Did Deborah enjoy playing the villainess? "Oh I loved it. I almost turned down the role, but I needed the dough - I thought I couldn't play that kind of character. But I changed the role into a heroine, a woman with a mission to free the whole female sex from evil men. One film reporter said 'Look at the way you're dressed in all that sexy gear, aren't you against that exploitation of women?' I said 'Yeah, but I'm playing men at their own game, and I play to win. I play a sex object, but once they're drawn into my web, bam! I'm like a black widow spider." In the end Deborah says she subscribes to a cosmic wisdom passed on by her dear old Grandmama. "The secret of life," she concludes, "is to be happy and have a great time. My Grandmother always told me that if you do something that you love you'll be a success, and I believe in that." Thanks Gran, that was really neat.
reprinted from issue # 34

Click here for the Tony Tenser article