Brinke Stevens went from a Marine Biology career to a “Slumber Party Massacre” and found her true calling as a Scream Queen. Well-known in the horror community, this actress/writer/produce/director has appeared in over 200 movies. Recently she has acted in “Disciples,” “Axeman,” “Adam K,” “Safe Inside,” and “Die Sister, Die!” She even wrote and published her own comic book series called “Brinke of Destruction,” and a sci-fi novel called “Dangerous Toys.”
No stranger to conventions, she has attended San Diego Comic-Con in their early years and even won their first Masquerade Contest in 1973 as “Vampirella.” Always popular with horror fans, Brinke has ten movies in the works, and even though she has been filming and traveling, she was very excited to meet her fans at the inaugural Colorado Festival of Horror that took place last weekend Sept. 10-12, 2021 in Denver, CO.
Colleen Bement: I just want to start out by saying that you’re so beautiful.
Brinke Stevens: Ah, thank you. I always feel that it’s not the years, it’s the mileage. Because I travel so much, it’s just exhausting. And a lot of my movies are action films because you’re wielding weapons and running, it’s just hard on the body.
CB: What’s it like to be part of the horror community?
BS: I really enjoy being in a niche group because I did mainstream stuff. There’s no cohesiveness or sense of community in mainstream filmmaking. In the horror community, everybody knows everybody else. For example, I travel a lot to conventions with the same people, Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Tony Todd, and they would kind of treat me like their little sister. I would watch their carry-on bags when they go shopping at the airport, and they would carry my luggage. It was really nice to have that. And everyone is so kind and caring in the horror community. They adore me still after 40 years of doing this. I can’t complain.
And there are sub-groups, and I have done comic books and I know some of the comic book people from going to San Diego Comic-Con. It’s kind of a different group. They know me and I know them by name, but there’s not the comradery that you get in horror. The toughest thing about the horror community is the young people weren’t born yet when I did my most famous movies back in the 80s. They haven’t seen my stuff unless it’s streaming and they happen to watch it. Which is probably why some of my 80s movies are being remade. “Slumber Party Massacre” was just remade in South Africa, and “Sorority Babes.” But in my opinion, the originals are perfect. Why would you want to mess with a classic?
CB: Why remake certain films?
BS: They say it’s to introduce a whole new generation to these older films, but I say just make them watch the older movies. A lot of the early movies I did came out on DVD and they showed them on television, and the earliest ones they showed in theaters. But now so many of the independent horror films never come out on DVD. They go straight to streaming. The technology keeps changing, where first, you had to see a movie in the theater. There was no other choice. And then maybe on television, but you couldn’t record it because video hadn’t been invented yet.
THen in the mid-80s home video became a thing and these mom and pop video stores opened up and you could rent movies for the first time. Now it’s a streaming thing. It’s not really anything for me to adjust to, but I’ve just noticed how things have changed, and DVDs are slowly becoming a thing of the past–much like laserdiscs. (laughs)
CB: What projects do you have coming out? You have a super-impressive filmography and you do have some in the works.
BS: Absolutely. Like I said I started around 1980, I moved to Los Angeles, and my first movie was “Slumber Party Massacre” which was shot in ’81. In those last 40 years, I’ve been in 220 movies and so far this year, 2021, I’ve shot six films, and I have four more films left to shoot before the end of the year. And this is really something considering we’re still in COVID. Many of the movies I’ve shot this year they have COVID tests and wear masks and wear face shields, and all of that. It’s difficult because every three days the crew has to get tested. It’s not easy, but after last year of not doing very much, people are just so starved to get back to work. So we take precautions. I fly a lot but I pretty much shrink-wrap myself on the airplane and don’t eat or drink anything and try not to breathe until I reach my destination (Laughs).
So the movies I’ve done this year– there’s a filmmaker that I work with a lot named Dustin Ferguson, and he did a series of movies he calls his “Pandemic Series.” They’re mutant monster-type things with like giant murder hornets and a rampant ebola-rex. It’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex that was created in a lab that was accidentally infected with Ebola. I was in one of his movies this ear called “Ebola Rex Versus Murder Hornets.” He combined two of his themes, and I get my head bitten off by a T-Rex. Then I did another movie called “Arrecnado 2” where I play a military officer. I don’t die in that one. Another, a giant shark movie called “Apex Predators” where I play a scientist. And of the four movies that I have coming up this year, I am a teacher, chaperone at a prom and I get bitten by a werewolf, and in another one Robert Restras Z-Dead Inn I play a mother that’s bitten by a zombie, and I die.
And then in “Cross Hollow” which I’ll be shooting in Oregon, I play sort of a Trump supporter, and I get into a conflict with a religious cult, and they end up killing me. Which is funny because I was a scientist, and after I got my master’s degree in marine biology, I was employed by an ecological firm called Marine Ecological Consultants, and we worked for a nuclear power plant, San Onofre near San Diego, so in with this role that I played this Trump supporter, the cult is talking about saving the earth. I’m saying well you know that’s all liberal bullshit, right? It’s not true. (laughing).
And this year I did two roles that were shot completely on Zoom. One is a horror-comedy called “Mark of the Devil 777” and I play an aunt and they keep checking in with me and we do Zoom sessions that unveil different plot points. There’s one near Valentine’s Day, one near Halloween, and one near Christmas, and one near Easter, and the joke is that I’m wearing the same ratty old sweatshirt in every Zoom session, and I’ve got a huge tumbler of wine. Because that’s what they did during COVID. They didn’t change their clothes, they wore sweatshirts and drank a lot. The only thing that changed was I’d wear seasonal jewelry. For the Valentine’s one, I had Valentine’s necklace, for the Easter Zoom I had bunny ears, and I had a fake Christmas tree in the back. I really love how filmmakers adjusted to the quarantine.
The other movie that I shot on Zoom, I played a professor of the occult and it’s called “Infernum Obscura” and it’s about a famous photographer and a famous goth model who were shooting in this creep old building. Weird things start to happen so they call me on Zoom asking me what the history was on that place, and I shouted GET OUT. GET OUT NOW!
I’ll be glad when this whole thing is over. But it’s been great that conventions are starting up again. I only did one convention last year called Cult Classic Con in February before anybody had really heard of the quarantine stuff. I’ve only done one show so far in 2021, the Houston Film Festival, in June which was well-attended. Everybody was so happy and thankful to be out of the house. I’m still concerned, I wear my mask as much as possible, and appreciate it when other people come to my table wearing a mask, but it’s really just time to get back to normal.
CB: I just have to ask you this, even though I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times. But this is personal for me because I swear my house is haunted, but I built the house. Do you believe in ghosts?
BS: I DO believe in ghosts. My cousin had a ghost in their house and they also built their house. She thought maybe the lumber was haunted, but what I discovered was that ghosts are not tied to a specific place. They can move around. I learned this back in the 90s. I went with the director, Brad Leo Lynn to Salem, MA and we were shooting a period piece witchcraft movie called “Coven.” We went to a really old graveyard and shot some scenes there. We must have walked across somebody’s graveyard and they didn’t like it, because when we got back to Boston, the ghost had followed us. Clearly, it was in the hotel room because there were several light bulbs that blew out, the coffee cup was shaking, and that night in bed I felt like something was sitting on my chest and hitting me in the face. Fred came into my room and he heard me and said wake up, wake up. He said you sound like a dog that’s been hit by a car. I was like GET IT OFF ME! It was terrifying.
Of all the things in horror movies, there’s no such thing as zombies, and of course, there are serial killers but we don’t encounter them that much. Ghosts scare me the most because now I know that they can move around and they can follow you. Whenever these paranormal guys want me to go with them, I’m like yeah, that’s okay. You go. I’ll wait. (Laughing).
Written by Colleen Bement
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