Considered to be one of the original "Scream Queens", she appeared in dozens of fun 80's slasher/horror films, and is particularly remembered for her roles alongside fellow "B-Queens", Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley in Nightmare Sisters and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama. Working with such directors as Fred Olen Ray and David DeCoteau, Brinke and her fellow Scream Queens carved a niche for themselves, playing demon-possessed sex kittens and voluptuous virgins in these low budget, low-calorie mind-candy epics. The films themselves were a strange blend, too comical to be horror, to gory to be comedies, featuring enough skin to be sexy, but not enough to be considered soft-core, these Scream Queen films were a genre unto themselves, flooding the shelves of the home video rental stores that were spreading like wildfire in the early days of home VCRs.

Sadly, the era of the "Scream Queen" seems to be over, replaced by films more interested in upping the sleaze value, focusing more on murder and degradation than silly, sexy fun. And while Bauer and Quigley are no longer active in the genre film world, Stevens continues to make welcome appearances - in addition to writing and producing her own scripts - in the low budget movies that made her a b-movie star.

"I never intended to be an actress," says Brinke, with a touch of irony. "I got a Masters degree in marine biology from Scripps Institute, and planned to stay in the science field after I moved to LA in 1980. I started pursuing modeling work to pay the bills. One fateful day, I walked past a casting office. They saw me, called me in, and offered me a movie job the next day on All The Marbles [starring "Colombo's Peter Falk]. It was such fun, and I started to pursue it seriously after that."

As with most beautiful young actresses, small roles inevitably lead to bigger ones, and the easiest ones to land those of "women-in-peril" in horror movies. It is for roles such as theses that Brinke is famous, but, again, irony: "I never deliberately tried to land horror movie roles. My first speaking part was in Slumber Party Massacre, where I first screamed and died horribly. It started a real trend in my career.

"I always loved watching sci-fi and horror films, so it was a big thrill to work on them. I was quite a weird kid, y'know... I liked to collect road kill animals, dissect them, and store the body parts in our refrigerator. I remember my mother opening it up and screaming. When I took up a hobby of stained glass, Mom was horrified when my first piece was a skull with a snake crawling out an eye socket. (Dropped on my head as a babe, maybe...) No, seriously, it's a wonderful way of dealing with the Dark Side that we all have... I deal with mine cinematically. It works for me."

By the mid-80s, Brinke was at the top of the b-movie food chain, with starring roles in such fan favorites as Slavegirls from Beyond Infinity, The Haunting Fear and the aforementioned Nightmare Sisters, while continuing to write for numerous magazines about her film adventures.

One odd thing about fame is the way it often comes full circle. When an actor or actress starts out, they appear in "bit roles" as "extras"; later on in their career, these become "cameos" and "special appearances". A quick glance at her filmography reveals that Brinke spent a lot of her collective screen time in the shower, lathering up in films like The Man Who Wasn't There, Murder Weapon and The Naked Gun (the last two she is actually credited on the IMDB as "Girl in Shower"). Interestingly, Brinke also appeared uncredited in the cult classics This is Spinal Tap and The Three Amigos. ("On big-budget films, there is such waste, especially of time and money," Brinke says. "On STAR 80, for example, the director spent 8 hours just getting one shot. On a low-budget film, we'd shoot maybe 20 pages in that amount of time. However, the food is usually a lot better on A-movies.")

Around the mid-90s, the b-movie world started to change. When the shot-on-video market proved itself to be viable, horror movies were being churned out by anyone who could afford a home video camera. To make up for the lower production values, these basement artists were upping the gore and nudity quotient, while either botching the comedy or ignoring it all together. The emphasis began to shift towards gruesome, fetishistic murder, no longer interested in the odd mix of "Scream Queen" sex, comedy and silly horror. The "plots" were more interested in watching an uninteresting assailant strangle a nude women or drown her in quicksand. The beloved cheesy rubber monsters became an endangered species on the video rental shelves.

"The Scream Queen era is pretty much over," Brinke agrees. "I still work in horror movies, but it lacks the lustrous cache it had a decade ago when we were lauded as major cult celebrities. Michelle [Bauer] has retired from acting, and Linnea [Quigley] doesn't work a lot these days since moving to Florida. Still, you have to admit, we had a great run while it lasted. I take pride in knowing I'm firmly entrenched in pop culture, that my movies and writings will live on long after me. Now it's time to move on - and I'm trying to do that as a writer, director, and producer."

Brinke has had a chance to study the genre from the inside out, and she herself has noticed how the horror movie world has changed. "The Blair Witch Project did a lot to democratize filmmaking. Last year, I traveled to Iowa, Delaware, Florida, and other states to shoot some interesting digital videos with extremely low budgets. [Like $20,000 total, compared to a $300,000 budget for an average Fred Olen Ray movie.] Face it, I worked on 11 projects last year, many more than even in my video heyday a decade ago. In my opinion, however, digital video often looks flat and grainy. I guess that's the trade-off for all its ease and low cost. However, here's a note to aspiring filmmakers everywhere: get good coverage! By that, I mean take the time to do close-ups, besides the usual master shots."

Brinke's filmography continues to grow, as she will attest, though it comes in ebbs and flows. "After only one DAY of acting work in 1999, I suddenly did 11 movies in 2000. It's a very cyclical business, and horror goes through trends just like Westerns - but vampires always seem to be hot. The last movie I worked on was Web Of Darkness, shot in Tampa, FL in late-2000. I played a vampire hooker named Intensity, and of course I die horribly.

"Before that, I shot two movies for Full Moon: Sideshow (as a gypsy fortune teller) and Horrorvision (as a cyber hacker). I also performed in Real Time (a cop), Blood Reaper (a victim), To Dance With Death (the Angel of Death), Julia Wept (a mother), Tierra Del Diablo (a TV-news reporter), American Nightmare (a mother) and The Vampire Hunter's Club (myself in an Infommercial)."

But for every flood, there also comes a dry spell, as she herself is quick to acknowledge. "The acting jobs aren't flooding in like last year - maybe the tide is turning fast already. (You know, anyone can shoot a low-budget movie. The hard part is selling it for a profit.) I've got some potential 2001 films in Utah, New Jersey, Michigan, and Iowa - we'll see if they materialize. Meantime, I'm going full-tilt on my writing. I've got four new scripts out there now, shopping them around. Also, I just got my first offer to direct a movie ($7 million budget) - and I'm co-producing my first film, Buried Nightmares, based on a script I wrote and will star in, too."

So for a marine biologist who never had any intention of becoming an actress, life seems to have taken an odd turn. Brinke Stevens continues to be a favorite among b-movie fans, continues to make appearances at horror conventions, continues to be a sweet, considerate and generous person to those who love watching her, whether she's a virginal victim or someone transformed into a horrible monster. "I so love the genre," she says. "Give me fangs or a monstrous part, and I'm quite happy."

Brinke can be found on the web at www.brinke.com or through her fan club:

The Brinke Stevens Fan Club
P.O. Box 8900
Universal City, CA 91618-8900

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Originally published in GC Magazine - Edited by Jon Keeyes.

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