Not Just Another Scream Queen
"SURPRISE PERFORMANCE by a band," promises the concert press release, "which has sold tens of millions of albums throughout the world, accumulated countless awards, and remains one of the most influential rock acts of our time." Nice try, but I know that the Alessi Brothers' only upcoming show will be later that week at the Cutting Room. This means we're either talking about U2 launching a new release or REM trying to salvage one.
She's gone on to do over 100 film roles, nearly all in low-budget horror productions with the kind of funny names that writers love to list. In a reasonable world, Rochon would've broken out into mainstream celebrity sometime around her 50th production. She could have at least become a grindhouse icon.
Instead, Rochon is a megastar in a miserable industry that churns out plenty of bad videos in which she co-stars with local strippers in various backwoods productions. She managed some local press coverage while aggressively promoting herself as a serial killer in 2002's American Nightmare-"I really believed in that movie, and it showed a side of me that I wanted people to see"-but Rochon remains best known for telling Howard Stern about turning down a threesome with Warren Beatty and Isabelle Adjani.
She's made plenty of similar bad career moves. That's why nobody's recognizing Rochon at this nondescript bar near the Penn Center Pavilion. She's finished a weekend stint at the Big Apple Comics Con signing posters and DVDs for her fans, most of whom-thankfully-have no idea she's a local gal.
Rochon should have fled New York City at the end of the 80s, around the same time that foreign investors were done blowing up old buildings and latex bladders on the Lower East Side. "I just love New York," Rochon explains. "I've gone out to L.A. to make movies for companies like Full Moon, and I wasn't crazy about most of the people that I met there. Nobody had any sense of being on a team. Everyone was against each other. I know that sounds like New York, but it's a whole different thing."
Rochon's since become a shining fixture on the Troma backlot. She's also brought needed professionalism to New Jersey's Seduction Cinema empire-including an amazing turn as "Dr. Cornholeous" in 2002's Play-Mate of the Apes. Her early work is also still being discovered, with the Media Blaster label about to release 1989's Banned on DVD. Rochon held out pretty late for her first nude scene in this Roberta Findlay production, which sadly marked the final film from the now-retired director of Snuff.
"And then it never came out," recalls Rochon. "I can't say if it's good or bad, but of all the ones I've seen by Roberta, it's easily the best. I was doing a tiny extra role for Roberta in Lurkers, and the writer told me that their next movie was about a nice jazz musician who's taken over by the spirit of this hardcore Sid Vicious-like punk rocker. That piqued my interest. I was a pretty good punker. When I was a teenager, I'd lived with Paul Cook, who was the drummer for the Sex Pistols."
The only role left was as the musician's new, badder girlfriend. "It was only about three scenes, and one required nudity. I decided to do it. The writer was surprised. He said he didn't think I would take that kind of role. I felt a little embarrassed, like I was letting him down."
That lost first scene would establish Rochon's burgeoning niche, probably best illustrated by her appearance in 1996's Scream Queens' Naked Christmas. "When I started, that's how you broke into the business-especially for good parts that other actresses turned down. All I wanted to do was work. There was no money. I think I was paid $50 for the day I did my nude scene in Banned. Embarrassing, but true. I knew I would become a better actress, and my roles would get better."
The pay is better, too, but Rochon remains a working actress in the most literal sense. She really couldn't have foreseen a world where no-budget direct-to-video productions would make Scream Queens out of every Midwest stripper eager to churn out enough grainy DVDs to cover the table of a comic convention. Rochon's on the relative A-list, but that doesn't afford her the luxury of working with established legends such as, say, Roberta Findlay.
The hard reminder came shortly after the career high of American Nightmare: "It was my last day of shooting on this film called The Legend of Crazy George, and we had the big finale where I go crazy and kill the person in the scene with me. We'd been using a prop that was kind of like a machete. They took a break to tweak the lights, and decided the prop wasn't reading well on the monitor. It looked fake, so they switched it with a real machete."
This would be the one time that Rochon's unflagging enthusiasm would work against her. "I came back and they said, we're losing the sun, we know the scene, go ahead and shoot it. Then they added it was a different prop sitting in the same place as the last prop. Okay, fine. I went through the scene, pulled my arm back to hack downward on the fake body, and there was no hilt or brace. My hand slipped off the handle and ran right down the blade. My fingers were completely cut to the bone."
You don't have to be a fan of Rochon to dread the thought of trauma to your right hand. Even worst, Rochon augments her income by signing autographs and writing articles. The injury took Rochon out of the biz for about a year and a half-she was only in 10 films released in 2003-and left her in severe financial straits. It's not like those Tennessee filmmakers had bothered to get insurance on their production.
Rochon is now an unlikely spokeswoman in an industry that jokes about no actresses being harmed during filming. "As much as it'll get me hated at the micro-budget level, my theory is that you can't afford to make a movie if you can't afford insurance. The filmmakers dropped the ball in every shape and form. I was in that hotel room in Tennessee packing up my bags with one hand. They drove me to the airport, but I had to pay to get the earliest flight back home. The doctors in this small Tennessee town had, very wisely, told me to get back to New York. I had about five days to get surgery to repair the tendons and nerves before I lost the use of my hand. Now I'm looking at these contracts being sent to me, and they repeatedly have clauses that say I won't hold the filmmaker or the location responsible for my safety. It's very disturbing."
Too bad that Rochon's cause is much like attempting to regulate backyard wrestling. "I have this terrible feeling that I won't change anything," concedes the amazing expendable actress, "because everyone's so desperate to be famous, even in this sub-sub-culture. I've seen these girls I've never heard of say it was the pinnacle of their career when someone referred to them as a Scream Queen. No disrespect to the women who are Scream Queens, but those girls should really aim higher. Dare to dream."
Rochon's own career is doing well, despite-or probably because of-a renewed sense of discrimination. She helped launch Fangoria TV while hosting the network's Halloween Parade coverage, and gets to show off her comedic skills while introducing classic Coming Attractions on the network's Trailer Park.
And her upcoming autobiography will be notable for its realism. "I never did that one major cult movie," Rochon concedes. "Some people are really into the Troma films, but I never made a Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes. Some days, I feel very proud. There are other days when I feel like all I've done is utter garbage. But I'm really excited about Nowhere Man, which is finally going to open in New York next year. It's a great role in a really good film-and that isn't just me trying to end on a positive note. I show a lot of skin doing these very daring, almost pornographic scenes. I may never get a single role from Nowhere Man, but at least I have that performance."