Victoria DeMare Interview

FREEJOSE: You label yourself as a "Rising Horror Movie Scream Queen."  Is this the culmination of a life long dream?  A lot of kids grow up wanting to be firefighters or ballerinas.  Did you decide at a young age that you wanted to run around half-naked, covered in someone else's blood, while being chased by an axe murderer or did it just happen by chance?

DEMARE: You're a funny guy!  No, I didn't dream about running around half-naked, covered in someone else's blood whilst being chased by an axe murderer.  However, as a kid horror films were always my favorite genre.  I actually was a professional ballerina for the Wilmington Ballet and the Joffrey Ballet from the ages of fourteen to twenty-one.  I started pursuing a career as an actor when I got seriously hurt the summer before my senior year at New York University.  My ballet career abruptly ended.

Since I had been dancing, singing, and acting from the age of six, concentrating on just drama in the theatre seemed like a natural progression for me.  Many of my friends at NYU were film majors, so I had done many student films before I ever even got to Hollywood.  My favorite jobs on features thus far have been the B horror films.  I label myself as a "Rising Horror Movie Scream Queen" because after 5 years of relentless hard work starting out doing small roles in small movies, I'm now starring in these movies, being asked to attend conventions, have fans sending me mail and autograph requests, and the same distributors picking up my movies!  It's absolutely thrilling!  I adore the fans and I really feel like I am moving along in my career!  Just for the record, I always did love to watch the scantily clad, pretty girl running through the woods for her life and screaming her head off!  Every great horror movie has to have a scene like that!

FREEJOSE: Ok, so you were a ballerina but you got hurt and became a scream queen, which is a much more exciting line of work.  Kind of like the horror film equivalent of the girl running from the killer but then she inexplicably falls and turns her ankle - just to make things interesting, right?  Makes perfect sense to me.

Does screaming come naturally to you?  I've read many actresses never realized how hard it was until they tried it.

DEMARE: I love those scenes!  She has to fall!  She usually does, and I'm usually the one watching in terror and yelling at the screen, "Run, Run, get up and Run!!!"

I'm actually a great screamer.  I have this full-bodied, blood-curdling scream that will put the fear of God into you.  When you are doing a lot of takes, you have to make sure that you are coming from your diaphragm, or else you will destroy your vocal cords!

Ahh!  The trials and tribulations of being a Scream Queen!

FREEJOSE: Scream from the diaphragm.  I learned something today.  I'm going to put that to use right away.  I feel obligated to offer something back.

I once asked an old girlfriend why she never said my name during sex and her answer was that she once yelled out the wrong name.   After that she vowed never to say a name again in the heat of passion.  That seemed like good advice but I modified it slightly.  I scream out my own name.  I'll never get myself in trouble and it certainly heightens the mood.  You should give it try.

Speaking of the bedroom, are you a screamer between the sheets or just when the cameras are rolling?

DEMARE: You are a real character!  I love it!  Ahh, let's just say I take my work in front of the camera very seriously and always go "balls out" for it!  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not self-obsessed or over-indulgent in that I can't laugh at myself.  In fact, I'm always the first one in the room when watching the footage laughing and going, "Oh my God!  What was that!"  As far as the bedroom goes, let's just say I don't hold back!

FREEJOSE: Ok, so you work extremely hard and your neighbors do not get much sleep.  That's admirable.  What projects are you currently working on?

DEMARE: I am getting ready to wrap on the feature horror project I am currently starring in called, try not to laugh too hard now, "Werewolf in a Women's Prison."  This is the working title mind you.  The distributor usually likes to go back and forth on the title until it is to their liking unless they really, really love your working title.  This film will begin to sell in the foreign markets next summer before it will be available in video stores domestically next fall.

Then, my "post-production depression" will set in!  I always go through that!  Sometimes it is worse than others.  I think this time it will be pretty bad, since I have worked with the director/co-writer, Jeff Leroy, and producer/co-writer/supporting player, Vincent Bilancio, so many times before that I will miss them terribly!  I consider them now not only just my colleagues, but my friends at this point.  Unfortunately, we are all so busy working on other things in between projects that we don't get to spend much "hanging out" time.  But hey, I get to work with my friends a couple of times a year, and that's wonderful!

Up next, I have a national commercial shoot for cable television, three photo shoots for various print jobs, a music video, and five pending feature film shoots that I will either play a lead character or star.  So, needless to say, I love to work!  I look for work everyday.  It is part of the career in my business.

FREEJOSE: That's the greatest and best movie title ever.  People don't make enough women's prison movies anymore.  Since the quintessential "Chained Heat" in 1983, it has really been downhill.  You are doing God's work by reviving the genre.  Not to mention that a horror movie beauty could do a lot worse than follow in Linda Blair's footsteps.

Traditionally those movies contain lots of gratuitous nudity and lesbian sex, including the mandatory shower scene.  How much does this movie adhere to those hallowed standards?