The Hand of Fate and a Whole Lot of Talent Talking With RUBY LaROCCA by Owen Keehnen

Ruby LaRocca had always enjoyed horror movies, but she never expected a career as a scream queen. However, in 1999 fate intervened and the gorgeous Ruby caught the eye of Factory 2000 filmmakers Bill Hellfire, Joey Smack, and Misty Mundae at the New Jersey Chiller Theater Convention. She was put to work very quickly - she was a pleasure to work with, fans loved her, and the rest (as they say) is history.
In the decade since she has appeared in dozens of films such as 'Skin Crawl' , 'Spiderbabe' , 'Contact' , 'Post Mortem, American 2021' with Jim O' Rear, Linnea Quigley, Joel D. Wynkoop, and Monique Dupree, 'The Sickness' with Suzi Lorraine and Raine Brown, 'Satan's School for Lust' , 'The Super' with Lynn Lowry, Tiffany Shepis and Debbie Rochon, 'The Lost' , 'Witchbabe: The erotic Witch Project 3' , 'Ice Cream Sunday' , 'Bone Sickness' , 'The Sexy Sixth Sense' , 'Dr Jekyll & Mistress Hyde' , 'She Wolf Rising' , and many many others. There's no stopping her, she's never been busier with back to back projects lined up throughout the remaining calendar year and half a dozen awaiting release. This is one very busy and talented scream queen.
Recently I had the chance to ask Ruby a few questions and found her wonderfully frank and forthcoming. Discover the queen behind the scream for yourself as Ruby discusses scary FX, creepy questions, her current projects. The Blood Bar, and a whole lot more. It's all here in this exclusive racksandrazors.com interview.


 

So Ruby why don't you start us off with a visual and describe the room or place where you are answering these questions?

I am sitting at the "Horror Bar" which is in my house! I have a vintage bar that has a wooden surface and shelves and red cushioned and pleated front with a golden foot bench, and red cushioned swivel seats. It's the "horror" bar because we have posters and 8 X 10's of some of our favorite movies and people. For example, 'The Return of the Living Dead' framed poster signed by mostly all of the main characters, Linnea being my favorite cause she's a friend of mine and all of us in our production company Chainsaw Kiss. 'The Last House on Dead End Street' framed poster, Roger Watkins was/is my best friend and mentor. 8 X 10's of Lenny Lies, Nick Tallo, John Amplas, (maybe it should be the Romero bar?), James Duval, Linnea... and we have those old school framed posters of 'Weird Tales & The Wolfman'. And we have an amazing photo done by Jackie Cerniglia, who did this sweet and beautiful photo of two people dressed as 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein', and some other original photography done by one of my best friends and partners Joey Smack. That's just what is in front of me at the moment. I could go on and on about the room I'm in. My house is like a museum. Behind me I have a replace with all sorts of dead things in jars, a deer's head (that was found in the trash, I am an animal rights activist and vegetarian), and a last rights "kit" previously belonging to a priest. So I have to stop or this entire interview will be about what I collect!

Why don't you tell me how you got started in this business? Did you have big horror/erotic feature plans prior to meeting the Factory 2000 guys?

No! I have done so many interviews telling about how I first met Bill Hellfire, Joey Smack, and Misty Mundae. They changed my life, and I think about that all the time, how weird it is. I mean, think about it, if I had never met them, would I be where I am now? Probably not. It makes you wonder what is truth and what is faith (not meaning religious faith in any way), was that meeting coincidence or fate? I can't answer that... I have always loved horror movies. The first one I ever saw was "A Nightmare on Elm Street." I was 6. I wasn't allowed to watch it so I stole my older brother's VHS copy and snuck downstairs one night and watched it alone. I couldn't sleep for a month. I would stay awake all night and wait for my mother to get up in the morning. She delivered newspapers at the time and would get up to start her route at around 5am and I would pretend I was already awake and couldn't sleep anymore so I could go with her and almost instantly fall asleep when we got in the car. I still think the idea of a killer getting you in your sleep is one of the scariest plots ever created. After that I was hooked though, I was in love with horror movies. I never knew there were meeting places for people who shared the same love until I was 18, and you know the story from there. I went to Chiller and my life was forever changed by a coincidental or fateful meeting with three young filmmakers.

You are also starting to do some directing. I want to hear about 'The Landlord' segment you are directing for the upcoming chapter film 'Scream Queen Campire'.

Ok, so here is one of the questions I have to be honest about. I do not know if this project is actually going to come to fruition. But, I'd love to talk about the movie I already made. Last year, by the continual encouragement of my other best friend and partner, Victor Bonacore, I wrote and directed my first short film. It is titled "Belated by Valentine's Lover" and is based on a poem by the same name written by Lukas Persson. I read the poem and it was so visual to me I thought it would make a perfect short film. In a nutshell, it is about a girl who is so in love with a boy that she will do anything to keep him. He asks for something, and she ends up funding a way to "create" it for him, but unknown to him, it is actually a love spell, or recipe, that turns from a request to a happy ending, but only for the girl. I am so proud of it. I learned so much making it. It has been playing in festivals all over the country. It is also playing at Cinema Wasteland in Ohio this October. After the completion I swore I never wanted to write or direct again, only act, because of how much work it is, but that feeling didn't last long and I am currently in pre-production for my next short that I am writing and directing tentatively titled, "Kissing an Atomic Bomb." It is based on a short story written by Rich Mallery, he has a blog at http://richmallery.wordpress.com He's an amazing writer. He is a true hidden talent. Someone needs to publish him pronto!

I also want to hear about your work as Lace/Lillian in the upcoming Marc Leland flick 'She Wolf Rising'. The cast is amazing and includes such names as Tiffany Shepis, Debbie Rochon, Tina Krause, and Alan Rowe Kelly. Was the project fun?

I love Alan Rowe Kelly! Alan is a vintage beauty, like Greta Garbo, and one of the most genuine people in the industry. AND, it felt like a dream come true to be in a movie with Tiffany Shepis. First of all, she's so (fucking) hot!!! She exudes sex appeal. And she was so sweet to me. After working with her, I really felt accomplished as an actress in the horror genre. And Debbie Rochon is a queen in the scene and has been for a long time, and we have been in other movies together and it is always great to be a co-star of hers. And Tina??? Dude, (you just made me say dude, that's huge) Dude, Tina is the shit. If you can't print shit, print Tina is wondrous, gorgeous, hysterical, sweet as a peach, and runs at 150 mph 100% of the time. She is unbelievable. Not only a great actress but she will have you laughing so hard the entire time you almost don't want to shoot so you can just goof around with her the entire time. I don't bullshit, by the way. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, all the time. It was kind of by accident that I got to play two roles, but one of them I was in so much make-up/special effects I don't think you will even recognize me. And I did ballet! Marc and Alan thought I was trained, HA!!! I was very athletic growing up, not graceful like a ballerina, but I pulled it off and that is extremely comical to me yet makes me proud of myself as well. It was a great shoot.

Given your career and popularity I'm sure you've had fans ask you some very strange things. What's the most unusual thing you've been asked?

Once someone asked me if I liked dead bodies and when I answered yes, they said, "I work in a morgue. You wouldn't believe where these hands have been. You should come to work with me one day." I politely declined.

If you were to organize and run a Scream Queen Academy what are some of the subjects would you teach and what would be the final exam to see if the girls were worthy?

What a great question! Well one of the subjects would definitely be screaming. There are all different kinds of screams; scared, dying, angry, etc. As a "Scream Queen" you need to know how to deliver each kind of scream effectively, so that would be one course. Another course would be convention etiquette. For example, how to treat fans, how to handle the stranger fans and weird situations you may encounter because of them, how to dress, what to bring, and how to have fun during it all! For the final exam each girl would have to reenact Divine's performance in the end of "Female Trouble" when she's in the electric chair. And then of course the written test, because the last question is, "is being a scream queen enough for you in life?" The reason I would ask this question is because I asked myself it recently and the answer for me is, "NO! I want to be Divine!"

In the smaller budgeted horror movies and such some very interesting things can happen on set. What is the craziest, scariest, or simply most unusual thing that you've ever witnessed on a movie set?

When I was shooting "The Lost" it was the first time I was ever going to be "shot" in a movie. I was nervous to begin with. First the fx director told me they were going to use an air compressor to shoot a blood dart at my forehead, to simulate a bullet wound. They spent a good amount of time with the air compressor, trying to get it to work, to no avail. So, the FX guy said they were going to use a blow dart. "A what?" I said. Basically a piece of plastic piping, that the dude was going to physically blow through, with his mouth, toward my face (like previously said, my forehead was the mark) and I was visibly nervous. So, the director, Chris Sivertson, offered to go first in order to make me feel comfortable. And this is coming from me, Ruby LaRocca, who has done really weird and crazy shit and isn't scared of anything but was nervous, about the dude's aim, not about the effect. I didn't want to lose an eyeball! So Chris goes first, and the fx guy hits him dead center. Now I'm feeling confident. We go to do the shot and the first try he hits me on the top of the head. Now I'm thinking, oh shit, this guy was just lucky when he practiced on Chris, I am going to get hurt. Fortunately the second time he hit me dead on and then set off the squibs attached to the inside of my shirt and I threw myself back against the tree behind me as hard as I could as if I had just been shot, twice, cause I did not want to do it again. I have a love for glass eyeballs but in other people's heads, not my own... Only problem after that was continuity, because my shoes flew off when I threw myself backward against the tree. So, the rest of the scene, I had to do it shoeless. I don't want to tell too much, for those who haven't seen it, but I will end it with that both myself and the steady-cam operator spent the wee hours of the morning having cactus quills plucked from various parts of our bodies, but mostly our feet and legs. Awesome scene though, so I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Do you have any other upcoming projects you would like the racksandrazors.com readers to know about?

I have too many to name! First and foremost I have to say our movie, our being ChainsawKiss productions which is myself, Victor Bonacore, Joey Smack, & Jimmy ScreamerClauz (another best friend)at the core of the group. We are right in the middle of shooting our first feature length fim (and when I say film I mean 16mm film) titled "Bloodwings: A Satanic Fantasy," which was written by myself and Victor and is starring myself, Linnea Quigley, Johnny Link, & Brian Barry, as the main characters and has cameos by Jim VanBebber, R.A. the Rugged Man, 42nd Street Pete, BillZebub, Ami Goodheart, Bill Hellfire, Erin Russ, Jaime Mayhem, Mike Hunchback, Sean C Phillips, Edward X Young and many many many more!.... We are also in the middle of shooting Jimmy ScreamerClauz's feature "Dogshit" which stars Brandon Slagle. Then we are doing my movie "Kissing an Atomic Bomb" and Joey Smack's next movie titled, "The Most Miserable People in the World." And one other short written by Victor and Hannah Neurotica titled, "Shitfucked: A Vile Love Story." And ChainsawKiss is currently working on a documentary about Jim VanBebber and we are hosting a "Deadbeat at Dawn" retrospect and reunion with Jim, Mike King & Marc (Bonecrusher) Pitman at Cinema Wasteland in October and our table will be next to theirs! Besides that, and I don't want to go on and on so I apologize to my fellow film makers but as of right now these are the movies I am working on this summer, BillZebub's "ZombieChrist," Brandon E. Brooks from Saints & Sinners Productions "TheSickness," Eamon Hardiman from Razor Sharp Productions "Zombie Babies," Cameron Scott's "Post Mortem," Chris LaMartina and Midnight Crew Studios "Witch's Brew," and Adam Ahlbrandt from Index Films "The Cemetery," and last but not least Coven Delacruz from Condemned Productions "The Day Erased." I would love to go into detail about every single project but there are so many it could be an entire interview in of itself. I can say that each and every project I am so proud to be a part of. Some I have lead roles, some medium sized roles, some small roles, and some cameos. ALL are going to be great, and that is because of the people that are making them. This will be the second time I'm working with Eamon Hardiman and Chris LaMartina as directors. Let me tell you that they are both so much fun to work with. When I say fun I mean, laughing my ass off all day, all night, and it hardly felt like work at the end of the day it was so much fun. Well, hardly felt like work for me. What's funny is I have pictures of both of them doing the "director with too much on his mind pose" from both shoots. Cracks me up every time I look at them...

Zombies, werewolves, vampires, witches, creatures, aliens, psychos ---what does it for you horrorwise Ruby, and why?

ALL of them! I really do love all of those things in movies, but if you mean what scares me in movies then I have to go with the "this could happen to you in real life" type movie, which usually means psychos. That and foot fetish porn. I know that's not a horror movie genre, but it's fucking scary as hell so I think it still counts.

What was the first movie you saw that scared the shit out of you?

I know I already said the first movie I saw, and there were others that scared me like "The Exorcist," but "Phantasm" was the scariest movie to me as a kid. So scary in fact that one chiller I didn't know that Angus Scrimm was a guest and I was going down the escalator as he was entering the lobby from outside and when I saw him i got so scared that when I reached the bottom of the escalator immediately turned around and went right back up on the escalator. I had to pause and breathe, because I had reverted right back to the age when I saw that movie, and I had to tell myself, it's only a movie, it's only a movie...

Okay, we're pulling the car into the Ruby LaRocca Drive In. What three horror flicks are on the triple bill for tonight and what goodies are they going to be serving up at the concession stand?

'Last House on Dead End Street', 'The Holy Mountain' (that might not be considered horror but it's my favorite movie), and 'Bloodwings' of course. At the concession stand: Blowjobs (and the equivalent for girls), vegan chili cheese dogs, & pot (I don't smoke it but I absolutely support those who do and the legalization of it)

What is the best Halloween costume you ever had?

Matt Dallow. He is one of my other best friends, I have a few. Actually on his IMDB page it says in his bio that I am his best friend, so it must be true! One year I dressed up as him. He is very unique looking. It was hilarious.

Do you have any collections, obsessions, or true loves?

Collections and obsessions are kind of one in the same for me: teeth, bugs, books, dead things in jars, old cameras, black and white photos, wigs, glasses that don't belong to me, prosthetic limbs, monocles, playing dress up (acting; in a movie or in my living room), True loves? My dogs!, and my best friends.

What scares you in real life?

The government, being stagnant, boredom, & dying less then an hour from where I was born.

Any closing comments?

I support dangerous art, fearless hearts, & the monster inside! Live Loud!