Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on January 12, 2006, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Up till now, Showtime’s Masters of Horror series has showcased a series of seductive women whose gorgeousness has hidden murderous agendas. There was the beautiful naked sorceress in Stuart Gordon’s Dreams in the Witch-House, the ultimate “butterface” in Dario Argento’s Jenifer and a chick with real kick in John Landis’ Deer Woman. Sick Girl, directed by Lucky McKee, presents something a little different: a lovely young woman whose romantic intentions are pure, if a tad obsessive, until she’s infected by a “love bug” that causes her to become literally and figuratively monstrous.
“My role essentially is the sick girl,” says actress Erin Brown, who plays Misty Falls, an entomologist with a serious attraction for fellow insect scientist Ida Teeter (Angela Bettis from McKee’s May). “I’m basically the lonely stalker who has had my eye on her for—it’s never really specified; it could be months or it could be years. It’s implied that I’ve been in love with her, from my perspective, essentially forever. I kind of conveniently put myself in places where she can approach me, but I’m not able to get up the guts to go talk to her until finally, one day, her friend persuades her to make a move.”
Unfortunately, as can happen in workplace romances, the job winds up having a negative impact on Ida and Misty’s relationship. “This unidentified species of bug is sent to Ida,” Brown explains, “it gets loose in the apartment, and I’ll just say that it kind of ruins our first date. It’s a nasty little bugger that hunts and kills mammals specifically, injecting its victims with a serum that causes mutations. Ida and I are having our hot-and-heavy love scene, and the bug bites my ear and infects me, and I start to become a sort of monster myself.”
While the episode sports the sort of graphic KNB makeup and monster FX that have highlighted the Masters series as a whole, Brown points out that her character’s transformation packs a metaphorical punch as well. “Our relationship is going so rapidly,” she notes, “that it’s kind of like a metaphor for getting involved in something and letting it get away from you—in the sense of moving in with somebody very quickly before you really know them. I’m transforming into this evil creature, unbeknownst to Ida at all, and she spends the whole time thinking, ‘Do I even know this girl? Who is this maniac who I’ve just invited to come live with me?’ She’s completely unaware of the fact that this horrible monster has manifested itself in me, and it’s slowly coming out, but it’s not until it’s too late that she finally realizes what’s happening. For quite a while she’s just thinking, ‘What have I done?’ There’s a whole lot of stuff going on in this little hour-long show.”
Brown also finds a parallel between the protagonists’ burgeoning love and her own working relationship with Bettis. “Ida and Misty instantly fall in love on their first date, and that was great to shoot with Angela because this is my first time working with her—I had never even met her before the shoot—but we instantly became really tight. I have so much respect for her; she’s a terrific actress, so talented and so humble that I really do love her, you know? So it was great acting in those scenes with her, and for our friendship to evolve as quickly as our characters fall in love was kind of like life imitating art, as they say.”
Sean Hood’s script originally examined the deteriorating romance between a man and a woman, but McKee rewrote the story to focus on two female characters. The director came on board late in the series’ development process—dropping in when Roger Corman had to drop out—but according to Brown, “Working with Lucky was fantastic. He is by far the absolute best director I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. It was a great experience, and I feel honored to be a part of it. I really feel blessed by God or Satan or someone—somebody’s looking out for me to have gotten this role, because it was totally intense, and the most professional thing I’ve ever worked on. Everybody was so hospitable and so kind, looking out for me, and I made so many friends on the shoot—especially Lucky, who’s a terrific director and a great person.”
It helped that Sick Girl gave Brown more amenities than she’s had on a movie before. “Absolutely—flying first class, having my own trailer, a nice paycheck—but all that was just a bonus,” she says. “I mean, the experience was such that I would have done it for free, because seeing the finished, edited project—that to me is worth more than being flown first class or the money I made.”
Sick Girl actually marks Brown’s second time taking part in a McKee project; she appears alongside Ruby LaRocca in the opening sequence of The Lost, which McKee produced. An adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s novel written and directed by Chris Sivertson, who edited May and co-directed McKee’s early feature All Cheerleaders Die, The Lost casts Brown as one of the first victims of a highly disturbed young man. “I always say it’s kind of the Drew Barrymore role in Scream, where you think I’m going to be one of the leads,” Brown says. “You’re all into the story of what’s going on with these two girls, and then whammo, they get blown to pieces, really brutally murdered, and it’s really shocking and horrific and then boom, the opening credits roll. It was just a small part, but it was my first stab at a really dramatic role. I guess I did a good job, because the next thing I knew, Lucky called me up to cast me in Masters of Horror.”
McKee, who was thoroughly impressed by Brown’s work in The Lost, returns the actress’ praise: “She’s a really striking girl,” the director says, “and when Chris decided to cast her in The Lost, she came out there and she just breaks your heart, right off the bat in the beginning of the film. That opening sequence she’s in really gives the movie the emotional drive that it needs. And then when I got Masters, I thought, ‘What two girls would be cool to see together?’ and it was like, ‘Wow—May and Erin Brown!’ She continued to blow my mind as we were shooting—she has this mesmerizing onscreen persona that’s just amazing. She worked really hard and did a great job.”
As she awaits the unveiling of Sick Girl, Brown (who also appears in Media Blasters’ new release Shadow: Dead Riot) is mulling over a potential return to the genre. “I have a couple of scripts that have been sent my way,” she says, “but it’s all tentative right now. We’ll see.”
