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I don't know what, but there's something about Erin Brown (the former
Misty Mundae) ... Sure she's cute, but so are tons of other girls, she's
pretty but definitely of the girl-next-door, not the supermodel variety,
her breasts are nice but rather small, her ass is ok but not sensational, and
compared to other stars of the adult- and B-movieworld, she is rather tame
in her performances. ... and yet there's something about Erin Brown that makes her
stick out of the huge crowd of adult- and B-movie-actresses which might
very well make her the one gem found in rubble, the one actress we'll
still remember in 20 years time. Maybe it's her natural acting talent
and her ability to grow as an
actress (something not found too often in the adult movie biz) that puts her above the rest, maybe it's her
natural talent for comedy (in her comedies, she always seems to be in on
the joke and make the best of it), maybe it's her intelligence which she
also displays in interviews that keeps her from falling flat on the floor
in even the corniest of her roles, maybe it's the fact that she doesn't
look like a cheap slut like adult actresses tend to do, maybe it's her
natural looks (no plastic surgery and very little make-up), maybe her
innocent looks that still work after having seen her in dozens of
sex-scenes, I don't know, I just know there's
something about Erin Brown ...
Born Erin DeWright in 1979 in
Illinois but later relocated to New Jersey, Erin's first steps in the
movies were more than humble: from 1997 on, when she was tender 18, she
starred in a bunch of films by William Hellfire [William
Hellfire interview - click here], who was back then making
videofilms that were barely above amateur level, concerning equipment,
production values, actors/actresses and anything else - and Hellfire
wasn't ashamed about it either: Back then he had a little production
outfit called Factory
2000 that was modelled after Andy Warhol's Factory, that -
like the original Factory - was be releasing alternative
movies, movies that did not (necessarily) adhere the unwritten rules of
moviemaking and that did feature controversial subjects - and consequently
he would
give ordinary people their 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately
though, Bill Hellfire was no Andy Warhol and no Paul Morrissey (Warhol's
ingenious head-filmmaker), and while the films of the original Factory
often crossed the line between trash and art, the Factory
2000 were just trashy exploitation - and cheap exploitation, too. Be
that as it may though, Hellfire understood to sell his product, he
always came up with sensationalist titles (often with the word Strangler
in them, e.g. I was a Teenage Strangler [1997], Electric Cord
Strangler, Vampire
Strangler, Lesbos Slaughter: The Phone Sex Strangler [all
1999], International Necktie Strangler, Snuff Strangler
[both 2000], and Silk
Stocking Strangler [2002], ...) and a synopsis that made the film sound way better than it was,
and he (almost) never forgot to show naked girls - even if most of the
times the sex remained rather tame and did not live up to the ads'
promises, and the violence implied in the ads was also disappointing on
screen. And for some reason, Hellfire never accomplished (or maybe never
even tried) to blend his films' main elements, sex and violence and a
story to hold the two together, instead the audience is presented with a
succession of scenes of gratuitious sex, gratuitious violence and a story
that has little to do with either ... Be that as it may, William
Hellfire still seemed to have a talent to fascinate, which explains how he
was able to attract a small group of stock-players, several of which since
have made a name of themselves in the B-movie realm. Besides Erin Brown -
who then acted under her adopted name Misty Mundae - these were Tina
Krause [Tina Krause interview
- click here], Ruby LaRocca - actually Erin's roommate at college for a time -,
Daisy DeWright - Erin's sister who late adopted the name Chelsea Mundae -,
Lilly Tiger and Joey Smack, among others.
Reportedly, Erin
first hooked up with Hellfire and Factory
2000 because it was the cool thing to do in her hometown, because she wanted to
be in the movies, and because she was infatuated with Hellfire. Her first film was I
was a Teenage Strangler (1997, William Hellfire), one of Hellfire's
typical no-budget sexploitation flicks that actually focussed more on
Erin's (real-life) sister Daisy than on her, but Erin's lack of
inhibitions, and her willingness to do (almost) anything to be in a film
struck a cord with Hellfire, both on a professional and a private level -
he and Erin soon became a couple and remained in a relationship for
several years. Soon, her lack of inhibitions made Erin go all the way
(actually only almost all the way), when she starred in her only truly
X-rated film Vampire
Strangler (William Hellfire). Vampire
Strangler was released in 1999, but when watching the film it's
quite obvious that some of Erin's scenes were shot much sooner than others
(and were indeed maybe part of an abandoned project about something very
much different than a vampire, since the vampire only appears in the
1999-scenes of the film - my guess is the earlier scenes were shot around
1997, maybe shortly after I was a Teenage Strangler). Originally, Vampire
Strangler was released in both a hardcore and a softcore version,
the hardcore version however does show no actual penetration, however lots
of fingering and (non-simulated) oral sex (with Erin both giving and
receiving). However, not even the heaps of actual sex can save Vampire
Strangler from being an utter disappointment: a story is almost
non-existent, the dialogue is just bad, but worst of all, the sex-scenes
are shot in such an unerotic, indifferent manner that they totally fail to
impress. Somehow it seems, nobody even made the slightest of effort to
make this at least a halfway decent film. The question remains
of course: How was Erin in this film ? Unfortunately I have to admit,
not very good, rather bad actually. In this one, and many of her early
films, she doesn't even look good: She looks like a stocky country girl
with a 1980's style hairdo that's nothing short of an actual turn-off,
and a bad fashion sense. Also, her acting is rather bad, but that's at
least partly due to the bad script that has her say increasingly bad
lines. In a word, the film's nothing to write home about ... However, all this would
change for the better before the turn of the millenium, Erin would lose
quite a few extra pounds (to a point where she looks almost too slim in
some of her films), would trade in her atrocious hairdo for nice, natural
long hair hippie style. And over the years she seems to have worked on her
acting, too ...
And with Erin Brown getting more attractive,
more versatile and more interesting, Factory
2000's films got better too, at least on a technical level. With
late films of the production outfit one no longer (necessarily) had the
feeling of watching a home-movie, a certain care was put into sound and
lights, art direction and costumes ... and Erin as Misty Mundae began to
melt the screen. Films like Dead Girls Don't Say Good-Bye, The
International Necktie Strangler (both 2000, William Hellfire), and Lust
in the Mummy's Tomb (2001, William Hellfire) all had something
going for them despite still being utter trash, and maybe this something
was noone else than Misty Mundae ... The main problems of
the Factory
2000 films remained the same though, the sex, the violence and the
story as such had little to do with each other, at times the sex-scenes
seem to be way too indifferently filmed - and every now and again the
films featured scenes that nobody really gets (like Lust
in the Mummy's Tomb, when Misty, after the actual story of the
film is over, tries on lingerie for a full 5
minutes just to stretch the film to featurette length).
Most
often, the role of Misty in these films was that of the victim, usually
some excuse was come up with to make her lose her cloths and make out with
primarily women, until at one point things get nasty ...
Notable
exceptions to this rule might be Silk
Stocking Strangler and its sequel Flesh for Olivia (both
2002, William Hellfire), in both of which she plays a manipulating bitch -
who isn't always up to her own game though -, and of course Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999, William Hellfire, Joey Smack). Especially
taking into account Factory
2000's usual output, Duck
! The Carbine High Massacre was a very mature film, a
non-judgmental satire on high school massacres, especially the Columbine
High Massacre. Unlike most of Factory
2000's earlier films, this one has a coherent plot, only very
little sex, and even something one could label as a message. And
Misty doesn't play just another sexpot in this one but a devout Christian girl
who leaves her cloths on during all of the film.
Misty's work in Factory
2000 films eventually caught the eye of the heads of Seduction
Cinema, then a blossoming production company specialising in
(mainly lesbian) softcore erotica. Seduction's
mother Company ei
Independent had been around for years actually as a video
distribution outlet for movies of various genres, but it wasn't until they
struck gold with one of their titles, Caress of the Vampire
(1996,
Frank Terranova), a mix of (softcore) sex and vampires, that they realized
they were onto something, and before long Seduction
Cinema was born and jumped into production of their first
movie, Vampire
Seduction (1998, John Bacchus), a comedy that combined - you
guessed it - sex and vampires. The film starred John P.Fedele as an
incompetent vampire hunter and Factory
2000 regular Tina Krause as the vampire [Tina
Krause interview - click here] ... and incidently it also
starred Erin's sister Daisy DeWright (the later Chelsea Mundae) in a small
role.
With Vampire
Seduction, Seduction
Cinema had already set the stage for things to come, but it was
1999's Erotic Witch
Project (John Bacchus) that really put them on the map, and thanks
to this highly erotic and very funny spoof of Blair
Witch Project (1999, Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez), they became
known for producing some of the best lesbian softcore sex-spoofs of
current blockbusters around ...
Seduction
Cinema and Factory
2000 were always closely related, and Misty had already had small
roles in early Seduction-productions
like TITanic 2000 (1999, John P.Fedele) and Poetic
Seduction: The Dead Student's Society (1998, Peter Jacelone -
actually produced by Seduction's
sister company Shock-O-Rama,
but the difference betwen the two companies is only in name), while
several Seduction-regulars
like John Link, John Bacchus (as Zachary Winston Smith) and even Seduction's
president Michael Raso have made guest appearances in Duck
! The Carbine High Massacre.
Soon enough, Misty, thanks
to her retro (or hippie girl) looks became the face of Seduction's
sub-label Retro Seduction, a company that - to the delight of
vintage erotica fans like myself - specializes in re-releasing
softcore sexfilms from the 1970's by the likes of Joe Sarno, Nick Philips [Nick
Philips interview - click here] and Al Adamson on DVD, often in stunningly restored versions.
But Misty
wasn't only the face on the company's logo, she could also be seen in
(erotic) shorts in the early Retro Seduction-DVDs' extra sections.
Mostly though, these shorts were torn from her Factory
2000-films that worked as little sex-stories of their own without
the framing plot - like My First Female Lover, which was an excerpt
from Dead Girls don't Say Goodbye (2000, William Hellfire) -
which just proves my point how incoherently written most of the Factory
2000-films were. Eventually, a cut-down version of International
Necktie Strangler entitled Misty's
Secret (2000, William Hellfire) even made it on the DVD-re-release
of Seduction
Cinema's first hit, Vampire
Seduction as a second feature - it ran about 50 minutes
compared to International Necktie Strangler's 80 -, but this one
was pretty much the pitts, it had most of what little plot there was
removed, and now was nothing more than a series of sex-scenes starring
Misty, Tina Krause [Tina Krause
interview - click here] and Ruby LaRocca and a guy (William Hellfire) who
eventually strangles Misty.
(Actually International Necktie Strangler
was shot back-to-back with the more ambitious An
Erotic Vampire in Paris [2002, Donald Farmer], a film produced in
2000 by Artschiv
Productions and Video
Vamp that was picked up for distribution in 2002 by Seduction
and that also starred Misty, Tina Krause and Bill Hellfire).
However,
Misty's association with Seduction
was not limited to recycling her Factory
2000-films as shorts, she soon started to act in Seduction-films
as well, starting with Gladiator
Eroticus (2001, John Bacchus), a lesbian spoof of Ridley Scott's Gladiator
(2000), which shows John Bacchus - then Seduction's
head director - at the height of his game: By now he had established his
very own brand of (erotic) spoof of whatever there is to spoof, and
occasionally, his sexy parodies were better than the films they were based
on - at least with Gladiator
Eroticus that's definitely the case. Misty's role in this fim
wasn't too big, the star of Gladiator
Eroticus was undenyably Darian Caine [Darian
Caine interview - click here], and she makes the most of it,
but Misty's role as the young sister of the Emperor (John P.Fedele), who
spends most of the film lusting for her, left an impression, and she was
soon back in in a larger role in Bacchus next spoof, Erotic
Survivor (2001, John Bacchus), a parody on the silly Survivor-TV-series
that was basically an ensemble piece also starring Darian Caine, Ruby
LaRocca, Jade Duboir, Debbie Rochon, William Hellfire and Joey Smack.
In Erotic
Survivor, Misty had more screentime and more opportunities to show
off both her acting talents and her naked body, and ultimately it became
apparent that it was only a matter of time before Seduction
Cinema gave Misty her first lead ... which was to be Misty
Mundae, Mummy Raider (2001, Brian Paulin), a cheaply made softcore
spoof of Lara
Croft, Tomb Raider (2001, Simon West) featuring mummies and Nazis
and also starring Darian Caine and Ruby LaRocca that despite its obvious
monetary restrictions and its very basic (or thin, if you may) plot is
quite hilarious. And Misty is quite good as the gun-wielding action star -
who along the way loses her top to the delight of the audience. Still, Ruby
LaRocca steals this film as evil Nazi Doctor doing a phony accent and
uttering lines like "Vat, have you never kissed a Nazi before ?"
Eventually, Misty
Mundae, Mummy Raider led to the lead in Play-Mate
of the Apes (2002, John Bacchus), one of Seduction's
big projects, meaning an (almost) decently budgeted lesbian spoof
of a current blockbuster (Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes [2001],
but also taking a few hits at the superior originial 1968 version by
Franklin J.Schaffner) that even features a few ok special effects. With
this, director John Bacchus has delivered another hilarious parody, and
Misty once again proved her talent to do comedy and to carry a film -
despite able support by Darian Caine and both Debbie Rochon and John
Bacchus in ape costumes, the film pretty much belongs to Misty. Within
just a couple of years, Misty has thus made herself a name as one of the
most talented in Seduction's
stable of performers, and since besides the above-mentioned films she had
at least supporting roles in pretty much every other Seduction-film
during that time - e.g. Witchbabe:
The Erotic Witch Project 3 (2001, Terry M.West), The Erotic
Mirror (2002, Peter Jacelone), Satan's
School for Lust (2002, Terry M.West), My Vampire Lover
(2002, George Freeway) - and has with time attracted a (relatively) huge
fanbase, it hardly came as a surprise that in 2002 she was chosen to
become Seduction
Cinema's first contract player ...
Having Misty as a
contract player, Seduction
really took advantage of her and pretty much put her in everything they
had got - but in all fairness, they more often than not at least tried to tailor
her roles to fit her image ... So over the next few years, Misty could
be seen in Roxanna
(2002, Ted W.Crestview), a remake of an old Nick Philips-film from 1970 (click
here), Vampire Vixens (2003, John Bacchus), the
long-awaited (?) sequel to Bacchus' Vampire
Seduction, That
70's Girl (2004, Johnny Crash), a (hippie) sex comedy that was
supposed to be the pilot for a TV-series that never happened, Sexy
American Idle (2004, John P.Fedele), a pretty funny lesbian spoof
of the pretty terrible American Idol TV-series, and New
York Wildcats (2005, Johnny Crash), a rather pointless remake of
Joe Sarno's Every
Afternoon/Swedish
Wildcats (1972).
Still, even through this immensely
industrious time, there were some films that deserve extra mention: The
Lord of the G-Strings (2002, Terry M.West) and SpiderBabe
(2003, Johnny Crash) were two more of Seduction's
big projects, both once again lesbian spoofs, both once again
decently budgeted and graced with some competent special effects work. But
while the former film, a parody of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings-series,
is still full of Seduction's
trademark anarchic humour John Bacchus style (who served as a producer on
this one),
the latter film, a spoof of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002),
occasionally forgets to be funny, instead drowning in special effects and pop
culture references (mainly of course to Spider-Man comics), and is thus rather disappointing.
Then
there's Seduction's
president Michael Raso's directorial debut, The
Seduction of Misty Mundae (2005), also starring another Seduction-contract
player, Julian Wells, an old-fashioned and very charming softcore film
that was clearly intended as a loving hommage to legendary director Joe
Sarno - and in this one, Misty proves she can still convince at playing a
virgin after having been witnessed having sex in literally dozens of
films.
The
Girl who Shagged Me (2005, Thomas J Moose) is a Anglo-American
co-production that took Misty to Great Britain to star in a sexy spy
spoof. The outcome might be a bit uneven - but occasionally extremely
funny. The main problem of the film is though that Misty's character does
not make all that much sense concerning the proceedings.
With
director Tony Marsiglia [Tony
Marsiglia interview - click here], Misty worked on 5 projects (so far), and while Sin
Sisters (2003) was nothing more than a straight-forward erotic
thriller, the yet-to-be-released Chantal
(2003, released in 2007), Doctor Jekyll and Mistress Hyde (2003), Lust
for Dracula (2004) and Sinful
(2006) all show Tony Marsiglia to be one of the most creative heads in the
erotic horror subgenre, with Chantal
being a borderline-surreal remake
of a Nick Philips film from 1969, Doctor Jekyll and Mistress Hyde
and Lust
for Dracula being bizarre new takes on age-old stories and Sinful
being an almost surreal horror tale, in which Misty (arguably) turns in
her best performance to date. Truth to be told, none of these films
is perfect, and Marsiglia tends to try a bit too hard to imitate David Lynch at
times, but once he finds his own style instead of copying Lynch and has
scripts that do not sound like parodies (like Doctor Jekyll and Mistress Hyde
and Lust
for Dracula), he might just as well become the next big name of
art-horror - if there even is such a genre.
Working on movie
after movie eventually got Misty interested in directing, so
she also worked behind the camera as well as in front on a couple of sex flicks
and a surreal short. Misty's sex films - the yet-to-be-released Confessions
of a Natural Beauty (2003) and yet another Nick Philips remake, Lustful
Addiction (2003) - might be nothing to write home about, but at
times they are quite sensual all the same, and definitely no worse than Seduction's
usual output. Her short though, Voodoun Blues (2004) - a project for
college Seduction
was nice enough to distribute on DVD - was a whole other matter though, a
surreal film that is closer to Jan Svankmajer and early David Lynch than
anything Seduction
had produced or Misty had been in so far and that might prove her to be a
filmmaker to look out for, shoud she ever choose that road (not that she
made another film since, unfortunately) ...
Despite having made
a name of herself in erotica, Misty's first love regarding films was
always (B-)horror, so when Seduction
decided to give their sister-horror-label Shock-O-Rama
- which had co-produced and/or distributed the occasional film over the
years - a good boost and get it up and running in 2003, Misty happily
jumped the bandwagon, and soon enough she was in Brett Piper's Screaming
Dead (2004) [Brett Piper
interview - click here], a story about a self-absorbed artist (Joseph
Farrell), who likes to torture his models - and Misty is the one who gets
the worst of it - until an evil spirit shows up who turns the tables on
the artist ... but unfortunately also on everyone else involved ...
In Bite
Me (2004, Brett Piper), Misty is one of a bunch of strippers who
suddenly find themselves confronted with a bunch of mutant bugs. And
thanks to a bugbite, Misty mutates into a tough-as-nails bug-fighter.
And Shock-O-Rama
(2006, Brett Piper) shows Misty as a B-movie actress fed up with her job
(something not too far removed from the truth, but more of that later) ...
until she finds herself confronted with typical a B-movie situation, a
(tongue-in-cheek) zombie attack. What sets the Shock-O-Rama-films
apart from Seduction's
usual output is that they are full-fledged (if at times self-ironic) old
school horror films that feature only very little nudity (though Misty has nude
scenes in all three of them) and a load of (mostly analogue) special effects,
actually director Brett Piper's field of expertise. Truth to be told,
all three films are uneven and have their definite flaws, but all
three are certainly among the better, more ambitious and original direct-to-video shockers that are
currently released - which isn't necessarily saying much, though ... As
mentioned above, in Shock-O-Rama,
Misty plays a B-movie actress fed up with her job who leaves the studio
she's working for but has to realize the studio owns her name ... which is
a case of life imitating art or vice versa, as aroung 2004 - when Shock-O-Rama
was filmed, Misty, who by that time was cast for pretty much every other Seduction-sex
flick (and had to show herself naked in all of them, more often than not
repeatedly) felt burned out and decided not to extend her contract and to
pursue her further acting career away from the studio and away from pure
sexploitation - but she had to realize that her name - Misty Mundae - was
actually owned by ei
Independent (Seduction
and Shock-O-Rama's
mother-company), and since they over the past years have invested a
fortune in making Misty Mundae a household name, they would not let her
name go with her ... and so Misty Mundae became Erin Brown ... (Truth to be
told though, the split between Misty and Seduction
was a lot more amical than the split shown in Shock-O-Rama,
and to this day, Misty does the occasional publicity stunt for the
studio.)
The split hit Seduction
like a shock since much of the studio's success was indebted to Misty, and
Seduction
simply didn't have another girl in their stable to replace her as a
versatile, funny, talented, good-looking and charismatic lead actress -
but Seduction
thus far bridged the gap by releasing Misty Mundae-films produced before
the split, and the studio still has several unreleased Misty Mundae-films up their
sleeves, including above mentioned Confessions of a Natural Beauty
and Chantal as well as An Erotic Werewolf in London (2001,
William Hellfire) and Girl Zombie (2001, Richard Hillian), plus
they spiced up a film not starring Misty Mundae, The
Sexy Adventures of Van Helsing (2004, Max Von Diesel), with stock-(sex-)scenes involving Misty lifted directly from The
Lord of the G-Strings, and they took an old, unfinished cavegirl
film by William Hellfire, tagged on some stop-motion-dinosaur animation
courtesey of Brett Piper [Brett
Piper interview - click here] and released it as Bikini Girls on Dinosaur
Planet (2005). And then ei
Independent still has hopes to get Misty back for the
occasional picture ...
And what about Erin Brown, the actress
formerly known as Misty Mundae ? She has gotten roles in a few
higher-profile (but not necessarily better) productions compared to her ei
Independent-output:
- In the serial killer film The Lost (2005, Chris Sivertson),
Erin plays no more than a supporting role and fails to impress just
like the movie as a whole.
- Shadow: Dead Riot
(2006, Derek Wan) is an ill-conceived mix of women-in-prison film and
zombie flick that was created first and foremost as a vehicle for Tony
Todd, who had seen better days as the title character of the Candyman
series of films. Erin can be seen here as a female convict, along with
frequent
Seduction
co-star Ruby LaRocca.
- Erin's first post-Seduction
lead was in The Rage (2006, Robert Kurtzman), the first film
produced by special effects studio Precinct
13 Entertainment, which sounds like little more than your usual
mad scientist/killervirus B-movie though.
The part that will
boost Erin's recognition with the horror community the most though is that
of Misty (sic !) in Sick
Girl (2006, Lucky McKee), an episode of the (generally overrated) Masters
of Horror-TV-series - not because the episode is particularly
good - it's just a mediocre piece of insect-horror - or because Erin is so good in
it - she has given better performances but at least she's way better than
co-star Angela Bettis -, but because the series is for some reason (mainly
namedropping) held in high esteem by (mainstream) horror audiences and a
part in the series will no doubt broaden her fanbase ...
Into a whole other direction goes All
Along (2007, Robert A.Masciantonio), an independent comedy written
by and starring Bill Page [Bill Page
interview - click here] in which Erin plays a supporting role and
which has won many awards on the festival circuit, including the Audience
Choice Award at the Fairhope Film Festival, Best Romance
Feature at the International Digital Video & HD Festival, Honorable
Mention - Best Feature at the Myrtle Beach International Film
Festival, and Best of Show at the Accolade Film Awards.
Where
Erin Brown's career will go next noone can really say, she might go
maintream (like The Rage or Masters
of Horror - Sick
Girl would suggest) and become another forgotten talent in faceless B-pictures, she
might continue starring in horror from the weirder side of the spectrum
(like one of her current projects, Camp Motion Pictures' Splatter
Beach [2007, Mark Polonia, John Polonia] might suggest), she might
shift to comedies like All
Along, she might
even eventually make another surreal movie of her own, who can say. The
one thing I'm sure of though is that we will hear (and see) a lot more of
her - becasue there's something about Erin Brown ...
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