Late Night Classics – Society

After spearheading two horror classics with Stuart Gordon [Re-Animator, From Beyond], prolific producer Brian Yuzna took a swing at directing with the camp classic known as Society.

The film tells the story of Bill Whitney [Billy Warlock], who lives among the upper class of Beverly Hills and doesn’t fit in with his family or their high-society friends. He gets a hold of a tape that accidentally recorded his family engaging in murderous mayhem.

Despite having a girlfriend, he has been admiring one sexy individual from afar, the exotic beauty Clarissa [Devin DeVasquez], who is a member of the faction. He proceeds to have sex with her and finds out her body twists and contorts like an acrobat when aroused. Will he succumb to peer pressure and join the elitist, otherworldly beings that are always looking for a new colleague? Society has one of the most outlandish endings in cinematic history as the rich literally suck off of the poor by absorbing their flesh into the pores of their skin in a massive orgy of gooeyness and slime.

I had the good fortune to talk to actress Devin DeVasquez about her role in Society, as well as what lead up to that flick and what she is up to now.

Jason Bene: Can you talk about how you got involved with modeling and how that lead you to posing for Playboy?

Devin DeVasquez: I’m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana and I started with Playboy when they came down to L.S.U. where I was attending. They were scouting for girls of the S.C.C. back in 1981. The photographer said I had boobs like a Playmate, and I was like wow, “What do you guys pay Playmates”? He told me, but I had never seen a Playboy before because I graduated a year early from High School, so I was only seventeen at the time. I quickly went, looked at a Playboy and decided I wanted to be a Playmate. It took me a couple years to work up the nerve to take all of my clothes off, because in the S.C.C. pictorial I was topless. A couple of years later I called David Chan and said, “Do you remember me; I want to be a Playmate?” He remembered me but at the time they had seven Playmates of the Year in a row that were blonde. So they didn’t have many exotic women. They didn’t have anyone who looked like me back then. But luckily Flashdance and Purple Rain were out and everyone compared me to Appolonia and Jennifer Beals, so that look was starting to come in. I guess you could say I was at the right place at the right time. Playboy decided to test me for Playmate, but they had already shot Karen Valez and Roberta Vasquez, and our names were so similar that they saved me for 1985. I became Miss June 1985 and became a Playmate pretty quickly.

After I did Playboy I was modeling in Chicago doing a lot of catalog work and every model in town went on this cattle call audition for Star Search, because it was the biggest show at the time. This includes Cindy Crawford who was modeling for Elite Chicago at the time. I thought there’s no way I’m going to get this, there are hundreds of girls on this audition. They only chose two and for some reason they chose me.

I had to fly to New York and shoot the videos for the segments they would have on the models for Star Search and I had never done anything like that. I was pretty shy, having just done still photography and had never done any acting or speaking in front of the camera or anything like that. To make a long story short, I ended up winning the $100,000 as a spokesmodel in 1986 and then Playboy featured me on the cover in a celebrity pictorial in November of 1986.

Then I sort of fell into acting and I got offers to do movies. In my first movie I played a virgin in House II: The Second Story, I appeared on Johnny Carson shortly after that, and then I did Can’t Buy Me Love. After I did Can’t Buy Me Love I was offered this movie Society. Well, I read for Society and actually another actress booked the lead in that movie, but a week or so into it there were some conflicts with the director and they fired her and they came back and gave it to me. When I read the script I thought I did not understand how they were going to put this movie on film because it seemed very odd. I was thrilled to be working with Billy Warlock, who had just won an Emmy for his work on Days of our Lives. It was his first movie and I was playing High School again. I always played younger than my age, coming off Can’t Buy Me Love which was a nice little summer hit in 1987. This was 1988 that I did Society and I was very happy to do my first leading role. The movie was a lot of fun to work on, the special effects were amazing and Brian Yuzna was a great director. I learned a lot from working with him.

Jason Bene: When you read the script did you think do I really want to do this movie?

Devin DeVasquez: The motto was you have to be born into ‘society’. The rich suck off the poor literally in this movie, it’s a literal thing. This is a dark comedy.

Jason Bene: The story is metaphorical and allegorical on how we separate ourselves in society.

Devin DeVasquez: The fact that I played a very rich Beverly Hills girl that was very mysterious and who had this woman who was my mother who coughed up hairballs and was very strange looking. You didn’t quite know what to think of my character, but I had lines in the movie like, “Coffee, tea, or would you like me to pee in it?” Some of the lines in the movie were very risqué. It was a dark comedy and you just didn’t see anything like it at the time.

Jason Bene: It is kind of like Beverly Hills, 90210 goes to Hell.

Devin DeVasquez: You know what? It was like Heathers, remember Heathers? It kind of reminded me of Heathers and I thought because it was so different and strange, and I was attracted to it for that reason. For my first leading role I thought I had some interesting work from it. And as a result it became this big cult hit, especially in Europe. Over the years every autograph show I always have some die-hard Society fan that comes up and says, “You were in Society!”

I went on to do a movie with Keenan Ivory Wayans called A Low Down Dirty Shame. I did a movie with Corey Feldman and Corey Haim called Busted. I went on Howard Stern a couple of times and also did a lot of commercials. I’ve always left Hollywood. I’ve dabbled in an acting career; it’s never really been my passion. My passion now is writing and I wrote a book called The Naked Truth: About a Pinup Model and it includes an exclusive interview with Betty Page. I was the only Playmate to ever interview her. I felt very privileged to have that interview with her. The book is basically everything you need to know and want to know about pinup modeling. How the pinup model has evolved from Bettie’s era – from Marilyn’s era – to the present. I also created a spice called Devin’s Kickass Cajun Seasoning because I’m from Louisiana. This is to help the city of New Orleans rebuild from Hurricane Katrina. You should try some because it kicks ass! I just recently got married to Ronn Moss, who plays Ridge Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful.

Jason Bene: Let’s talk about the end of Society.

Devin DeVasquez: The hardest scene I had to do in that movie was when they put Billy in the noose and they were basically going to shunt him. They bring him in and I drive up in the red Porsche. I kind of start feeling sorry for him because I know what’s about to start happening to him. I tell this guy to stop and I actually had to spit in his face, which I had a hard time doing.

Jason Bene: It kind of goes with the flow of the movie. It all about juices and fluids.

Devin DeVasquez: [Laughs] It’s a slimy movie, isn’t it?

Jason Bene: The guy who did the make-up effects is Screaming Mad George and he has worked on quite a few films with Brian Yuzna.

Devin DeVasquez: The funniest line in the movie to me was when Billy goes to his mother’s bedroom and he sees his mother, sister and father in a very compromising situation. They would mold themselves into like gumby or something. His father’s head comes out of his butt and he goes, “I guess you’re right son, I am a butthead!”

Jason Bene: This film is pre-CG so everything had to be done on the set.

Devin DeVasquez: In the ending when they had to turn the guy inside out, that was really creepy. It had a lot of sexual connotations, but I think what it was trying to say is things are not always the way they seem. ‘Society’ is what it is. You have to be a part of it to understand it.

Jason Bene: Was it shot in Beverly Hills?

Devin DeVasquez: It was shot in Santa Monica and Franklin Canyon, so in and around L.A.

Jason Bene: Did you get to live it up on the set?

Devin DeVasquez: It was a lot of work. I was working almost every day and Billy was working every day. We shot for about a month and it was pretty intense. The only bad thing about this movie which I don’t understand being in the Screen Actors Guild is I’ve been asking the Union about residuals on this movie for years. I’ve never gotten one dime in residuals. This movie has been on DVD, it’s been out all over the world. Apparently the Director and the Producers have been in some sort of litigation for years over the movie. So there’s been some dispute with the movie for a long time and none of the actors have gotten paid any residual. So SAG said that eventually it will get settled and everybody would get paid but I still haven’t seen a dime. The film has been dubbed in many languages because I’ve had friends in Germany that said they have seen it in Germany.

Killer Film would like to thank the beautiful Devin DeVasquez for taking time to do the interview with us, and you can visit her on Twitter, Facebook, and her website devindevasquez.com!