Debbie Rochon

By Anne Young

April 9, 2021

A long-time resident of New York, well-known for her roles in low-budget exploitation and horror cinema, Debbie Rochon has been involved in nearly every aspect of filmmaking – acting, writing, directing, producing – and has turned her experienced eye to genre film criticism as well, including writing regular columns for Fangoria and Asylum and formerly co-hosting Fangoria Radio. Her varied and extensive career in theatre and film began in her early teens while she was living on the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia. Her first role was as an extra in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982).  

Rochon’s first feature film as director, Model Hunger (2016), offers a feminist perspective on the entertainment industry, focusing on how women cannibalize each other in a patriarchal system and highlighting women’s relationships with each other and their own internalized misogyny. Set in the small town of Fishkill, New York, the film stars Lynn Lowry as Ginny, an aging former pin-up model who preys on beautiful young women while her house-bound and mentally unstable new neighbor, Debbie (Tiffany Shepis), watches her movements, growing more and more suspicious. When Debbie finds old photos of Ginny online, she sees images of a young woman in submissive, sexualized positions: risqué photos of her neighbor were once featured in Model Hunger Magazine.

When not watching Ginny’s comings and goings or stalking her online, Debbie discovers a home shopping television show that has taken Fishkill by storm: “Suzi’s Secret.” “Suzi’s Secret” sells the rhetoric of body positivity and empowerment, positioning itself against the mainstream beauty industry. Yet this rhetoric covers another consumer paradigm: one where equal-opportunity consumption cures whatever ails you. The addictive television program seems to encourage excessive consumption of all kinds, and it is intimated that the titular “secret” is something more sinister. Ironically, Suzi’s talk is peppered with that favorite phrase, “real women,” although the actress who plays Suzi (Suzi Lorraine) is in disguise and her plus-size apparel models are men in drag. This is significant for Rochon, who remarks in the DVD commentary that this is “a reflection of just how much TV lies.” Like liberal feminist-inflected modern advertising, consumption is a virtue in Suzi’s world. Contrasting modeling types in “Suzi’s Secret” and Model Hunger Magazine – the other in-world media outlet – show two unbalanced relationships with consumption present in North American society: the repression – including dieting – women have traditionally adopted, and the destructive exploitation that was formerly men’s prerogative, and which women are now too encouraged to participate in as well.

Although “Suzi’s Secret” enjoys a diverse, unisex audience in Fishkill, individual responses to this popular program vary, and we are shown some of these responses in a montage sequence of glassy-eyed townspeople watching “Suzi’s Secret” while partaking in their favorite vices. At the end of the movie, Suzi finally reveals her secret: “ladies, I’m here to tell you, we have met the enemy and she is us.” At this point, we have already been shown very different responses to her message, and so the secret’s interpretative possibilities are ambiguously unsettling. Over the course of the movie, Suzi’s presence looms larger, eventually leaving the townspeople’s television sets and filling up the whole frame. Suzi speaks directly to her audience – “us” – breaking the fourth wall and inviting introspection. As she gradually emerges and enlarges, we too may have become Suzi’s fans.

Ginny also cites “Suzi’s Secret” as her “favorite show,” but her fandom takes a particularly gruesome turn. Her helpless old lady act is shattered early in the film, but the real surprise is finding out the weakness and vulnerability in Ginny’s past. A close-up of Ginny’s face takes us into her memory of a humiliating experience representing the rejection and exploitation she endured as a young model. As Rochon remarks in the DVD commentary, “this is where we see Ginny’s pain.”

Previous reviews have noted a ‘body image’ theme, but this is somewhat misleading because Model Hunger is not a bloody, extended Dove ad telling women to “learn to love your body”: it’s about power dynamics and psychological responses to living in a patriarchal society. While popular culture depicts ‘body image’ as a product of either the insecure individual or an evil advertising industry, the film reminds us that the deeper problem is the commodification of women, and that personal insecurity and advertising campaigns are merely symptoms of this social structure, not a cause.

While researching Rochon online, I felt a little like Debbie clicking through the Model Hunger website. Of Rochon’s film work in the 90s, one reviewer wrote that “in her line of work it’s a prerequisite that you fill out a bra.” (Briggs qtd. In Gurley) [1] and in her own history of the ‘scream queen’ she wrote for GQ magazine, Rochon writes that “the willingness to go topless has been the number one requirement for a working Scream Queen since the ‘big’ 80’s.” [2] In a more recent interview for Cut-Throat Women, she adds, “when I started out in genre films there was a lot more exploitive roles you would have to take if you wanted to work.” [3] Although she notes the situation for women in film is improving, she also admits that there is some of Ginny’s experience that both she and her Model Hunger star, Lowry, can relate to. [4]

Today, Rochon is best known for bringing to life tough-as-nails characters both as an actress and a director. She says, “It took many years for roles to evolve enough that they even existed as far as having any good ones to play. It began with Hellblock 13 which got me cast in American Nightmare and from there I began really developing as an artist.”  She explains that she is able to play complex characters she identifies with because “Now, there’s a lot of great female roles in movies and on TV. When I was young it was all about beauty. So, my inspirations were male characters, simply because they weren’t writing much for women that I could relate to.” Specifically, the types of characters she likes to play are those like Ginny and Debbie: “I love disturbed, broken characters both to watch and to play. Because of my personal experiences I have a lot more to draw on when working with that kind of material! […] Characters that have been taken advantage of and betrayed by society and are the way they are because of it. That’s really what I’m drawn to most.” In fact, the character of Debbie was originally written for Rochon.

James Morgart wrote the original story and script and approached Rochon to direct it. She says, “I always said that unless a script hit me hard, I wouldn’t direct. This was the script that made me want to take the leap.” It wasn’t the first time Rochon had been asked to direct, it was just a matter of finding the right project. In another parallel with her acting history, she says, “I had always wanted to direct but I never wanted to take any of the offers I had up until Model Hunger. They were all for really crappy T&A movies that I had done in the past as an actor starting out, but had no interest in directing.” [5] Although Morgart originally wrote the part of Debbie for Rochon, she declined to play a major role in a film she was directing (although she does appear in a cameo) because “Both take all of your mental dedication if you’re doing them right or to the best of your ability.”  Morgart, too, decided not to direct his own story, and says the film “showcases what happens when creative minds collaborate and aren’t territorial over the material.” [6]

Morgart also remarks on Rochon’s “uncanny” ability to work with actors. [7] A long-time actor herself, Rochon explains that “every actor is different, so you have to know how to talk to each one differently to bring out the best in each one. And in some cases when to leave them alone.” For Rochon, every actor is important to the story because even minor characters have an important role to play. She “added to the script so that each character had their own arc,” and in the DVD commentary says, “there are no throw-away characters.”

In her directorial debut, Rochon makes space for complex female characters to shine. Suzi Lorraine, for example, was pleased to play a role so different from her usual typecast, [8] and, in the director’s commentary, Rochon remarks on other actresses who are typically cast in roles that emphasize beauty and sexuality, despite their ability and range. Rochon was also largely responsible for casting Model Hunger as well, and many of the actors had worked with her on previous projects, including Shepis, who plays Ginny’s new neighbour, Debbie.

Rochon herself played women scorned by a youth-obsessed entertainment industry in two films just after completing Model Hunger which were released almost simultaneously: Axe to Grind (2015) and Serial Kaller (2014). In Axe to Grind, she plays an aging horror actress who loses parts to younger women; in Serial Kaller, she plays an aging waitress who struggles to gain more lucrative employment as a webcam model. When asked about the timing of these productions, she says:

“It was pure coincidence. Possibly the time was right to tell that story and it was in the zeitgeist. Model Hunger was written before Axe to Grind and filmed before as well, but there wasn’t a lot of time in-between their releases. It’s kind of like the movie All About Eve in a strange way, that came out the same year as Sunset Boulevard, my comparison being the films I’ve done also are a reflection on women in the business. I have to add Serial Kaller to the list too because I shot Serial Kaller, which also has a similar theme, in London, England with director Dan Brownlie and flew directly to California to shoot Axe to Grind! I always thought they made a great double feature because of the subject matter being the same and yet played out completely differently.”

While all three movies feature female serial killers, Rochon notes some key differences between Model Hunger and the films she acted in, Axe to Grind and Serial Kaller: “Axe to Grind and Serial Kaller were absolutely amazing to make, but they were a little more female serial killer on the loose in a specific situation, not a ton of back story or commentary on how women are discarded like in Model Hunger. That doesn’t make one movie better than the other just different because of it. The two I acted in were born of a character’s rage, but there wasn’t a through-line of something to ‘learn’ from it like Model Hunger.” Model Hunger also differs from these films in that it focuses on women’s relationships with themselves and each other, rather than a woman versus man theme, or even a competition over men. Instead, it emphasizes a structural problem in society.

Another difference is the absence of the male gaze in Model Hunger. Instead, claustrophobia-inducing close-ups force us out of a comfortable voyeurism and gory violence supports psychological horror and invites reflection on the ways we internalize other voices and allow our relationships with media to shape our relationships with others. Morgart notes his original story was deeply involved in Ginny’s inner world, [9] and while there are a few voice-overs of her inner monologue, for the most part, our sense of the characters’ individual worlds is conveyed with close-ups and point-of-view shots. This psychological realism contrasts with the staged perfection of Model Hunger Magazine’s pin-ups.

At the time of this writing, the Covid-19 pandemic has put the brakes on Rochon’s next movie project, and she is currently focusing on writing her autobiography and hosting her podcast, Obscurities. Having begun her career as a homeless youth, Rochon takes a measured approach to life and work. She remarks that although Model Hunger focuses on beauty, she compares this theme to another false value of contemporary consumer culture, the fame game: “not just fame, current fame. What have you done that’s really blown people away in the last 3-6 months?” Taking a slow-and-steady approach, she says, instead, “I think more in terms of long haul. What have you done overall? What did you accomplish against all odds during your entire career? What things did you attempt, whether they were a smashing success, or a failed attempt, did you try? That’s where it gets interesting for me.” In these times more than ever, these are thoughts we might take to heart.

Unless otherwise specified, all quotes in this piece are from an email interview with Debbie Rochon for Cut-Throat Women.

Notes

1. George Gurley, “New York’s Scream Queen,” Observer, April 15, 2002

2. Debbie Rochon, “The Legend of the Scream Queen,” GC, Aug 13, 2007.

3. Unless otherwise specified, all quotes are from an email interview with Rochon for Cut-Throat Women.

4. Bloodbath and Beyond. “Interview: Debbie Rochon Talks Model Hunger (2016),” Youtube, 2016.

5. Nickie Hobbs, “Interview: Debbie Rochon,” Devolution. December 13, 2018.

6. Mike Haberfelner, “An Interview with James Morgart, Writer and Executive Producer of Model Hunger,” (re)searchmytrash.com. September 2012.

7. Haberfelner.

8. Alan Rowe Kelly, “Interview with ‘Model Hunger’ producer James Morgart and Actress Suzi Lorraine,” Youtube, January 20, 2016.

9. Kelly.

Dr. Anne Young is an artist and writer living in London, Ontario. She completed her PhD in English at the University of Western Ontario. Her dissertation re-examined the figure of the fatal woman in gothic fiction. She has also written about women’s authorship, literary theory, and classism.

Additional Resources on Debbie Rochon

Bibliography of Further Reading

Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra. 1000 Women in Horror, 1985-2018. BearManor Media, 2020.

Goldberg, Paula. “Round Table: Scream Queens on What Every Horror Director Needs to Know.” The Beat, June 28, 2018.

Rochon, Debbie. “From the Underbelly to the Underground: Actress Debbie Rochon on Finding Salvation through Cinema.” Comingsoon.net, December 16, 2015.

Filmography

Rochon has acted in over 300 films; this list highlights her behind-the-scenes work and a selection of her most popular starring roles.

Torment Road (TBD, in production), director, co-executive producer

VHS Massacre Too (documentary), 2020, producer

Bloody Ballet, 2018, actress

Model Hunger, 2016, director, co-writer (additional material), producer

VHS Massacre (documentary), 2016, producer

Axe to Grind, 2015, actress

Serial Kaller, 2014, associate producer, actress

Dollface, 2014, actress

Tales of Poe, 2014, actress

In Fear Of, season 2, episode 8: “Glossophobia: Fear of Speaking in Public” (TV episode), 2014, co-director, co-writer, actress

Doom Room, 2013, actress

In Fear of, season 1, episode 1: “Monophobia: Fear of Being Alone,” (TV episode), 2012, co-writer, actress

The Chainsaw Sally Show, 2010, consulting producer, actress

The Good Sisters, 2009, producer, actress

Destruction Kings, 2006, co-writer (idea)

Fangoria Presents: Slither Behind the Scenes (documentary short), 2006, director, co-cinematographer, writer, producer, voice-over*

Nowhere Man, 2005, associate producer, actress

Fangoria TV Presents Trailer Park (TV series), 2005, co-writer, producer, host*

Suburban Nightmare, 2004, writer (story), producer

American nightmare, 2002, actress

Play-Mate of the Apes, 2002, co-writer, actress

Hellblock 13, 1999, actress

Theater Dark Video Magazine, 1996, writer, actress*

*Available for viewing on Debbie Rochon’s official Youtube channel.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.