Tiffany Shepis ('Nympha', 'Bonnie and Clyde VS Dracula')

While the horror convention, The Milwaukee Massacre, suffered the strains of floods, washouts, tornado warnings, and bad sales, it did not suffer in spirit. Fans flocked to the horticulture building at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds to get a glimpse of the horror celebrities as well as gain a few bruises from listening to metal bands from all over the United States. Much kudos to the guys and gals who put the convention together, if it weren't for the damn weather it would have been a kick ass time. I would also like to send a special thanks to those who helped keep people in line (the law) and those who cleaned up after everyone. Thank you for that.

So anyway, during the convention I witnessed Tiffanysitting with fans and chatting with them, smiling at everyone that she could, and being generally gregarious. She's very animated to say the least, and easily shares her laughter. Prior to the onset of the weekend activities, Bryan and I had the pleasure of sitting down and having a few drinks with Tiffany Shepis....Tiffany showed up at the small lounge inside the Holiday Inn with a friend, named Frank, in tow. She is petite and much more beautiful in person than she is on camera. Not that she isn't hot on camera! She was wearing a black spaghetti-strap spandex top and jeans with a pair of slinky, barely-there strappy high heels. Both she and her friend were nice and even though they were obviously tired, they were eager to talk. Within the time spent with Tiffany, she involved me in assault, bad jokes, and theft. If I could describe her with only two words they would be fun-loving.
So here is the interview with Tiffany and I am sure that you will enjoy it. It is full of name-calling and debauchery that can only be delivered (and got away with) by the good natured, hilarious, and beautiful Tiffany Shepis.
Tiffany starts the interview off by razzing Heidi Martinuzzi whom you all know is the creator and owner of Pretty-Scary.net and if you didn't know that, then you must be high. Another note that must be hit before reading any further is that Tiffany and Heidi are well acquainted—and Tiffany not only likes to make people laugh but make them squirm uncomfortably as well, which is why we opened the interview with the words, 'Heidi Martinuzzi is the biggest, sluttiest, most terrible… uh….what does she do again?'
I answer Tiffany's question with an amused, 'She's a journalist.'
'Oh yeah a journalist. An extremely distinguished journalist.' Tiffany gives me a knowing smile and lights a cigarette.
'I love her.' She adds. I mentally note, 'Yes albeit dysfunctional, the horror world is like family.' I felt a lot more comfortable after that. So we dive right in and discuss her Conker's Bad Fur Day commercial which was pulled from rotation due to it being 'too racy', and then we start the discussion about how violence is an easier sell than sex and how censorship is a big whack job. Tiffany cites the movie Abominable being viewed on television as an example.
'I get pulled through a window naked. Right? They blur the shit out of it, chop it up to bits but yetthey show the guy's face getting bit in half and his brain exposed… and you know, for a child which one's more fucked up? You're not having nightmares about, oh! Girls fucking me! No! You're having nightmares about a guy biting my face off. It just makes no sense, really.'
Bryan and I agree with her. Skimming past the part where we talk about hairy vaginas and my French mother, I tell Tiffany that I had to 'Google' her because I wasn't entirely familiar with her work. I admitted that I misspelled her name and informed her that misspelled or not, Google still knew who Tiffany Shepis was. Tiffany was more interested in why I didn't know more about who she was. Of course, she was ribbing me because that's just how she is. But it brought us to the subject of her upcoming projects, namely 'The Devil's Pies'.
'It is just a whole big pot of craziness.' She says about Devil's Pies. 'Our film is 100% not serious. It's the Tiffany Shepis Opus Mega Masterpiece Epic is what it is going to be called.' We all break into raucous laughter because we can clearly see that Tiffany is joking. She's really human like that.
Venturing as best that I could, I asked, 'Is it a tentacle monster? I must know. There are not enough creature-monster movies in the world.'
Tiffany replies with, 'Perhaps. Perhaps…', then adds, 'On a horror note: I think its due time that we get back to bad-ass creature features. Whether people liked the Mist or not, you have to admit that it was pretty fuckin' cool to see weird ass creatures taking over and it was fun and different. Like, there's only so many ways that you can do the crazy serial killer and there's only so many ways that you can do the torture stuff. I'm not saying it is bad and that we aren't going to come back around to it or that we won't become bored with it again but right now we want something a bit more fun and that's what gave us The Devil's Pies.
I was like I want fucking creatures. I want Space Balls meets Aliens meets Once Bitten gayness.
The Devil's Pies is about the hottest most bad-ass most amazing sorority on campus. The reason they got that way is, of course, naturally they sold their soul to the devil and naturally he lives in their basement and naturally they have to pay two fuckin' virgins to him every year to continue their reign of hotness. So what do they do? They have pledge week. The reason they have pledge week is to get two dumb girls to sacrifice. This year they find the two most stupidest most ridiculously dumb women on the planet whom end up fucking up all the plans because they are just… that… dumb.'

Tiffany is animate and hilarious. She says that she doesn't know how to make things scary 'like that shamalamayama guy', but she can write something funny and silly. She certainly knew how to keep us all laughing, which would turn out to be a common occurrence around her. Spurred on by our grins and the extra-salty Coronas (courtesy of Frank) she continued.
'It is very difficult for women to do comedy and it always has been. So they say. And I feel that I can find two chicks that can do it right and do it justice and make it funny and yet still make it sexy. And still have them get fucked up by some kind of creature.'
I mentioned to Tiffany that I admire anyone who can get on the camera, and do what she does. Tiffany waves me off with something along the lines of, 'Oh whatever. You could do it.' Adamantly I said, 'I could never do that! I have all the acting skills of a porn star.' So Tiffany then joked about having me appear in Devil's Pies due to that fact. As the laughter eased up, Tiffany continued on to further projects.
'We're doing a project called once upon a horror [with Rolfe Kanefsky] which is kind of like a USA up-all-night kind of deal.'
I seized my opportunity and asked, 'Are you going to do a Rhonda Shear?'
She smiles. 'Yeah, kind of… only less annoying. It'll kind of be a cross between Elvira and Rhonda Shear. It won't be as, 'Oh look at me!' because I don't have the big fake boobs and I don't have the Elvira I'm-so-goth crazy look to me so it will be somewhere in between and it will be really fun and really weird and really silly…and I'll wrap around different, bizarre, fun 80s style throwback horror shorts and occasionally I'll be in a few of them. So we're hopefully gonna start that in September or October.'

Tiffany leaves the table and carouses with her friends at the bar. Frequently during this interview Tiffany joked and called people names (see opening Heidi statement), and tossed things at people that she knew. Even her friend Frank was not immune as she called him a meat-head in reference to his work-out habits. Frank returned Tiffany's playful name-calling and seemed just as entertained by it as we were. So, not one for passing up an opportunity to play-around, at one point Tiffany says to me and Bryan, via conspiring stage-whisper, that she would pay me to assault Frank.
Before I knew it I was reluctantly obliging Tiffany in a game of assault. Let me clarify: She had me toss a handful of salt on her friend Frank and with a serious face say, 'You've been…assaulted.' She tried to get Bryan to do it when I said that I wouldn't and Bryan said, 'No way, my jaw will end up on the back of my head if I did it.' Frank is a wrestler, just so you know. Bryan thought the idea was funny, mind you, but he also values his life and therefore he wasn't going to test Frank's wrestling skills, or friendliness. So I did it and it was funny and Frank took it as it should have been taken. And why wouldn't he? If you hang about Tiffany Shepis for any amount of time you learn that her sense of humor is physical, sarcastic, and sometimes very dead-pan.
She took the time to joke around with other folks that were in the lounge and cracked several jokes before she returned to the table to add, 'I also developed a project with Robert Englund, which is a reality TV show, and I can't really talk about it but I can say that it is me producing and has Robert Englund starring…' She adds with a slow grin, 'Robert Englund is cool as fuck. And he's entertaining.'
I can say the same thing about you, Miss Tiffany.Moving on, Tiffany breezes through several subjects, moving from project to project—which I must tell you, if you don't know Tiffany then feel informed, the woman is a work-horse. She's in several movies, upcoming projects that include Bonnie and Clyde versus Dracula, to which Tiffany says, 'I just saw the rough cut and it just blew me away!' and she has several more coming up. Busy as she is, she still manages to have a good damn time. After discussing the use of live ammo to shoot up actual model T cars, I ask, 'Any stunt work training?'
'I think growing up doing these movies you just do it because it just comes with the territory. But as you get older, doing stunts, you start asking— 'oh you're paying me what? To jump off what?' I've just become a pussy. No seriously, I always think, that would be pretty fuckin' cool if I did the scene and I jumped off the second story but then again…I used to be all about doing my own stunts and then I started getting more and more hurt and started realizing the longer time it took for recovery for a movie that probably isn't going to use the scene anyway and I would like dive off of something and I would say wait a minute why wasn't that in the movie?'
I ask Tiffany if she was allowed to keep these 'cuts' of unusable shots (unreleased shots) and she said 'oh yeah, certainly'. I then asked her if her daughter sees any of her work. Tiffany brightens when she speaks about her three and a half year old daughter and describes her as, 'crazy, and she does all types of stunts. She'll tell me, Mommy your movies suck! I can do this.' To answer the question, Tiffany does not let her daughter watch everything that she does but what she does allow, fuels her daughter's imagination.
'I have such a cool little horror kid' she says with a proud smile. She admits though, that sometimes she has to 'be a mommy' and ask her daughter to not say certain things in front of Grandma…like about zombies and eating grandma's brains. Tiffany paints a picture of a healthy and fun relationship with her daughter and to me it seems that she does her best to be, and succeeds at being, a kick-ass Mommy. I definitely admire that she does what she does because she loves to do it, admittedly having no delusions about movie stardom, 'All I ever wanted to make was low-budget horror movies. I like what I do. I like going to weird conventions where everybody knows you and then you go home and nobody bothers you.'
The night ended with Tiffany stating that she was tired and going to bed, but not before she convinced me to swipe the incriminating salt shaker. 'Take it, take it! You may need it again!' She hammed as she pressed the salt shaker into my hands. Chuckling and shaking our heads, Bryan and I left the hotel lounge…with salt-shaker in hand.
Enjoy the anonymity while you can, Tiffany. You're definitely an unforgettable personality. I feel that someday soon people will be wearing T-shirts that read, 'Tiffany Shepis assaulted me and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.' It will be blood-stained and have a picture of a watch battery and a pile of salt on it.

Thank you for a fun and memorable interview Tiffany and to the readers, I thank you too.
Wear a smile.

Linkage for T.J.: The Devil's Pies--A Tiffany Shepis Opus Mega Masterpiece Epic (check it out)
Tiffany's criminal profile...I mean, MySpace: www.myspace.com/tshepis
and lastly, The official website of Tiffany Shepis