In celebration of Women in Horror Month we will be running a series of articles focused on the women of horror from guest contributors. Articles will run the gamut from spotlighting women authors, women filmmakers, female characters in horror films, scream queens, horrific artists and more and will run every Friday in February!

This week we have guest contributor Felix Vasquez Jr. of Cinema-Crazed.com dishing on his love for up-and-coming scream queen Diora Baird.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono once presented a performance art routine that was most unorthodox. What they did was completely cover themselves from head to toe with a white amorphous body cover, and explained that the cover is meant to explore how human beings have biases whether they know it or not. Hearing a person talk without indication of their physical appearance is a much more interesting way of getting to know someone, especially when you’re not noticing blemishes, body language, and race. If we could listen instead of judge, we’d be able to learn so much more.

With the majority of beautiful women in Hollywood, if you covered them up and heard them talk, your first instinct would be to consult a learning annex about their apparent disability, or you’d zone out in a matter of twenty minutes. If you put an amorphous sheet over Diora Baird and just heard her talk for an hour, after constant laughter, there’s a great chance you wouldn’t really care what was underneath the sheet. Baird (while being so beautiful it sometimes reduces me to soft whimpers) is much more than just looks. Though she was at one time a Playboy model, she is without a doubt one of the most interesting figures in filmmaking and horror today.

She’s insanely gorgeous but hasn’t had it easy in Hollywood. She’s earned her licks and her credibility by starring in bit parts, and covering herself from head to toe in body paint, foam latex, and even filming in horrible conditions. And from the ground up Diora Baird has gone from another pretty face, to a woman who is trying her damnedest to be a huge star. And to her hardcore fans, she already is one. Go on her Twitter page, and you’re likely to find pictures of Diora that she takes for her fans. Sometimes she gives the fans a peek and will take a risque picture, and most times she’ll just take peeks in to her life for them (ooh, dogs!). More times than not you’ll see an obscene comment from someone about her breasts and her butt, and oddly enough Baird is never put off by the comments.

Sometimes she even takes pictures of herself at her worst. But, she just keeps letting her fans in to her life bit by bit to explain something they may never catch on to: She’s just a person paying her dues. And to boot, she happens to be a hilarious, witty, and clever person whose tweets about being mouth-raped by Smurfs and eating glass keep her followers chuckling incessantly. And I can’t be the only one who remembers her guest-spot on The Soup lampooning her role in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. It’s a far stretch from a woman who went into acting to overcome social anxiety and even considered a breast reduction. Many women get branded scream queens these days if they star in more than one horror film, but Diora Baird is a woman who fits the mold of scream queen perfectly.

She’s in the league of Debbie Rochon and Linnea Quigley; beautiful with a willingness to do whatever it takes to sell her part even if it means covering herself in blood or dressing in goofy outfits. She has a quirky, sometimes demented sense of humor, and she’ll be in any horror title if it grants her work and allows her a great experience. She’ll even go to extremes to sell her part (for Night of the Demons in 2010, she covered herself in body foam for her role as an ill-fated collegian who is transformed in to a demon after being sodomized by her demonic boyfriend). She’s not quite mainstream enough to be rejected by cult fans, but not too cult where she’s incapable of breaking out in to a big title with big stars.

Baird has earned her marks starring as extras, she once worked as a party clown for kids parties (no seriously), and identifies herself as the other green girl you almost saw in Star Trek. No, not Rachel Nichols, silly. Baird was unfortunately edited out of the final film. But that’s not to say fans of horror aren’t appreciative of her genre outputs. 2010 saw Baird fighting vamps and chugging booze in 30 Days of Night: Dark Days and what do you know? She didn’t show skin. However by the end of the movie she had it torn from its roots by hungry vampires, and in Night of the Demons she was given the honor of being raped by hell’s minions, and performed the infamous boob and lipstick trick for the camera. She can scream, she’s a queen, and I love her for it more and more everyday. Sure she’ll stray from genre fare to star in Young People F*cking and her upcoming heist film co-starring with Jim Caviezel.

But in spite of her apparent ambition and desire to break in to a role that will assure her legendary status, Baird is pretty much already there with a humility that’s admirable, and a humor that most people wish they had about themselves. She doesn’t acknowledge her apparent beauty, she knows that in Hollywood pretty faces are a dime a dozen, and her humor seems to be a wonderful form of coping with insecurity and social situations. Take for example her interview in FHM where she explained her inability to fire off a gun during the shoot of 30 Days of Night: Dark Days which resulted in the gun coordinator scolding her about acting responsibly. To which she responded with a witty retort!

Baird is the heir apparent to Linnea Quigley. And she’s the alpha female of the new generation of women in horror, setting the path for girls of this generation who can look incredible on-screen and have a good time, whether it’s fighting blood suckers, ghouls, or Leatherface.

Source: Fatally Yours

02. Annie Hall
“This is my favourite romantic comedy of all time. I watch it at least twice a year. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton make such a great team. I must admit, I sometimes steal from her and add ‘Annie’ to a role I’ll play. It’d be a dream come true to work with Woody.”

03. A Woman Under The Influence
“I will always aspire to be as brilliant as Gena Rowlands is in this. No one can play drunk like she can. To top if off, Peter Falk is oh so good.”

04. Taxi Driver
“I have a bit of a crush on Robert De Niro. There’s no one who can do what he does – in this movie he’s so menacing and so funny at the same time.”

05. The Shining
“Kubrick, Nicholson. If that doesn’t give you a hard on, I don’t know what will. As scary as it is, it’s one of the most beautiful films ever made.”

Source: FHM

“It’s unfortunate because I feel like I could work so much more if I wasn’t pickier, but I feel like the lasting of that won’t be very long. I want long term. I mean, I’ve been in L.A. for over a decade and I’ve been working without a day job, so to speak, for five years now, so I’ve already waited this long. But after doing this movie, it made me realize that I want to do this — I really want to do more action, and I hope people to respond to it as much as I liked doing it. I got a kick out of it; I don’t normally like watching myself on screen and I actually, not to sound completely vain, completely enjoyed it. And I actually just finished another movie where I play a somewhat similar role — I play a bank robber — and I had so much fun. I just love being sweaty and dirty and gross and sassy and having to punch someone; I mean, I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’ve never even come close to punching someone, and here I am knocking someone out. Awesome!”

“That’s not to say that I won’t ever do something that requires nudity; I mean, I’ve come close to doing it many times, and if it was something that needed to happen — if I was working with a talented filmmaker, a Polanski, I would be like, what? ‘You want me to put on a dildo? Alright, I’ll do it! I’ll f*ck that doll.’”

Diora Baird was drawn to the film because these were “vampires minus the glitter. These vampires are not sexy or hot. You see these vampires you want to run.”

Here’s a report of the 30 Days of Night: Dark Days panel at Comic Con last week, courtesy of ShockTillYouDrop.com. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any videos or all that many photos from the event but we’ll continue to keep our eyes peeled!

I’m a bit late to the panel as I had to come across SDCC to get here. Much of the cast minus Mia Kirshner and Harold Perrineau are on the panel along with the writer/director Ben Ketal and writer Steve Niles.

Luckily, I didn’t miss much. They show the trailer to Dark Days just as I get in and it looks pretty cool. Lots of vampires. Lots of big, tough characters and so on. How well it will carry to entire film is another story. Overall not too shabby.

They then take Facebook questions? What the hell? The room is standing room only, although there are plenty of seats, and you are taking Facebook questions?

Someone on Facebook asks about the language of the vampires and the creators call it an ancient tongue that has been crafted throughout the centuries.

The host asks for someone on the panel to make the scream of the vampires and they all scoff at the idea saying they’d pass out.

Kiele Sanchez is in this film taking over as Stella. Anyone remember her as Nikki from Lost? Yeah, worst character ever.

Luckily, she redeemed herself in A Perfect Getaway and looks to continue to make amends with this film.

They try and show a clip from the film but the sound is FUBARed so they try again. And again. No luck. And again. No luck. Pausing to figure it out the crew and cast are not happy.

They take questions in the meantime and someone asks when part three will come out. They say it will depend on the fan response to part two. But they have plenty of material with the graphic novels for a part three so if it happens they won’t have trouble finding material.

Someone asks about the difference between this film and the original and the response is this is more of an action horror film rather than the original which was more visceral and confined. Interesting, as they told me earlier this was about scary vampires not action horror. But we’ll see what happens.

Sanchez says she almost got the character of Stella the first time around so she read the graphic novel already. She says she has many friends that are huge fans of the graphic novel and they told her “not to ‘f’ it up.”

Diora Baird was drawn to the film because these were “vampires minus the glitter. These vampires are not sexy or hot. You see these vampires you want to run.”

They try the clip again and it works … sorta. Good enough for government work. The scene is dark, wicked dark with only a handful of glowlights and weapons fire for any light. Lots of gunfire. I keep expecting Sly Stallone to come out. The compared it to Aliens earlier and I can see it now, nearly right down to the soundtrack. Copyright infringement? Anyway, it is a pretty cool scene and I’m a bit more hopeful for the film.

Some dude asks about if Sanchez or Baird feel as if they have been objectified in horror films. Both say not in this film, but Baird felt a bit in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Baird actually goes on to say that chicks are kick ass in this film and she wants to do it again.

Sanchez said that the actors that were nameless vampires seemed to be almost too into the part and the rest of the cast kept their distance. They seemed to take it very seriously and when the makeup came on, they became a different person. Baird and Sanchez both said they had to warn a female vampire that they were acting and that she didn’t need to hurt them. Baird went so far as to tell the chick “this is not real.” Funny stuff.

How do they cast their vampires? Ketai says they actually had people audition to be a vampire for the larger roles. For the smaller roles, the extras casting director brought 100 people and lined them up and each one tried to come up and scare him. The best then got a role in the film as a nameless, extra vampire.

Which does Sanchez like better – film or TV? She likes both (shocking) and gives her reasons why – TV you get to connect more with a character but with movies you get a finite period and a more gypsy lifestyle that she is also fond of.

An uber Sanchez fan asks for her name card and she gives it to him even though it is misspelled. And that’s how the panel ends.

Many thanks to Diora and her representative for giving us this wonderful opportunity!

However, on this Monday’s new episode, “The Love Guru”, Davis’ luck takes a dramatic turn, when he meets the very sexy Andrea, played by guest star Diora Baird (Wedding Crashers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning).

During a recent visit to the set of Accidentally on Purpose, Baird explained her character, Andrea, to me thusly: “She likes to have sex… a lot. And for some reason, she’s really attracted to Davis. It doesn’t make any sense, because she’s really out of his league, but all she wants to do is use him as her sex object.”

Executive Producer Claudia Lonow explained to me that this scenario arises after lead character Billie (Jenna Elfman) , “kind of realizes that at this point she’s on the dating sidelines,” thanks to her pregnancy. As a result, Lonow explained, “She’s dating vicariously, acting as the puppet master for Davis.” With Billie as his mentor, or Love Guru, Davis ends up miraculously getting the attention of Andrea.

Wright notes that a dilemma arises when Davis finds himself truly attracted to Andrea, and not just for physical reasons. Said Wright, “She’s obviously very keen on a sexual relationship with Davis, but clearly she’s an amazing girl and Davis sees that instantaneously. And I think for the first time in awhile, he’s like, ‘Man, if I’m going to mess around, I’d like to have an actual relationship with you, because you seem like a really cool person.’ But she won’t have any of that.”

Wright, who shares his character’s passion for gaming — Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty, Brother in Arms and Splinter Cell are among his favorites — had a lot of praise for Baird, remarking, “She’s so funny, she’s so cool, super down to Earth. She’s great to work with. It’s hard to come in on a show where you’re a guest star, because there’s a dynamic that’s built up and you have to come in and kind of do your thing. And she just fit in so well.” On top of that Wright added, “To be manhandled by a beautiful woman is a beautiful thing. So yeah, it was just an absolute joy.”

Baird in the meantime displayed the same quick wit her followers on on her Twitter feed are familiar with. She joked that her method for preparing to play a character like Andrea was to “basically have sex with everyone,” and when I asked her how it was to work with Wright, she noted he was now standing behind me, and loudly exclaimed, “The guy that plays Davis is a total asshole.” But she made it up to him soon after – As I was talking to Wright, Baird walked by and shouted, “Nick has a big wiener!”

I asked Baird what it was like playing a scene where she sexually intimidates Wright, and she deadpanned, “It’s a difficult task. It’s very, very difficult. He doesn’t make it easy for me,” before adding, “No, he’s great. I think he secretly enjoys it, perhaps. I think it’s actually sometimes harder for the guy I’m usually seducing or raping or something – because that’s what I basically do to him, I rip his pants off, I push him down.”

Baird noted she’d played a very sexual character on several CBS comedies recently, including Two and a Half Men and Gary Unmarried. “I just have fun with it,” she said, explaining that if she was going to be cast as that type of character, it was nice to do it in a comedy where, “Instead of having to take your clothes off to seduce someone, you’re taking them off to get a laugh – which is a very big difference for me. I would do pretty much anything for a joke, for the sake of a laugh. I don’t care. Boobs are boobs. Whatever, we all got ‘em! Some men have ‘em!”

Source: tv.ign.com