In Buzzkill, when a group of sorority sisters find themselves trapped with a vengeful killer, party-girl Nora (Siena Agudong) knows that the drunker she gets, the more her tipsy memories start revealing clues about who’s murdering her friends. But she’d better hurry, or her next vodka soda might be her last call.
Written by Suzanne Keilly (Slumber Party Massacre) and directed by Jem Garrard (R.L. Stine's Pumpkinhead), Buzzkill also stars Brec Bassinger and Aliyah's Interlude.
Bassinger, best known for playing Courtney Whitmore in Stargirl, stars alongside influencer and rapper Aliyah’s Interlude, who makes her feature-film debut as Lexi.
Ahead of Buzzkill's release on Tubi on September 25, the pair joined us for an exclusive interview to discuss what drew them to the horror movie, working with so many women on set, the reality of filming those bloody practical effects, and Siena Agudong's impressive transformation into "Drunk Nora."
They also opened up about their experiences with sororities, the unique blend of horror and comedy in Buzzkill, and why Agudong's performance left Bassinger wowed.
Check out the full interview with Brec and Aliyah in the player below.
What did it mean to both of you to get the opportunity to star in a slasher like this, particularly as it's a genre of horror that's given us so many iconic female characters over the decades?
Aliyah: I was super excited honestly when the offer came in because I was like, first of all, horror is my favourite genre, and I've always wanted to be in a horror movie. So for it to be a horror movie but also a chick flick where it's going to be so many women on set felt really, really good, and I was super excited about it.
Brec: I think for me I've been privileged enough to get to do some horror in my career, but the thing that really drew me to Buzzkill was the balance of horror and comedy. I think there are some scenes when I was reading, I'm like, I have never specifically [seen a] clown scene. When I was reading, I was like, this scene is chaotic. I've never seen something like this, and of course that makes me want to be a part of it because it felt very new and stimulating while still honouring a lot of those classic horror tropes.
How familiar were both of you with sororities, and was it fun to explore that culture in the middle of all this crazy whodunit horror going on in the film?
Aliyah: Yeah, it was definitely super cool to discover more about it. I didn't know—the most sorority knowledge I had before kind of researching for the film was from like those rush TikToks that always come on my For You page where they're like dancing and stuff because they're like happy that they just got into their favourite sorority. And that's kind of the vibe that I thought it was going to be going into it, but I realised that sororities, like depending on the school, the cultures, they're all so different and there's like so much lore behind every sorority.
Brec: I did not go to college, so I don't have a lot of sorority knowledge, and I have two older brothers. So that being said, I grew up with a lot of testosterone, but because of that, to combat that, my female community, my girlfriends, have always been the most important thing to me. And so I feel like I just leaned into that. And being on set with so many women, at one point it kind of felt like we were in a sorority, especially during night shoots. And it's like, we're up at 3:00 a.m., being crazy. Like, isn't that what sororities are supposed to do?
Brec, you've played a superhero before, and in this film Siena has an alter ego called "Drunk Nora." Did you have any advice for her with that kind of duality of the two characters she was playing in the film?
Brec: Girl, no. She is so talented. If anything, she was giving me advice. And I'm not actually the—like, she's so respectful and lovely and all, but like she's just so talented. I felt extremely inspired by her, and when I saw the script and saw that she was going to have to be playing drunk 90% of this film, I was intimidated for her, and she just took it head-on and knocked it out of the freaking park.
Aliyah, Lexi is a very straight-talking character, and you have some great scenes with Siena where you're not listening to her nonsense when she's drunk. How much fun were those moments for you to work on with that back and forth?
Aliyah: It was so cool, honestly, because obviously we get to see Siena, we get to see Drunk Nora, and then we also get to see Sober Nora for like two seconds. But like, she is, like Brec said, an incredible actress, and just having the opportunity to be in this movie with her was something that I'm super grateful for. And although she's drunk and crazy, she was still like the sweetest person ever to work with. So she's cool.
This is a slasher, so there's obviously some pretty wild things happening on screen throughout the film. So for both of you, what was it like to see some of those kills and those really bloody practical effects come together as you're working on the movie?
Brec: It's chaotic. At some point you're not even acting anymore. Because a lot—I'd say the majority, if not all of the blood was practical on the day. So there was just, like, blood squirting everywhere. So again, at some [point] it's just like, do I dissociate or do I lean into it? I'm not sure. But it makes the acting part much easier.
Aliyah: Yeah, I agree. There was so much blood. Like, it was everywhere all the time, 24/7. There were clowns, there were machetes, I think. I don't know. There was just like a lot of dangerous things going on. So the horror aspect could definitely be played into really well just because it would, as you said, be very practical.
Buzzkill premieres exclusively on Tubi on Friday, September 25.