The Revenge of Gigi Gustin [Dread Central Centerfold]
You already know her name—and by this time next year, the rest of the world will, too. Gigi Gustin isn’t anyone’s muse. She’s the kind of woman your mother warned you about: sharp-tongued, bleach blonde, self-made, and utterly unbothered by expectation. Actor, dancer, and creative force, Gigi carved her name into Hollywood’s rusted-out Chevy not by asking permission, but by rewriting the map entirely. She funds her own projects, flips rejection into rocket fuel, and leaves a trail of body glitter and bloodstains in her wake. And trust me—she’s just getting started.
“I wasn’t getting the roles I wanted,” she says plainly. “So I made my own.”
Part One: The Revenge of Gigi Gustin
Gustin isn’t new to the screen. She’s been acting since childhood and even starred in an award-winning short film, Night Flirt, that was on the brink of feature-length expansion—until producers decided she wasn’t a big enough name to lead it. “They told me I didn’t bring in an audience yet. I said, that’s fair. But I created the whole thing. I financed it, starred in it, found the writer. I’m not going to hand it off and disappear.”
She offered a compromise: let her play the opening victim, Drew Barrymore-style. They agreed. But like suits so often do, they backtracked. “They tried to screw me on the option agreement. None of the conditions we discussed were actually baked into the contract,” she explains. “And when I asked for proof of funds, they refused.”
So she walked.
It was 2020. COVID had wiped out her savings. Gustin, living alone, started dancing at a topless bar, not to make ends meet, but to take control of her future.
“If the people with the money get to make the rules, I decided to become one of those people,” she says. “I worked five days a week. First one in, last one out—for a year and a half. That’s how I funded Stiletto.”
This isn’t some glamourized hustle story. No. It’s a tale of revenge. Stiletto, Gustin’s forthcoming horror feature, is sure to take the genre by its throat in the very near future. Snow-globed within real-life strip club truths, its glitz and gore will be shaped by the lived experience of the women who have seen it all from the stage, the dressing rooms, and the VIP booths.
And, most importantly, it’ll be told not in shame, but with power.
“I wanted to tell the story from inside the world,” she says. “And I didn’t want it to be about sex. I wanted it to be about survival, friendship, and revenge.”
Promised to be a neon-drenched LA slasher film, it follows a dancer investigating her sister’s murder. She goes undercover, taking a job at the same club where her sister worked, hoping to bait the killer. But this isn’t a movie about exotic dancers: it’s about people.
“I wanted people to connect with her, whether they’ve been in a club or not,” Gustin says. “Revenge. Guilt. Sibling grief. These are universal emotions. You just happen to be experiencing them in heels.”
While Gustin shares the inside scoop on her film, what stands out to me immediately is the uniqueness of its villain: a deranged serial killer with a foot fetish who collects the stilettos of his victims. “That came directly from my own life,” she says. My eyes widen, and she’s quick to clarify. “I’ve made a lot of money off foot fetish clients. So I thought, what if I turned that into something terrifying?”
This is pulp storytelling with a mission: sensational, yes—but never disposable. Gustin built the film’s horror sequences with authenticity and allegory in mind. “I wanted to put a face on the real fears we carry,” she explains. “The scrutiny, the danger, the judgment that comes with sex work. Stiletto makes it literal.”
Part Two: The Edge of Gory
“When I first started dancing, girls would tell me I’d never make money unless I was willing to do certain things,” she recalls. “But I found my own way.”
In one scene, the club manager storms into the locker room and hurls a used condom across the space, where it lands on the mirror in front of a character who is something of a Gigi conduit. “That happened to me in real life,” Gustin tells me. “I was working at a place called Dames and Games, and I found a used condom in the VIP booth. I lasted four days there.”
And just like the characters she helped craft, she may be navigating trauma, but she’s not a victim—she’s a vigilante. “The Stiletto Killer represents everything I feared,” she says. “But they’re also the face of what I endured, what my peers endured, what we still endure.”
Even as Gustin took control of her narrative by financing her new movie, independent filmmaking is a nearly impossible task these days. “I was broke again after we wrapped,” Gustin admits. “We had an ambitious shooting schedule and still needed pickups.”
That’s when her real transformation began.
“I started leaning on the other dancers at work,” she says. “They shared their stories with me. They gave me strength. That’s when Stiletto stopped being just about me. It became about us.”
The result sounds like a film that, while steeped in gore and genre trappings, centers female solidarity. “These women weren’t written as strippers first,” she explains. “They’re friends, survivors, dreamers, sisters. They just happen to work at a club.”
Gustin admired Sean Baker’s Anora for similarly sparking cultural conversation, but she says her film is different. “Baker shines a light on the world of sex work. I want to live in it. To show the humanity inside it. This isn’t a cautionary tale—it’s a celebration, with stilettos and switchblades.”
Part Three: Final Girls Never Die
When asked about her final girl inspiration, Gustin doesn’t miss a beat. “Sigourney Weaver in Alien,” she says. “She’s feminine and powerful. I wanted to put Ripley in a bikini and heels.”
In many ways, that’s precisely what Gustin herself embodies.
But beneath all of the brilliance and beauty, there’s a real sense of heartbreak. “I lost a lot trying to make this film,” she says. “Money. Sleep. People. But I would do it all again.”
Gustin isn’t just in Stiletto. While the project was directed and written by the Emmy-nominated Samuel Gonzalez Jr., she produced it. Funded it. And yes, she danced for it. “I had to,” she says. “The story deserved to exist.”
It’s the kind of creative autonomy few actresses get to experience—especially those coming from sex work. Gustin isn’t asking for permission. She’s carving out space.
Her dream next step? “Scream,” she says. “I was born the year the first one came out. My cat’s named Wesley—that’s long for Wes Craven. I know those characters inside and out. I’d love to be involved as a creative producer on one. And I’d love to be in it.”
As for her all-important Scream rankings? I made sure to make note:
- Scream
- Scream 2
- Scream 4
- Scream 3
- Scream 6
- Scream 5
She’s got ideas. Big ones. But she’s not waiting around. “I’m not here to audition for someone else’s movie. I’m here to make mine.
“Growing up, I loved extreme horror because it felt like I was doing something forbidden,” she says. “Now I get to be the one who makes it. And that’s even better.”
Gigi Gustin is many things: scream queen, mastermind, producer, dancer, and dreamer. And like any great noir heroine, she’s not just trying to escape the darkness—she’s learning how to harness it.
Keep an eye on Dread Central for news on her film Stiletto as it becomes available.
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