The way actress Jessica Cauffiel figures it, she has the best of both worlds. She can do horror and hilarity almost at the same time, and in the same movie.

One in particular opens today in Toronto. It's called Valentine, and also stars Denise Richards, Marley Shelton, Jessica Capshaw and Katherine Heigl.

In Valentine, all is not hugs and kisses, more like gore galore. But Cauffiel gets most of the gags in the ghoulish feature.

"I get to be side-splittingly hilarious one moment," reports Cauffiel, "and racked with terror the next, crying, and snot flying out the nose."

It's not for everybody, but Cauffiel is enjoying her dual assignment.

Directed by Jamie Blanks, the Valentine terror trip deals with four friends who meet for a buddy's funeral, then find out they are the targets of lethal revenge by a cherub-mask wearing killer.

It's not her first go-round in the slasher genre. Cauffiel had a co-starring part in Urban Legend 2: Final Cut, shot in Toronto and released last fall.

Ironically, the L.A.-based Cauffiel will be back here again to shoot the romantic comedy You Stupid Man, on, yes, Valentine's Day.

Aside from that quirky coincidence, she considers the advantages of being a cut-up while others are getting cut up.

"The thing is that in the two terror things I've done, I've been the funny one," says Cauffiel, by way of explaining why she's not afraid of the scream queen label. "I'm the one who gets to make a crack after someone gets slashed."

Cauffiel's also the one who has made an impression in Hollywood since her Out-of-Towners movie debut with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.

"I ended up doing that movie because they heard I looked like Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin," recalls the Detroit-born and raised singer-actress. "They actually tracked me down. I couldn't believe it."

At the time, she was working off-Broadway in low-profile musicals while sometimes fronting a jazz-pop band. That was soon after she graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in musical theatre.

Now in her mid-twenties, she's been on a roll for the last two years. On the movie front, she's also had smaller parts in Road Trip, Moon Over Madison and Masterblast.

On TV, she was briefly in the soap Guiding Light, guested on Law & Order and is often remembered for her Frasier role as Kit in the Shut Out In Seattle episodes.

Mostly, she's been working steadily, making a name for herself as a comedy actress and surprising a few folks with her vocal abilities.

Someday she would like that singing, dancing and acting experience to come together on a Broadway musical stage, but for now she's following through on the film career.

Before You Stupid Man in Toronto, she had one of the leads in the comedy, Legally Blonde, with Reese Witherspoon and former boyfriend Matt Davis, which was shot around California last fall and winter.

"I'm like a gypsy wondering aimlessly, but it is my pleasure," Cauffiel suggests. "And it's a hootin' and hollerin' good time."

It must be an exhausting good time, she's told.

"Not for me," she says, "I have a lot of energy. I have enough energy to, like, fuel three small third world countries with my little finger."


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