Manitou’s question of the day is this . . . . What is cooler than a lady into horror? Okay well, before any of you start drooling all over yourselves and hankering for tater tots I shall spare you the head scratching and tell you. . . . Not a damn thing.
A woman who digs on the macabre and fiends for the pleasures of the dark side is a true lady in my eyes.
Take my Filthy Regan for instance. I always found my interest being peaked by her since day one, and that interest was jumpstarted on her fondness for the gooey and gory things in life. Any woman can puddle herself over some flowers wrenched from earth or shiny happy ball balls scraped from a smelly mine somewhere in an even smellier neck of the terrain. But a woman who shudders yummily when you talk about decapitated heads or beams like a flashlight poking inside of a chest cavity when you say things like "A brain from Spain is slurped through a straw like red rain" . . . . . . that is a special kind of lady. She brews up and tosses out a mean bowl of pea soup too.
Me and my filthy goddess began our introduction to each other by waxing over horror movies. I always figured, hey if a woman is into horror movies she must be cool, right?
Long before she began to dazzle me with her sickness and fondle my senses with her filth, there was a group of ladies who took their love for horror to new heights. The screen. Not just sitting in the audience mind you, these ladies actually were on the screen.
They call them scream queens, and by technical standards Fay Wray was considered the first one I suppose. She had starred in a handful of horror goodies in the early 30's, but when she jumped into the hand and heart of that giant ape she jumped into history and became widely known as the first official scream queen.
Since screaming and making with the monkey love there have been many others. I’m not quite sure if there are any scream queens of today that can melt hearts and ooze goddess appeal like some of the scream queens of old. But there are a few women who continue this tradition and can belt out a scream with the best of 'em.
Being a true goddess of horror and a great scream queen is not about sex appeal. It’s all about scream appeal. You either have it or you don't. What makes a great scream queen is a grab bag of qualities that can find themselves ranged (deranged, rather) in the youthful wonder of Linda Blair as she jammed a crucifix into her holiest of holies or the demented and aging charm of Bette Davis serving up a roasted rat to Joan Crawford in Whatever happened to baby Jane?
Off set Crawford might have given Davis a run for her money by flushing that rodent down the toilet and opening up a can of whoop ass on her with a coat hanger. But, its all about celluloid terror and legacy here and there and so therefore, mommy dearest shall be disqualified in my eyes as there are plenty more alluring goddesses of grue to behold. Some have left the genre (or screen altogether) and yet they still leave behind an impression that thrills and spills like a freshly done kill. Others are on the younger side and their parties might just be getting started. Regardless, there are many queens of horror on the scene that have or will continue to evoke screams both inside and outside of nightmares and maybe even a few blood wet dreams along the way.
As always, who is or was the best scream queen will always be a matter of opinion. I have my personal favorite. She let me grow on her back before I popped out just in time to witness her sharing a bowl of her famous pea soup with Father Karras just prior to tossing his penguin suited ass down a flight of steps on M street in Georgetown.
Yep, Filthy Regan is and will always be my favorite scream queen. But, when it comes to screen scream queens these ladies are some of the ones that could surely be serenaded to a certain Carly Simon tune from The Spy who loved me and should be praised in endless heaps of spooky love because when it came to making us horror fans wide eyed in wonder at their horrific essence, nobody has ever did it or does it better still.
One of the most important scream queens was Janet Leigh, when she took the most famous shower in motion picture history and shocked audiences everywhere by her seemingly main character run coming to an end with the arch of a butcher knife.
Her prestige to being a scream queen legend not only runs down the shower drain, it runs in the family and her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, would go on to be quite an important figure herself in the horror movie genre.
Jamie Lee would become a scream queen of epic proportions in the late 70's and into the early 80's by appearing in such horror movie classics as Halloween 1 and 2, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train. Truly a goddess to behold that woman.
Before dazzling Superman as Lois Lane and crawling around in the bushes in Hollywood, Margot Kidder was an important scream queen.
Prior to the aforementioned she starred in three classics of the genre. . . . Sisters, Black Christmas, and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. . . . Before going on to appear as Kathy Lutz in the original Amityville Horror with James Brolin.
Sadly, she will probably forever be remembered for the mental illness that plagued her in real life and her affinity for shrubbery, but Margot will always have a special place in my blackened heart.
Sometimes, like Jamie Lee, one can be born into a legacy of infamy. Such is the case with three ladies who certainly deserve mentioning.
Though primarily known for that TV show Joan of Arcadia, Amber Tamblyn was seen in the Americanized versions of both The Ring and The Grudge 2. Having a dad like b-movie icon Russ Tamblyn surely paved her way to the screen.
The greatest scream queen legacy award thus far, in my opinion, must go to Asia Argento. When your dad is Dario Argento, the undisputed master of the Giallo and Italian horror god, super stardom simply must be your calling.
Sure, she makes a lot of horrid b-movies outside of the genre. But this first lady of squirms and squeals has been in two of my personal favorites, Demons 2 and The Church, along with appearing in dads own Trauma, Stendhal Syndrome and Mother of Tears.
While her mother was not exactly a horror genre veteran, Jordan Ladd has begun to make quite a name for herself in the business of terror by appearing in Cabin Fever, Hostel 2, and most recently Grace, where she gave birth to one very thirsty baby. Blood thirsty, in fact.
Yep, mom . . . the Charlie’s Angel, Cheryl Ladd herself. . . must be proud of her little baby all grown up and terrifying audiences everywhere.
If you can't be born into a career in horror and gore one could always do the next best thing and marry into it.
After marrying maverick director and horror guy bad ass, John Carpenter, Adrienne Barbeau appeared in hubbies The Fog and Escape from New York, as well as Wes Craven's Swamp Thing and playing the bitch wife from hell that gets fed to a monster in Creepshow. From Bea Arthur's Maude to a beast brunch under the stairs. Now I call that progress.
Sheri Moon Zombie will always be up for consideration in many scream queen roles. She does fuck the director ya know. Mr. Rob Zombie himself.
Before slinking off into obscurity, I was always quite fond of Jill Schoelen.
The Stepfather. Popcorn. Curse 2: the bite. Cutting Class with an unknown, at the time, guy named Brad Pitt, she then became the muse for the latest, at the time, adaptation of the Phantom of the Opera, who was played by none other than Mr. Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. Schoelen certainly was a woman who knew how to inspire a man in the darkest ways.
Another personal old school favorite of mine was the always-magnificent PJ Soles.
Most recently seen in Rob Zombies The Devils Rejects, she was in two of the all time horror genre classics, Carrie and Halloween. She was also a muse herself outside of the genre as Riff Randall, the number one Ramones fan in Rock and Roll High School. Gabba-gabba-hey.
Some recent additions to the scream queen hall of fame include these ladies-
Sarah Michelle Gellar.
She was in that Americanized grunge movie and a couple of lightweight horror goodies, Scream 2 and I know who you did it with last summer. But she will always have a soft spot in my heart as televisions Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Kate Beckinsale.
I remember first seeing this exquisite beauty in a creepy ghost story called Haunted. But since then she has gone on to becoming a super goddess of film fright from appearing in Van Helsing and the first two Underworld movies. Underworld 4 is being made too. Hell yeah. (This was of course at the time the original blog was posted. As of recently 4 was released and there is talk of 5 if interest persists. I know that my own persists like a pulsating gland as I really dig these movies.)
Eliza Dushku.
This screen veteran has actually been starring in movies since she was a little girl. She played Arnold and Jamie Lee's daughter in True Lies and went opposite Leo Crappy-o and Bobby De Niro in This Boy's Life. She gained notoriety as fellow slayer to Buffy, Faith, before going on to star in two great dark themed television shows of her own, Tru Calling and Dollhouse. I'm still pissed at how the plug was pulled on Tru Calling not only in mid-season but mid-story arch. Bastards.
Dushku has stayed plenty busy in the genre though. She was also in Wrong Turn, Soul Survivors, The Alphabet Killer, and most recently in Open Graves. Surely a horror queen in the making if there ever was one.
When it comes to quality one can simply not outdo the classics I always say. This theory also holds true to the scream queen legend.
Caroline Munro was an early favorite of mine.
Appearing as Victoria Phibes opposite that spooky maestro, Vincent Price, in both Dr. Phibes movies before starring in the truly amazing Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter.
She just oozes class and after taking some time away from the genre she reappeared in three great films. . . Faceless, Maniac, and The Last Horror Film. This lady gets the official Joe Spinell seal of approval.
I met Dee Wallace Stone at a horror convention a few years back.
What a truly sweetheart of a lady she is. Many will remember her as the mother in E. T. , but horror fans everywhere know her from the Hills Have Eyes, Cujo, and The Howling. She seems to have quite an effect on furry beasts and mountain men. (Recent note- she gets pretty down and dirty to the tune of downright bizarre-o in Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem too.)
Another theory I have is that it’s about quality and not quantity, and in that case Marilyn Burns takes the cake, before throwing it on the ground and stomping it to its battered splattered deathbed.
Though, she has only appeared in a few movies, her role in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre surely earns the title scream queen and then some. While she seemed to be having a massive breakdown on screen, it was all in the name of thrills and chills. . . . And acting. I think they should name an Oscar catagory after her. Most awesome meltdown, maybe?
So many scream queens. Many that I neglected for whatever reasons. . . sorry about that ladies. But these special ladies and their special talents for belting out a good blood-curdling roar on cue from the director should never be overlooked.
Who is my personal favorite scream queen of all time outside of my filthster? Barbara Steele.
Hands down this mistress of darkness will forever be the truest essence of gothic beauty and massive scream appeal by which all other ladies of horror should be judged.
This true lady of the night gave eerie beauty a new reckoning via her appearences in such classics as Black Sunday, The Long Hair of Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, Castle of Blood, and the absolutely brilliant Nightmare Castle. She starred alongside Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff in the truly bizarre and wonderful Curse of the Crimson Altar and in the 70's appeared in Shivers, Piranha, and then in the 1980 slasher classic Silent Scream, a forgotten favorite.
She has not really done much since making the statement that she "never wanted to crawl out of another fucking coffin ever again." Though sadly missed, her gothic splendor and creepy allure is forever immortalized in these classic films.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" goes the old saying. I certainly agree with that, but when it comes to scorning and fury and hellish undertaking on a truly majestic scale, no woman can compare to the scream queens. They are horrors finest through and through. These ladies should come first in my humble opinion.
*****Original blog posted 5/12/2010*****
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