50
Great Scream Queens Part 3 of 4
In part 1 of this series,
we discussed the phenomenon of the Scream Queen and talked about some of the
European actors. In part 2 we looked at those actors known primarily for onerole. In this one, we are look at a less specialized, but vitally important,
group of Scream Queens
The horror genre has
produced some household names (Jamie Lee Curtis anyone?). But most of the
actors are not well known outside of the genre. Some of them aren’t even well
known inside the genre. Dick Miller was
that kind of star. You’d see him in a horror movie and go, “hey there’s that
guy again” but not really know anything about him more than that. Some of these
actors are well known outside of the horror genre, but within the horror genre
aren’t usually thought of as Scream Queens despite their significant
contributions. But horror movies wouldn’t be possible without all of them.
So what do I call these
actors? I thought about calling them the workhorses of the genre, for surely
their efforts have kept the genre moving, but that didn’t really sum up their
contribution. I thought about calling them the usual suspects because many of
their faces are familiar. But the cops round up the usual suspects whether
they’ve done anything or not, and these actor’s contributions are undeniable.
If horror were a great big
cathedral, surely Jamie Lee Curtis and Barbara Steele would be the beautiful
stain glass windows, the centerpieces that draw the eye, that you take pictures
of and tell friends about. The actors on this list are more like the supporting
arches in the roof or the bricks in the foundation. Maybe not the centerpieces,
but indispensable.
You’ll notice a healthy
representation of Hammer starlets on this list. Hammer picked up the horror
flag from Universal and from the late 1950s through early 1970s produced the
best horror in the industry. This horror rebirth was led, mostly by two actors;
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing with Lee (usually but not always) playing the
villain and Cushing (often but not always) playing the hero.
Lee and Cushing were the most
regular faces of the franchise but Hammer was equally known for its seemingly
endless supply of beautiful, glamorous women. Some of these women went on to bigger
careers after Hammer, some are known mainly for their Hammer work.
As always, many Scream
Queens can fit into different categories. If you don’t see your favorite here,
she may be in a previous installment of this list or showing up in a future
one.
Julie Strain-If this were a list of B-movie Queens,
rather than scream queens, Julie would probably be #1 on the list. Her career
is stuffed with so many films it would be hard for anyone to remember them all.
There were several years where she appeared in between 5 to 10 films per year!
Her appearances covered the genres; horror, sci-fi and action. Julie’s career has
been cut short by an illness related to an injury she suffered when she was
younger.
Interestingly, Julie is probably
known less for her movies and more as
the inspiration for art. In addition to appearing on numerous Heavy Metal
covers, Julie has been painted several times by the most famous cheesecake
artist of the last 50 years, Olivia. She has been a model for Vampirella comics
on numerous occasions and Hollywood really blew it when they failed to have her
play that part in a movie.
Madeline Smith- Madeline’s pouty lips and build, which
was a mixture of voluptuous and sleek, made her stand out , even against the
sea of beautiful Hammer starlets. Like most of the other Hammer starlets, her
horror resume was almost exclusively Hammer. She had a small performance in
Taste the Blood of Dracula in 1970 and then followed that up immediately with
the performance of her lifetime as the object of Ingrid Pitt’s affection in
Vampire Lovers. A few years later she had a non-Hammer appearance in Vincent
Price’s Theatre of Blood before finishing off her horror career with one more
Hammer film, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. Madeline kept working for
another 30 years, but her horror career was mostly over. It didn’t matter. Her
Hammer appearances, especially Vampire Lovers, was enough to make her a
permanent object of affection for generations of horror fans.
Monica Bellucci- Like Mila Jovavich, Monica’s career
began as a fashion model. She broke into
movies at 25 in 1990. Her first horror role came in 1992 as one of the three
Brides in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I don’t think the Brides have ever been
featured so prominently and have certainly never looked as sexy as they did in
that film. She stayed busy but didn’t
make another horror movie until 2001 with the French horror-action-period
piece, Brotherhood of the Wolf. She followed that up with appearances in the
2nd and 3rd Matrix films. In 2005 she starred as the evil queen in Terry
Gilliam’s dark fairy tale, The Brothers Grimm.
In 2018 she appeared in the horror-action-comedy Nekrotonic. Monica
doesn’t have a ton of horror appearances but those that she has are all unique.
She has the exotic, demure, charm of Barbara Steele combined with a tangible
voluptuous sexuality. I hope there are more horror films in her future.
Veronica Carlson- Veronica was one of the rare Hammer
starlets. Not only did she appear in multiple films, she had leading roles in
those films; Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
and The Horror of Frankenstein. Shortly after her stint with Hammer she
appeared in the horror comedy Old Dracula and the Hammeresque film, The Ghoul.
Sybill Danning- Like Julie Strain, Sybil is more of a B movie queen than a Scream Queen, but she has a few horror appearances that more than qualify her for this list. Sybil’s early career was mostly in erotic roles and it’s not hard to understand why. She is a knock out, the kind of hot beauty usually reserved for centerfolds. Beyond the erotica she appeared in action films and westerns and few Italian giallo films. She got some big screen American exposure as the space Valkyrie St. Exmin in Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars.
After a few more roles in various genres she
made They’re Playing with Fire in 1984. This was a forerunner to the Basic
Instinct type sub-genre of films. Sybil plays a hot milf carrying on a torrid
love affair with a young boy and various murders ensue causing us to questions
her intentions. Though the movie gave us a
chance to see a whole lot of Sybil, it was also the best chance ever to
see her acting chops and she was pretty good.
Then came her most famous
role as the werewolf-witch in The Howling 2, starring opposite of Christopher
Lee. Sybil simply stole every scene she was in.
She played the warden in the black comedy sexploitation, Reform School
Girls in 1986. Younger fans probably
know her from her role in the fake trailer for Werewolf Women of the S.S. or as
Michael Meyer’s nurse in Rob Zombie’s Halloween
Ellie Church- Ellie is one of the new 21st century Scream
Queens. Most of her work has been in B movies so she’s not a household name.
With less than a decade in front of the camera she has already racked up double
digit horror credits. Her body of work has
stretched beyond the typical slasher films that fill the ranks of independent /
low budget horror. Some of her films include; the outrageous and unforgettable
Frankenstein Created Bikers; the exploitation homage Amazon Hotbox; Skeletons
in the Closet, an anthology where the bookends are bookended and the definitely
non-horror tripped out Jessie's Super Normal Regular Average Day. One of her
first movies is still her best (in my opinion);Time to Kill, where she gets to
take center stage in a trip through a kind of hell of the psyche.
Ingrid Pitt- Ingrid is another example of scream queen status being bestowed based on quality rather than quantity. She will forever be known and loved for her role in the lesbian vampire film, Vampire Lovers, where she seduced Madeline Smith. The very next year she starred as a kind of Elizabeth Bathory in the bloody (and sexy) Countess Dracula.
Though those were her
only Hammer films, she starred in two more films that seem like they were made
by Hammer :The House that Dripped Blood and The Wicker Man. Those 4 films came
out within a span of 3 years, which is an astounding degree of quality film
making in such a short period of time. She made a few more horror films over
the next few decades but it was those 4 films, especially the 2 Hammer films,
that live forever in the minds of horror fans.
April Monique Burril-April is another of the unsung heroes of independent horror, starring in numerous low budget horror films over the last 15 years. Her biggest contribution has been in the reoccurring role of Chainsaw Sally. She first played the character in a 2004 movie of the same name. Since then, the character has had had two series and April is currently making an animated Chainsaw Sally series.
Janet Leigh- Janet had a successful mainstream career
long before she ever became associated with horror. All that, of course, changed with the role of
Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Her death in the shower might be the
most famous scene in all of horror. That role earned her a Golden Globe and an
Oscar nomination. Afterward she starred in the psychological thriller, The
Manchurian Candidate. She later starred in the bizarre Night of the Lepus
before teaming up with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog. She finished
out her horror career with another film opposite her daughter in 1998’s
Halloween: H20.
Rhona Mitra- Rhona’s horror career began in the unusual
sci-fi/ action/ horror movie Beowulf, starring opposite of Christopher Lambert.
She had a small role in Hollow Man, being sexually assaulted by an invisible
Kevin Bacon. After that, she stayed busy with a lot of TV work before returning
to horror with the werewolf film, Skinwalkers.
She had the lead role in Neil Marshall’s post-apocalyptic action-horror
film, Doomsday. Her most high profile role was as Sonja, the vampire
protagonist in the third Underwold film. Since then she appeared in a few
episodes of the TV series The Strain. Rhona was made for action horror films. I
hope there are more of them in her future.
Linda Hayden- Linda packed a remarkably impressive horror career into a very short time-span.
Linda’s first horror appearance was as the chief object of Christopher Lee’s
desire in Hammer’s Taste the Blood of Dracula. It’s one of the better entries
in the series. She followed that up with 2 suspense thrillers before starring
in another vampire movie a few years later, the horror comedy Old Dracula with
Veronica Carlson. That same year she starred in Madhouse with Vincent Price and
Peter Cushing (which adds up to a pretty impressive resume). She followed that
up in 1976 with Expose, a “video nasty”, with Udo Kier.
But none
of those compare with her crowning horror achievement, Blood on Satan’s Claw (1970).
This is one of the finest folk-horror movies ever made and its due in large
part to her (and its excellent musical score).
She played Angel Blake, a lolita who leads the town’s children in the
worship of a devilish creature. She presides over rape and murder and even
tries to seduce the school master, all with sinister glee. Linda was a great lead
villain and it’s too bad Hammer never used her as such.
Allison Hayes- Allison is one of the few scream queens of
the 50s and early 60s. Following the Great Depression and WW2, it’s no surprise
that horror fell out of fashion for a few years. What horror there was usually
came packed with science fiction. Interestingly, Allison’s big screen debut was
in one of the Francis the talking mule pics, Francis Joins the WACS. (That movie
also starred Julie Adams of Creature from the Black Lagoon and Playboy playmates
and cult figures, Mamie Van Doren and Mara Corday) Her first horror role was in
Roger Corman’s The Undead. She played a voluptuous witch in the Dark Ages,
scheming against another witch that she sees as competition. Alison just oozed
sexuality out of the tight outfits that Corman had her squeezed in to.
She followed that up with
The Zombies of Mora Tau, The Unearthly (sharing the screen with Tor Johnson and
John Carradine!) and The Disembodied. She had that hot immaculate beauty of a
50’s pin-up. Her biggest role (no pun intended) was as the title character in Attack
of the 50 Foot Woman. The image of Allison, clad in a cloth bikini and towering
over a city, has become one of the iconic images of sci-fi horror. She had a
two more horror appearances after that; The Hypnotic Eye and the Crawling Eye.
Debbie Rochon- Debbie is one of the work horses of
horror. Her career spans 4 decades and covers far too many movies to name. Some
of the more famous firms she has appeared in were Troma’s Terror Firmer and
Tromeo and Juliet. Most of Debbie’s career has been in either low budget B
movies or even cheaper independent films.
She hasn’t enjoyed the fame of other scream queens with much smaller resumes,
but no matter. Independent horror wouldn’t be possible without actors like
Debbie, and fans will enjoy any role she has.
Haven’t
seen your favorite Scream Queen yet? No worries, she may be waiting in the 4th
and final installment coming up.
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