The Scream Queens
By Hollywood.com Staff
By Hollywood.com Staff
Ah, those lovely damsels in distress. In a classic horror flick, they are usually the only thing left standing after the madman who hacked up all their friends and lovers is dead—or at least seemingly dead. And they sure can scream. Enough to wake up said madman.
| Camilla Belle as heard in: When a Stranger Calls | |
| In this remake of the creepy 1979 flick, Belle’s belle babysitter, Jill Johnson, is plagued by threatening phone calls that turn out to be coming from “inside the house!” And to think—if she’d only checked the damn children. Her cry for help is neither here nor there, but she may be the best a Scream Queen has looked doing it since. | |
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| Jessica Biel as heard in: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre | |
| In yet another remake, Biel plays the character most lusted-after by sadistic monsters and villains (in this “true” case, it’s Leatherface) —otherwise known as the hot chick. That’s the downside to looking the way Biel’s character, Erin, does. You’re villain bait. But on the bright side for Biel, she gets to test those pipes out, early and often—and quite effectively. | |
| Neve Campbell as heard in: Scream, Scream 2 and Scream 3 | |
| Ah, the non-irony of horror titles. But even Scream’s title doesn’t prepare for the decibels. As Sidney Prescott, Campbell looks terrified, all right, and for good reason: If it isn’t bad enough that her mom was brutally murdered just a year earlier, someone’s Punk’d her on the phone with one of those voice-disguising machines. And when she learns the caller means business, she [title]s like hell! | |
| Jamie Lee Curtis as heard in: All the Halloween movies; The Fog; Prom Night and Terror Train | |
| Definitely the mother of all Scream Queens, Jamie Lee Curtis obviously has quite the horror flick resume. Her ancestry hasn’t hurt, either, with mom Janet Leigh providing the famous yelp in Psycho’s shower scene. Horror maestro John Carpenter deserves credit, seemingly choosing Curtis as his muse for several of his films. But it all began with her role as Laurie Strode in 1978’s Halloween. Being the sibling of Michael Myers is not exactly a good thing, as we see (and hear) in the film, and its many subsequent follow-ups. | |
| Elisha Cuthbert as heard in: House of Wax | |
| Wouldn’t you be terrified if you had to act alongside Paris Hilton? In all seriousness, Cuthbert’s character, Carly, has every right to be scared to death—she’s stuck in a creepy nowhere town, where everyone is made of wax. Quite literally. But unlike Paris, her character isn’t immediately given the axe. Which affords her the opportunity to scream, joining the resident Scream King (Chad Michael Murray) in the film, so to speak. | |
| Sarah Michelle Gellar as heard in: The Grudge, The Grudge 2, upcoming The Return | |
| Gellar made the natural transition as Buffy, slaying vampires on the small screen, to big-screen Scream Queen. As Karen Davis in the oft-parodied Grudge, she must stop the supernatural curse in a haunted Tokyo house before it kills off everyone and–gulp—her, too. She doesn’t quite accomplish her task but at least makes it to the recently released Grudge 2, if that’s any indication. But we’ll say this much—there isn’t a whole lot left in the tank for screaming in the sequel. In her upcoming horror The Return, Gellar plays Joanna Mills, an on-the-road businesswoman who has visions of a past murder, only to travel back to the very (creepy) setting of the murders. Will she survive? Well, she is Sarah Michelle Gellar—and one helluva screamer. | |
| Naomi Watts as heard in: The Ring and The Ring Two | |
| In the role that launched her into superstardom, Watts is not initially the classic super-heroine, but, boy, does she turn into one. As Rachel Keller, Watts is fascinated from a journalistic point of view by a purported tape that kills its viewers within a week of watching it. As a soon-to-be victim of the tape–along with her young son—she’s no longer as fascinated as she is horrified. And as a woman living on borrowed time, she screams bloody murder—especially when things pop out of the TV. Wouldn’t you? | |
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| Ali Larter as heard in: House on Haunted Hill, Final Destination and Final Destination 2 | |
| Looks like a screamer, sounds like a screamer—must be one then. There’s a certain quality about Larter–maybe her good looks?–that just oozes “Scream Queen,” as first seen in House on Haunted Hill. In this remake, her character, Sara Wolfe, is one of a handful of people offered a million bucks for a night in a house with a rep for being naughty. Then later, Larter, as Clear Rivers, decides to try to cheat Death in the first two Final Destinations. But guess who gets the last laugh, er, scream? | |
| Sigourney Weaver as heard in: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Ressurrection | |
| One look at Sigourney tells us that she’s more than the strong, silent type among Scream Queens, but it doesn’t mean she isn’t heard from. In fact, during her Ellen Ripley phase and those particularly close encounters with the unfriendly creatures throughout the Alien series, she occasionally lets her presence be heard for miles. But for the most part, as evidenced by her repeated role reprisals, she is one lean, mean fighting machine, the type of heroine who would stop at nothing to protect herself and her crew—even in the face of alien goo. | |
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