I was about seven or eight, living in Windsor and a carnival came to town. My cousins were visiting at the time so my mother, their mother and the rest of us went to the fair grounds for some fun.
There was one attraction that we became obsessed with: The Fun House.
I mean, what could be more fun that something called a “Fun House”? We pleaded and cajoled but our guardians were oddly reluctant to take us into it. Finally, however, whining won out and we got the tickets and went in.
Well, whoever labelled it “The Fun House” had a most peculiar idea of what “fun” actually meant. Things that looked like corpses popped out at us, there were weird moaning and groanings, and all in all, it was frankly quite terrifying. Worst of all was the constant screaming that set my nerves on edge and made my head hurt.
Finally my mother leaned down and said, “Stop it!”
I went to say “Stop what?” but as soon as I began to speak, the screaming stopped.
You really can be so scared that you don’t know you’re screaming.
What they promise you.
What you get.
In horror films, the screamer is generally female and there are some actresses who have become known as “scream queens.” One of the most famous, and perhaps the original scream queen was Janet Leigh in Psycho.
Janet Leigh’s infamous shower scene.
Leigh would go on to scream in another Hitchcock film, The Birds.
It’s fitting somehow that Leigh’s daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, should become the next famous scream queen, exercising her lungs in a series of John Carpenter Halloween films.
Jamie, you needn’t look so frightened. Austin Powers isn’t that bad.
During the ’90s a new covey of scream queens arose, and as moral taboos were lessened, these women gained fame as much for their sexiness as for their ability to scream. Neve Campbell started as a scream queen and went on to do some serious cinematic work. She will probably be most remembered, however, for her hot pool scene with Denise Richards in Wild Things.
Take your time here. I’ll see you in the next paragraph.
Another beauty from roughly the same period was Jennifer Love Hewitt, who starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel.
It was Kate Beckinsale who is recognised as having earned “Best Scream Queen” at the 2006 Scream Awards for her role in Underworld: Evolution.
But according to the NY Daily News, 2010, “horror’s reigning scream queen” is presently Danielle Harris.
So tell me — who’s your favourite scream queen?
Adramelech Defects 
Frank you’ve done one heck of a lot of research into this. It is highly commendable that you have provided this very important public service. I did a little research of my own and came across what might be considered the definitive B Horror Movie. Screamer Linnea Quigley who starred in Return of the Living Dead also appeared in a little something called Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. Apparently this was loosely based on the classical short story The Monkey’s Paw. Go figure.
Thanks for the scream queen tip. I never heard of Linnea, and when I did a search, look what I found.
It’s nice to see she found a decent career for herself after her screamer days.
I’ve been called a screamer, but something tells me we’re not talking about the same thing here.
That’s not necessarily a problem.
I love the way you think, Frank. Not the most effective thing for cutting off screams, in my experience, but it certainly creates that helpless feeling that’s so wonderfully exciting, not to mention it’s aesthetically pleasing to the other party, and who doesn’t love that almost-but-not-quite intelligible pleading?
Aesthetically I’m not fond of ball-gags. They ruin the lines, but that pleading thing is nice.