scream queen

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English[edit]

WOTD – 15 September 2016

Pronunciation[edit]

A publicity photograph for the 1933 film King Kong, showing American actress Fay Wray in the clutches of King Kong. Wray is regarded as one of the first “scream queens”.

Noun[edit]

scream queen (plural scream queens)

  1. (informal) An actress who appears in several horror films.
    • 2004 October 4, “Psycho actress Janet Leigh dies”, in BBC News‎[1], archived from the original on 2 August 2016:
      Her [Janet Leigh's] "scream queen" status also led to cameo roles in Jamie Lee Curtis' 1998 horror sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and A Fate Totally Worse than Death in 2000.
    • 2007 April 27, Thomas K. Arnold, “Three screams for these stars”, in USA Today‎[2], archived from the original on 4 March 2016:
      What makes a good scream queen? Lloyd Kaufman, whose Troma Films has distributed more than 1,000 horror films since the mid-'70s, says, "It's more than just crying and having ketchup thrown on you. You not only have to be attractive, but you also have to have a big brain. You have to be frightened, you have to be sad, you have to be romantic."
    • 2017 May 11, Peter Schorn, “Going To Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film: The slasher film dissected in this documentary retrospective [review]”, in IGN‎[3], archived from the original on 15 September 2016:
      In short order, Friday the 13th (the first widely distributed major studio slasher flick), Terror Train and Prom Night – the latter two starring uber-scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis […] – led the charge into cinemas. With the formula nailed down – masked killer stalks and slays teenagers on a particular holiday or special event – everyone and their cousin could assemble their own cheapie horror flick and as a result, quality slumped as quantity multiplied.
    • 2011, “Nonfiction Books”, in Ellen Datlow, editor, The Best Horror of the Year, volume III, San Francisco, Calif.: Night Shade Books, →ISBN:
      Confessions of a Scream Queen by Matt Beckoff (BearManor Media) is a series of interviews with actresses associated with horror films (using a very loose definition of the term "scream queen").
    • 2015, Tim Foley, Scream Queens Paper Dolls, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, →ISBN:
      In this unique gallery of “Scream Queens,” you'll discover sixteen actresses who starred in bloodcurdling movies and TV shows […] The original Scream Queens were actresses in precarious, life-threatening situations—exemplified by the scene in King Kong in which the monstrous Kong "holds" [Fay] Wray in his hand while terrorizing Manhattan.

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Further reading[edit]

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