A Decade of Scream Queens

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, a little independent movie called Halloween chilled audiences and impressed critics as one of the most masterful horror movies since Psycho. Its big-lunged young star, Jamie Lee Curtis, created the mold that every latter-day scream queen tried to fill. Soon every aspiring actor dreamed of breaking out in a hot horror film--but more often ended up in career-breaking schlock. Even Curtis stopped screaming and moved on to mainstream fare as the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser series and other Eighties slasher films ran their courses.

In 1996, another little independent movie, Scream, reinvented the genre with subversive humor, hip characters, witty dialogue and genuine scares. Critically acclaimed and a killer at the box office. Scream made a star out of Neve Campbell and opened the doors to another round of actors dying to be discovered. Scream fever was contagious and a slew of imitations followed. Even the matriarch of scream queens. Curtis, returned to the genre for a 20th anniversary sequel to Halloween. With the impending release of the third and final Scream this month, this pop-culture-savvy, self-referential movie trend appears to have passed as gritty, realistic horror films like The Blair Witch Project forge a brave new direction. In the annals of scary cinema, here are the nubile neophytes who made it fun to scream in the final decade of the millennium.

Heather Donahue

The Blair Witch Project

Lung Power: Immeasurable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: The graduate of the Philadelphia University of the Arts was an improv and stage actor in Philly and New York. Best Cut: Because of her bone-chilling, flash-light-lit last confession in Blair Witch Project, people will think twice about camping without a cell phone.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Lung Power: Visible

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: Sang, jiggled and aerobicized her way through Dance! Workout With Barbie before toning down to play boozehound Bailey's love interest on Party of Five and its spin-off, Time of Your Life.Best Cut: Has so many upper-body close-ups that her slasher-film debut was referred to as I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summer.

Drew Barrymore

Doppelgänger, Scream

Lung Power: Incalculable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: Besides acting in one of the biggest blockbusters of all time, the E.T. star had been through rehab and written her autobiography by the time she was 15. Best Cut: Because of her horror hall-of-fame opener in Scream, no one will look at Jiffy Pop the same way again.

Courteney Cox

Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3

Lung Power: Debatable

Pre-Scream Queen Activities: First person to say the word period on American TV, in a Tampax commercial; before Friends, boogied with Bruce Springsteen in his Dancing in the Dark video. Best Cut: Questioned about nude photos of herself on the Internet in Scream 2, Cox replied, "It was just my head--it was Jennifer Aniston's body".

Neve Campbell

The Craft, Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3

Lung Power: Undeniable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: Starred opposite an oversize prehistoric rat that dines on buried folks in the no-budget The Dark before getting gooey for TV's Party of Five.Best Cut: The original Ghostface Slayer fulfilled many a girl's fantasy by getting to punch Courteney Cox twice -- in Scream and in its sequel.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2

Lung Power: Laudable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: 1982 Burger King commercial (she taunted McDonald's for skimping on meat) got her sued at age 5. Best Cut: During beauty contest in Summer, a high-heeled, swimsuit-wearing Gellar Says, "Through art I shall serve my country"

Michelle Williams

Species, Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later

Lung Power: Commendable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: Co-starred with collie in 1994's Lassie; hit it big in Scream scribe Kevin Williamson's Dawson's Creek.Best Cut: Busted up grand-daddy of all knife-wielding psychopaths, Michael Myers, with mother of all scream queens, Jamie Lee Curtis, in Halloween: H2O

Rose McGowan

Scream, Phantoms

Lung Power: Formidable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: A goth murderess in The Doom Generation; shacked up with Marilyn Manson. Best Cut: Facetiously says to the Scream slasher, "Please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I want to be in the sequel!" He crushes her head in an automatic garage door.

Alicia Will

Urban Legend

Lung Power: Questionable

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: Played Cybill Shepherd's smart-mouthed daughter in the imaginatively titled TV show Cybill.Best Cut: Got to shoot Noxzema-Girl-turned-hooded-serial-killer Rebecca Gayheart full of lead in Urban Legend.

Rebecca Gayheart

Scream 2, Urban Legend

Lung Power: Incredible

Pre--Scream Queen Activities: Know to most of the civilized world as the Noxzema Girl. Best Cut: Proved she really could act with an over-the-top, deliriously psychotic performance as the campus slasher in Urban Legend. Who knew?

A Timeline of Slasher Cinema

Psycho (1960): Alfred Hitchcock's mother of all slasher films made everyone who saw it afraid to take a shower.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974): This gritty, grainy film loosely based on the true story of a man who played dress-up with human body parts still toys with your sanity.

Halloween (1978): An escaped mental patient returns to his home-town to stalk baby-sitters and, in doing so, makes a star out of Jamie Lee Curtis and sets a precedent for fright films.

Friday the 13th (1980): Leonard Maltin claims the popularity of movies like this summer-camp slashfest is the reason SAT scores have plummeted.

The Shining (1980): Director Stanley Kubrick found a way to make Jack Nicholson's scenery chewing work for a film--and made the best adaptation of a Stephen King novel to date.

The Fog (1980):Psycho shower victim Janet Leigh reclaims her scream queen crown alongside daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in John Carpenter's eerie follow-up to Halloween.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984): Paramount promised this would be the last time we'd see hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees. Five sequels followed.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): The hideously burned, blade-fingered Freddy Krueger became the most unlikely antihero superstar with this shocker about a man who kills teens in their dreams.

Hellraiser (1987): It's a fine line between pleasure and pain. Clive Barker found it in this dark, kinky tale featuring demons that wear bondage gear.

Child's Play (1988): A woman can't afford a new $100 doll so she buys one that is possessed by a serial killer from a street peddler.

Candyman (1992): Say his name in the mirror five times and you're as good as dead.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994): Probably the first movie that had the balls to ask. "What effect do slasher movies have on children?"

Scream (1996): Drew Barrymore turned down the lead role played by Neve Campbell and became the sacrificial lamb in the opening sequence, scaring audiences into thinking anyone could bite it any time. It worked wonderfully.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997): Gorton's, purveyor of frozen fish foods, fielded concerns that its Fisherman was affiliated with this movie's slicker-wearing killer.

Scream 2 (1997): "Sequels suck," says a character in Scream 2. "They're inferior films." Not this one.

Halloween: H2O (1998): Jamie Lee Curtis returns to finish off Michael Myers 20 years after the original, accompanied by her mother, Janet Leigh, and Dawson's Creek cutie Michelle Williams.

Psycho (1998): Gus Van Sant decided that a shot-by-shot "re-creation" of one of the best movies of all time was a swell idea.

The Blair Witch Project (1999): Was it "the scariest movie ever" because it really was scary or because people flocked to see a movie with the budget of a new car?

Scream 3 (1999): The final chapter in the Godfather of horror films.

Scream Queen Vs. Screen Queen

Neve Campbell

Number of movies: 12

Horror movies: The Dark, The Craft, Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3

Movies directed by Wes Craven: Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3

Number of Oscar nominations: 0

Number of MTV Movie Awards nominations: 3

Amount of money her last five big-screen films made in the U.S.: $276 million

Meryl Streep

Number of movies: 29

Horror movies: None, unless you consider starring with Roseanne in She-Devil scary

Movies directed by Wes Craven: Music of the Heart

Number of Oscar nominations: 11

Number of MTV Movie Awards nominations: 0

Amount of money her last five big-screen films made in the U.S.: $127 million

Ten

Scary Videos That Will Keep Her Close to You

1The Exorcist

2The Shining

3Halloween

4The Blair Witch Project

5The Haunting

6Jacob's Ladder

7The Serpent and the Rainbow

8Hellraiser

9Seven

10Alien