Last Call | Retro Review: Continuing a Theme from Last Week’s LDI Premiere, Here’s Some More Wynorski

The Last Drive-In’s special guest during ‘Chopping Mall’ shows up in ‘Hollywood Scream Queen Hot Tub Party’ and we get Joe Bob’s list of top 1990s scream queens as well

Editor’s Note: This review was originally syndicated Sept. 18, 1992, some stuff has changed since then.

In this year of the “erotic thriller,” people keep asking me my opinion of who the sexiest Scream Queen is.

Lemme splain something here.

It’s two different things.

An actress who stars in an “erotic thriller” is the VILLAIN.

An actress who stars in a horror flick is the HEROINE.

It’s different as night and day. The star of a horror flick — and they’re ALWAYS women — defeats the psycho killer. The female star of an “erotic thriller” IS the psycho killer.

I’m surprised I have to explain this to you people.

Every actress is either one or the other. Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, Linda Blair, Monique Gabrielle — always Scream Queens. Shannon Tweed, Kathy Shower, Sybil Danning — always demon-possessed manipulative Ex-Wives From Hell. Occasionally you find an actress who can cross over and play both the Scream Queen AND the Devouring Fantasy Woman. Offhand the only one I can think of is Wendy MacDonald, star of Legal Tender (whining bitch), Naked Obsession (manipulative bitch), and Dark Side of the Moon (Sigourney Weaver-type scream queen).

The other thing you should know is that the age of the Scream Queen may be nearing its end. After last year’s two ultimate parody films, Tower of Terror and Sorority House Massacre 2, it’s gonna be hard to ever take a limping, whimpering Jamie Lee Curtis-type seriously again.

But, since I’m asked about this so much, here’s the list anyhow. The top ten Scream Queens for the nineties:

1. Linnea Quigley: Ever since she was a punk zombie, dancing nekkid on the tombstone in Return of the Living Dead, Linnea has been the first choice among screamers. She is also the LOUDEST screamer I’ve ever heard. The guys love her because of her All-American girl-next-door looks, and her accessibility. She hangs out at all the horror fan conventions.
2. Brinke Stevens: The intellectual among Scream Queens, Brinke is an ex-marine biologist who often writes and produces her movies, like the recent Teenage Exorcist. She has dark Mongolian eyes that drive us all wild.
3. Monique Gabrielle: The star of Emmanuelle V is pure sex. She loves to vamp for the camera. The amazing thing is that she’s more erotic today than she was ten years ago.
4. Wendy MacDonald: The best pure actress in the B movies.
5. Ginger Lynn Allen: Another one who can be both a Scream Queen and a Devouring Woman, she becomes a better actress each year and may become the first woman ever to SUCCESSFULLY cross over from X-rated to R-rated films.
6. Maria Ford: Has only made a few movies, including Naked Obsession and Ring of Fire, but the guys love her, maybe because she seems so shy. She’s also the best erotic dancer (a useful Scream Queen skill).
7. Linda Blair: Still screaming after all these years. Her movie, Red Heat, from the mid-eighties is probably the best women-in-prison picture ever made.
8. Michelle Bauer: A perfect body. No further explanation needed.
9. Edy Williams: The oldest scream queen who can still get away with it, ripping her clothes off at least 19 times in the 1990 classic Bad Girls From Mars.
10. Roxanne Kernohan: On the list for one scene only. Remember in Critters 2 when she changes from a space alien into her luscious nekkid self? Whoa!

Please clip this out and keep it in your wallet at all times. I do NOT wanna have to repeat myself.

And speaking of Scream Queens, we have here a new video called Hollywood Scream Queen Hot Tub Party, which, as you know, is not the first movie to combine hot tubbing and screaming–but it IS the only movie ever made with five scream queens in the SAME hot tub.

Actually, what we’ve got here is a collection of clips and gags based around the idea that five professional screamers show up at a haunted house in Hollywood, decide to order a ouija board, change into Frederick’s of Hollywood lingerie, get scared, sit around in the hot tub together, and hold a “seminar” on the art of low-budget movies.

Could it be? Is it? YES! It’s the mind of master exploitation filmmakers Arch “Remove Your Tops, Please, Ladies” Stanton and Bill “Bug Eyes” Carson. Subtle they’re not. Their idea of a transition is to have one of the actresses say, “Remember the time I was in Slumber Party Massacre?” — cut to clip from Slumber Party Massacre.

In other words, a despicable excuse to watch a lot of young starlets rip off their clothes once every two minutes.

My kinda movie.

Eighty-one breasts. Twelve dead bodies. Gratuitous lingerie. Gratuitous bikinis. Footage from Slumber Party Massacre, Sorority House Massacre II, Tower of Terror, Emmanuelle V, Evil Toons, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. Kung Fu. Chainsaw Fu. Hot pants Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Michelle Bauer, for saying “No screaming unless you get paid for it” and dancing with a chainsaw; Monique Gabrielle, for demonstrating the “Dance of the Vampires”; and Roxanne Kernohan, for having laundry-room sex with an ugly zombie mutant.

Two and a half stars.

Joe Bob says check it out.