Recently, an interview was posted on Wired.com that I did with actress Radha Mitchell. She’s currently starring in the movie Surrogates, alongside Bruce Willis, and next year will be in the remake of George Romero’s cult film The Crazies.
She talked about starring in sci-fi and horror ranging from the film adaptation of Silent Hill, one of the most successful horror videogame franchises ever, to a movie about a giant crocodile. However, she ‘s very quick to point out that – while she respects genre films — they aren’t all she does. It actually turned out to be a pretty interesting chat, so I encourage you to check it out.
After I interviewed her, I began thinking about actresses starring in horror —indisputable scream queens — who truly look at genre films as their bread and butter. A lot of people probably think about Neve Campbell or Jennifer Love Hewitt, actresses who propelled the late ‘90s self-aware horror into the limelight. But those actresses also had things like the TV show Party of Five…
I then realized that many of the questions that I had for my interview were based in my own curiosities. I have a strange desire to be in really lowbrow horror films at times. There’s no explanation. It is just plain weird. I then started to think about whose career I would most like to emulate.
Linnea Quigley’s face popped into my mind.
She is most definitely not a household name, but she’s someone who has branded herself in the most interesting of ways. She’s appeared in roughly 100 films, with titles such as Night of the Demons, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, and my personal favorite, Return of the Living Dead. She’s also written books about her rise in this particular kind of cult fame in the books Chainsaw and I’m Screaming as Fast as I Can.
She also made something called Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout:
Growing up, I watched Return of the Living Dead over and over and over again. It became clear that this was not an age-appropriate sort of thing when I brought it to my cousins’ house. I was probably about 8. My brothers and I popped it in the VCR. Swearing, nudity, and zombies eating brains ensued.
My cousin Ruby was not amused. Moreover, she could not believe that my mother is the one who made us this tape.
Linnea Quigley immediately stands out as a force to be reckoned with. Her name in the movie is Trash, she gets on tombstones and dances naked, and she looks at ugly buildings and says, “I like it. It’s a statement.”
Linnea is that ugly building. And I mean that as a compliment. She starred in a genre that, particularly in the 1980s and before, was considered on par with pornography. Despite public opinion and critical consensus, she did what she wanted and she did it well.
Normal acting dreams draw people to want to be the most beautiful or the most talented and serious. However, there is something to be said about being doused in buckets of fake blood, screaming at the top of your lungs, and treating it seriously. That may be one of the boldest statements of all.
