Linnea Quigley is one of the bona fide original American
scream queens of 1980s horror films, known for her stints in Graduation Day,
Silent Night Deadly Night, Night of the Demons and most famously
the stripping punk zombie Trash from The Return of the Living Dead. Also making a sneaky cameo in A Nightmare
on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Quigley has kept herself busy all these
years including music videos and low budget horror films including Kolobos and
today’s Visual Vengeance shot-on-video entry Scream Queen.
Years go by with everyone
having moved on to other jobs that barely pay the bills including but not
limited to one character selling fur coats off a street curb and a neurotic
visual effects makeup artist whiles away his time talking to a masked mannequin. But soon everyone starts receiving mysterious
invitations to a remote mansion where the offer is made to complete the film
for a hefty price. Despite the
mysterious circumstances, the survivors reluctantly agree only to find there’s
another masked killer roaming the mansion wielding a scalpel.
Another one of those movies that ran into creative problems
with the producers who objected to going off of the strict budgetary regimen
and eventually clashed with the director on the final cut, this SOV flick
despite the shoddy video quality and synthetic score is a fun tongue-in-cheek
meta horror flick providing ample room for Quigley to lampoon herself and strut
her horror icon stuff.
Interspersed in
the film are original music videos of Linnea Quigley parodying These Boots
Are Made for Walkin’ with the slight change to Chainsaw’s Made for
Cutting, where she quite literally waves a chainsaw at the camera. The other cast members are fine with the neurotic
makeup effects artist turning over a Randy Quaid inspired performance while
some of the actresses are there to wave their near bare chests around. It’s that kind of movie.
Long thought to be a lost film following its troubled production
and distribution history with the director mostly being forced off the project
and edited without his oversight, the restored Visual Vengeance blu-ray comes
with plentiful extras including a mini poster, stickers and a six-page booklet
of liner notes. For longtime Quigley
fans, Scream Queen represents a previously missing chapter in her
extensive indie horror filmography.
With
a surprising amount of gore effects, snarky meta references and a goof on the
business of making horror movies, Scream Queen is another home run for
Visual Vengeance who have taken great pains to ensure this once unseeable
little gem is available for all to bear witness to. Hard to not have lo-fi chainsaw horror fun
with this one with one of the horror scene’s most formidable goddesses at the
epicenter.
--Andrew Kotwicki