In honor of Women in Horror Recognition Month, I present my top 3 of feisty females & classic scream queens.
P.J. SOLES
Born Pamela Jayne Hardon,
P.J. Soles is an American actress mostly known in the horror circuit for her classic roles as Norma Watson in
Carrie (1976) Lynda van der Klok in John Carpenter's
Halloween (1978).
Being portrayed in the 1976 movie
Carrie, as Chris Hargensen's right-hand girl, Norma Watson is almost as cunning and conceiving as the former. With her hair pigtail braided and constantly dressed in her baseball cap, Norma is literally a snide bitch with a bad attitude.
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Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen and P.J. Soles
as Norma Watson in Carrie (1976) |
Being one of the 'mean girls' Norma is seen early in the movie hitting Carrie White in the head with her baseball cap, and taunting her when Carrie starts panicking over her late first period. Norma's also a major player and co-conspirator in the Ewan High Prom Night plot to humiliate Carrie. During the infamous last scenes of
Carrie, Norma is seen collecting the ballots for prom king and queen and replacing them with rigged ones, just to alter the result and have Carrie White voted as queen. As the pig's blood gets dumped all over Carrie during the crowning, Norma is among the first to laugh at the terrible sight, mostly because the group's plan had worked so perfectly. As Carrie uses her powers for revenge on the high school kids, a fire hose turns on itself and Norma catches the full blast of the hose's spray and gets knocked out against a table.
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| P.J. Soles as Lynda van der Klok in Halloween (1978) |
A couple of years later P.J. Soles came to play the supporting role of Lynda van der Klok, the final victim of Michael Myers, in John Carpenter's
Halloween from 1978. Supposedly John Carpenter wanted her for the film after seeing Carrie and wrote the part of Lynda especially for her because of the way she said the word "totally".
Lynda's the typical bad friend who doesn't give a shit about the fact that Laurie doesn't have a date to the upcoming dance and writing her off as suspicious when the latter becomes anxious about being followed. Lynda is more concerned about getting high and laid as she orders her boyfriend Bob around like a servant.
Other trivia: In 2005 P.J. Soles starred as victim Susan in Rob Zombie's
The Devil's Rejects.
HEATHER LANGENKAMP
Heather Langenkamp is the famous face of Nancy Thompson, the primary protagonist and final girl in
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984),
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and Wes Craven's
New Nightmare (1994).
While studying at Stanford University, Heather Langenkamp was cast by Wes Craven as the teen heroine Nancy Thompson in the first movie of the
A Nightmare on Elm Street series. Wes Craven was looking for a non-famous face and a non-Hollywood character to play the part, and beating out more than 200 actresses, Heather met this quality. Becoming one of the original Scream Queens, Heather received the Best Actress Award at the 1985 Avoriaz Film Festival.
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Heather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson in
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) |
In the original
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Nancy is the teenage girl who has begun experiencing nightmares about a disfigured, burnt man in a red and green sweater, Freddy Krueger. The man in her dreams has knives for fingers and she soon discoveres that he has the capability of entering people's dreams and killing them in their sleep. Becoming Freddy Krueger's arch-nemesis, Nancy develops the capability of pulling things out of her dream and forms a plan to pull Krueger into the real world, where he falls victim to a series of booby traps Nancy has set up. Nancy finally defeats Krueger by taking back the energy she has given him and stripping him of his power.
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Heather Langenkamp as one of the narrators in
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010) |
Nancy has often been seen as a rarity in the horror genre for being an intelligent and insightful young woman. As a 'final girl' Nancy differs not only in the way that she avoids sex, drugs and juvenile behavior, but also her intent on how to defeat her monster. Only Nancy can recognize the important link between the real world and the dream world, and only Nancy knows that she needs to take active action to take down Freddy. Different to most victimized females, Nancy avoids the sexuality of horror and her anti-victim posture set a whole new example of a Scream Queen.
Other trivia: Heather Langenkamp served as executive producer and narrator to the documentary
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010) and co-director and actress in the biographical documentary
I Am Nancy (2010).
Together with her husband, David Leroy Anderson, Heather Langenkamp owns and operates
AFX Studio, a special effects make-up studio that has done special make-up for several major movies and horror movies, amongst them Dawn of the Dead.
JAMIE LEE CURTIS
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| Jamie Lee Curtis as Elizabeth Solley in The Fog (1980) |
Although
Jamie Lee Curtis has compiled a body of work that spawns over many genres and within many categories, she's still best known best for her roles within the horror genre, starring in John Carpenter's
The Fog (1980), the low-budget Canadian slasher
Prom Night (1980) and
Terror Train (1980).
Perhaps best known for her debut role in John Carpenter's
Halloween (1978), Jamie Lee Curtis garnered the title Scream Queen as the movie was considered the highest grossing independent film of its time, earning accolades as a classic horror film.
Just as Heather Langenkamp was the arch-nemesis to Freddy Krueger and the female protagonist of the
A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Jamie Lee Curtis plays the same role to Michael Myers and the
Halloween series, in the first (
Halloween), second (
Halloween II) and seventh (
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later) movie.
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| Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978) |
Laurie Strode bears a unique combination of innocence and smarts (mixed with some paranoia) which saves her life during the 20 years of being stalked and victimized by her brother Michael Myers. Laurie starts out in
Halloween (1978) as a bookworm who babysits after school and who doesn't do drugs or sex. The same way Laurie avoids the trap of sexuality in horror, she avoids the trap of dumbness and curiosity and leaving nothing to chance, it's her paranoia that keeps her alive after
Halloween II (1981).
Other trivia: Jamie Lee Curtis has an uncredited voice role as curfew announcer/telephone operator in
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of actor
Tony Curtis and actress
Janet Leigh, and was cast as Laurie Strode because John Carpenter
"knew casting Jamie Lee would be a great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho".
