Linnea Quigley has more than earned her spot as a preeminent scream queen. In addition to genre classics like The Return of the Living Dead, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and Night of the Demons, the actress was so prolific throughout the ’80s and ’90s that some of her micro-budget B-movies are still being discovered to this day. Scream Queen is, in fact, the second “lost” Quigley film unearthed by Visual Vengeance, following Heartland of Darkness.
25 years after its inception, Scream Queen is reaching viewers on Blu-ray. The bulk of the flick was shot on S-VHS in less than a week in early 1998 with the rest being piecemealed together on weekends. Post-production was finally completed in 2002, after which it received a blink-and-you-miss-it VHS release. A DVD release was planned in 2012 but fell through at the last minute due to the distributor’s bankruptcy.
Scream Queen was the first “real” movie written and directed by indie horror stalwart Brad Sykes (Camp Blood, Plaguers), who cites giallo and Euro-horror movies as influences on the picture. While their inspiration can be felt (including a Tenebrae homage), the meta slasher more closely resembles Scream, whose stronghold on the genre ushered in a horror renaissance that impacted Hollywood and backyard productions alike.
After quitting an amateur B-movie titled Scream Queen, egotistical horror actress Malicia Tombs (Quigley) is killed in a mysterious car accident. One year later, the six surviving members of the production — director Eric Orloff (Jarrod Robbins), catty actress Christine (Nicole West), goofy special effects artist Squib (Bryan Cooper), wardrobe department Devon (Nova Sheppard) and Jenni (Emilie Jo Tisdale), and production assistant Bud (Josh Matthews) — receive anonymous invitations to meet at a mansion.
Malicia reveals herself to be the host, promising $10,000 to each person if they finish a revised version of Scream Queen to cash in on the publicity of her “resurrection.” She provides everyone with a new script in which they appear as themselves, and soon a masked killer brings the pages to life by murdering them one by one. The half-baked murder-mystery plods along to its foregone conclusion.
Sykes judiciously utilizes Quigley in the beginning, middle, and end of the film in a shrewd effort to make her seem like the lead despite laborious stretches without her on screen. The opening five minutes show promise of what could be a tongue-in-cheek satirization of low-budget horror (“This would not happen on a Fred Olen Ray film!”), but it soon becomes apparent that Sykes lacks enough material to sustain that tone throughout, instead falling back on genre tropes.
Budgetary shortcomings like sloppy director, poorly-lit camerawork, muffled audio, wooden performances, and a Casio keyboard score are to be expected — welcomed, even — in a shot-on-video movie of this ilk, but the dull script is impossible to overlook. Despite a scant 74 minutes runtime, poor pacing — including a tedious, four-minute opening credit sequence and the desultory insertion of Quigley’s music video for “This Chainsaw’s Made For Cutting” (a cheeky parody of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'”) — make it seem longer.
Visual Vengeance has newly mastered Scream Queen in standard definition from original tape elements, approved by Sykes, with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound. While it’s far from standard Blu-ray quality, those accustomed to shot-on-video material have experienced far worse in terms of audio and video presentation. An alternate producer’s cut, which inserts four minutes of footage of gratuitous nudity from other productions without Syke’s consent, is also included.
Sykes’ candid audio commentary only briefly touches on the film’s lack of a release over the years, but he doesn’t shy away from the production’s behind-the-scenes drama, which is often more entertaining than the movie itself. He also explains that Quigley shot her part in two days in exchange for him making her music video. “Once Upon a Time in Horrorwood” is billed as a behind-the-scenes documentary but instead is a half-hour interview with Sykes. He repeats much of the same information from the commentary, but it’s more streamlined.
The disc also includes new interviews with Quigley, who doesn’t provide much insight but remains as effervescent as ever, and co-editor Mark Polonia, who went on to become a B-movie filmmaker with such titles as Sharkenstein and Amityville in Space. Special features are rounded out by a behind-the-scenes image gallery, a Quigley image gallery, excerpts from the script, the original trailer, and the Blu-ray trailer.
It may have taken 25 years, but Scream Queen finally has a worthwhile home video release — which also comes with a booklet written by Weng’s Chop Magazine’s Tony Strauss, a Quigley fold-out mini-poster, reversible artwork, a video store rental card, and VHS stickers. General audiences need not apply, as the film lacks the eccentricities to fall into the so-bad-it’s-good realm, but shot-on-video connoisseurs and Quigley diehards will be happy to get their hands on the elusive relic.
Scream Queen is available now on Blu-ray.
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