scream queen

English
WOTD – 15 September 2016

Pronunciation
A publicity photograph for the 1933 film King Kong, showing American actress Fay Wray in the clutches of King Kong. Wray is regarded as one of the first “scream queens”.

Noun

scream queen (plural scream queens)

  1. (informal) An actress who appears in several horror films.
    • 2004 October 4, “Psycho actress Janet Leigh dies”, in BBC News‎, archived from the original on 2 August 2016:
      Her [Janet Leigh's] "scream queen" status also led to cameo roles in Jamie Lee Curtis' 1998 horror sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and A Fate Totally Worse than Death in 2000.
    • 2007 April 27, Thomas K. Arnold, “Three screams for these stars”, in USA Today‎, archived from the original on 4 March 2016:
      What makes a good scream queen? Lloyd Kaufman, whose Troma Films has distributed more than 1,000 horror films since the mid-'70s, says, "It's more than just crying and having ketchup thrown on you. You not only have to be attractive, but you also have to have a big brain. You have to be frightened, you have to be sad, you have to be romantic."
    • 2017 May 11, Peter Schorn, “Going To Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film: The slasher film dissected in this documentary retrospective [review]”, in IGN‎, archived from the original on 15 September 2016:
      In short order, Friday the 13th (the first widely distributed major studio slasher flick), Terror Train and Prom Night – the latter two starring uber-scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis […] – led the charge into cinemas. With the formula nailed down – masked killer stalks and slays teenagers on a particular holiday or special event – everyone and their cousin could assemble their own cheapie horror flick and as a result, quality slumped as quantity multiplied.
    • 2011, “Nonfiction Books”, in Ellen Datlow, editor, The Best Horror of the Year, volume III, San Francisco, Calif.: Night Shade Books, →ISBN:
      Confessions of a Scream Queen by Matt Beckoff (BearManor Media) is a series of interviews with actresses associated with horror films (using a very loose definition of the term "scream queen").
    • 2015, Tim Foley, Scream Queens Paper Dolls, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, →ISBN:
      In this unique gallery of “Scream Queens,” you'll discover sixteen actresses who starred in bloodcurdling movies and TV shows […] The original Scream Queens were actresses in precarious, life-threatening situations—exemplified by the scene in King Kong in which the monstrous Kong "holds" [Fay] Wray in his hand while terrorizing Manhattan.

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