Top 10 Hottest Scream Queens in Horror Movie History
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March 3, 2009
Now that we're entering March (Women's History Month), it's an appropriate time for ESplatter.com to round out the Top 10 Hottest Scream Queens of All Time annual list.
Noticeably absent from this list: Jamie Lee Curtis. The reason: In her roles as a horror starlet, she never emphasized her hotness. This was something she did in her roles outside the horror genre.
Also noticeably absent from the list: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Danielle Panabaker, and Jessica Biel. They frequently make lists like this one. But in ESplatter's opinion, the three actresses really aren't fans of the "splatter" genre and just made a brief stepping stone appearances in horror films before moving onto other things. All 10 of these women are hotter anyway.
We also wanted to focus more on scream queens of the past 40 years or so. Not every hottie could make the list. And what's hot in horror movie terms may not be hot in pop culture terms. A hot horror movie queen has a certain charisma.
With thousands of amazingly hot women showing up in horror films over the past half century, it's very, very tough to come up with a list of the Top 10. But we did it.
Asia Argento is hot and she knows it. Just do a quick Google search and you'll run across loads of Maxim-style modeling shots of the daughter of Dario Argento. But horror fans will always love her for lending her hotness talents to George Romero's "Land of the Dead" and a slew of films directed by her father, including the best one to feature her, "Trauma."
In Italy, Anna Falchi is worshipped as a goddess and with good reason. She's hot and she knows it – big time! Horror fans will always adore her for playing the role of Rupert Everett's obsession in Michele Soavi's 1990s horror masterpiece "Cemetery Man," and was beautiful enough to make you think she could drive Everett's character crazy (which is exactly what happened).
The whole planet realized Rose McGowan was an uber-hottie when she showed up wearing a '90s-style spiral shirt in Wes Craven's "Scream," although indie film fanatics had previously been exposed to her gorgeosity in "The Doom Generation." After some smaller, unmemorable roles, she finally became the icon she deserved to be, playing Cherry Darling in the "Planet Terror" segment of "Grindhouse." She may be up for "Barbarella" next. Needless to say, McGowan is hot and she's known it for a very long time.
Soviet Union-born Milla Jovovich is one of the hottest things that came out of the ice cold Eastern Bloc during the height of the Cold War. The former magazine cover has played in countless non-horror roles, but she finally warmed up to the idea of being a scream queen icon with the "Resident Evil" franchise. In 2004, Jovovich topped Forbes magazine's "Richest Supermodels of the World" list, earning a reported $10.5 million.
Natasha Henstridge
("Species", "The Ghosts of Mars")
A babe icon of the 1990s, Henstridge rose to prominence playing the mating-obsessed female-alien in "Species," a film that still has direct-to-video sequels being cranked out today. She's hot, knew it, still knows it, but hasn't been in any horror films since playing the lead in John Carpenter's rather good "The Ghosts of Mars".
Nastassja Kinski
("Cat People", "To the Devil a Daughter", "Day the World Ended")
Among 1980s babe-philes, Kinski will always be remembered for that mesmerizing "snake" poster she posed in. That image, shot by Richard Avedon, had a snake coiled around her body and has become iconic. But for 1980s horror fans, she's remembered for her role in Paul Shrader's remake of "Cat People." Taking over for the role of Simone Simon in the original, Kinski's image with cat eyes on the film's poster is almost as memorable as her Avedon poster. The movie was pretty bad, but Kinski was gorgeous in it, and very well cast. Needless to say, it was a hit at the box office. Kinski received a Saturn Award for Best Actress.
Caroline Munro
("Maniac", "Dracula AD 1972")
The hottest of the Hammer hotties, Caroline Munro seduced audiences with her role as a hippie vampire follower in "Dracula A.D. 1972", before showing off her figure in "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" and "The Spy Who Loved Me." For gore hounds, she's probably best remembered as the co-star of "Maniac."
Any 1980s horror aficionado knows who Barbara Crampton is and why she stacks up as one of the most gorgeous and talented horror movie icons. A familiar face to soap opera fans in the '80s, she blew audiences away with her role in "Re-Animator" and its follow-up, "From Beyond."
She knew it then, knows it now. Seen in the still above from "Vampire Lovers as the super gorgeous vampire on the far left, Ingrid Pitt was the hottest of the Hammer horror hotties. Her turns in Hammer's "Vampire Lovers" (playing a lesbian blood sucker) and "Countess Dracula" (playing an evil old countess who bathes in virgins' blood to make herself youthful) made for the two sexiest movies ever to come out of that studio in the 1970s – simply because she was in them. She also stole the show with a small role in the Christopher Lee classic "The Wicker Man." She's still doing horror to this day, set to star in an adaptation of "The Tell Tale Heart." Very charismatic and very beautiful.
Not your traditional concept of what's "hot," Barbara Steele is one of the most hauntingly beautiful women to grace horror celluloid. Non-horror fans may remember her from Fellinni's "8 ½", but most admire her work in the fear films of the 1960s, from Mario Bava's "Black Sunday" to Michel Reeve's "She Beast" to Anthony Dawson's "Castle of Blood". She continued making horror into the '70s, starring in Joe Dante's "Piranha" and the 1980 slasher film "Silent Scream."
Noticeably absent from this list: Jamie Lee Curtis. The reason: In her roles as a horror starlet, she never emphasized her hotness. This was something she did in her roles outside the horror genre.
Anna Falchi
Natasha Henstridge
Barbara Crampton
Barbara Steele