Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen

During the years 1978 – 1981 it was virtually impossible to visit the cinema or your local video shop without encountering at least one slasher film boasting a masked homicidal maniac, stalking and slashing copious teens in various creepy locations. It was also pretty much guaranteed that at least one of these films would star Jamie Lee Curtis, an actress whose early career was built on playing plucky, resourceful characters who face off against maniacal killers.

A new book by David Grove sets out to explore and celebrate this particular part of Curtis’s career, which involved a number of seminal slashers now revered as classics (and some of my favourite horror titles). Beginning with Halloween in which Curtis portrayed Laurie Strode – who became the prototype for the heroic figure of the 'final girl' - subsequent roles followed in The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, Roadgames and Halloween II.

Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen details Curtis' career and life during this era of her film work and includes detailed and never-before-seen production histories - as well as running commentary - of the horror films that made Curtis a genre icon. Featuring hundreds of interviews with Curtis' friends and colleagues - including John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Richard Franklin, Paul Lynch, Rick Rosenthal, Roger Spottiswoode - and years of intense research, Jamie Lee Curtis: Scream Queen is a comprehensive biography, an invaluable film reference, and a painstaking document of horror film history.

David Grove is the author of Fantastic 4: The Making of the Movie (Titan Books) and Making Friday the 13th (FAB Press). He has written for such publications as Dreamwatch, Fangoria, Film Review, Film Threat, Hot Dog, MovieMaker, Rue Morgue, Sci-Fi Magazine, Shivers and Total Film.

Head over to BearManor Media for more info.

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