Not Just an Actress…

I haven’t always been a huge fan of documentaries, but with productions like Going to Pieces, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, and Crystal Lake Memories, among others, it’s hard for a genre fan to not get interested. Because I enjoyed those docs so much, I thought it’d be awesome to check out another one. This time around, the subject matter was scream queens. Donald Farmer’s 1992 documentary, Invasion of the Scream Queens, covers some of the 80’s and 90’s “famous” b-movie scream queens with interviews, movie clips, and more.

With interviews from the likes of Michelle Bauer, Brinke Stevens, Mary Woronov, Elizabeth Kaitan, and more, Invasion of the Scream Queens seems like a pretty good look at the b-movie horror scene from back in the day… at first. As I dove deeper into the 85 minute film, I was met with poor editing, random interview questions and answers, and some pretty poor VHS quality footage. I know Invasion was shot in 1991 – 1992, but I was hoping for some better quality than this for a first time DVD release. I guess for fans of the vintage VHS horrors from the 80’s and 90’s, this production would be pretty fun to watch, but I would’ve liked something a little more, honestly.

It was kind of cool to see some clips from movies I never even knew existed, but because of the poor quality of most of the clips, it was hard to even figure out what some of those movies were. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in recent years, from VHS to DVD, from DVD to Blu-ray, and stuff like this really makes me appreciate Blu-rays even more than I already did.

While I did recognize some of the actresses interviewed in this doc, I am ashamed to say I didn’t know who most of them were. Like I touched on earlier, a lot of the interviews seemed kind of haphazard. Each actress had random stories about their experiences on their respective films and their seemed to be no real cohesion between clips.

As far as documentaries go, this one could have been a lot better. I am happy that I was able to watch it, but I don’t think I will be revisiting it anytime soon. If you enjoy horror docs and wanna learn a little about the scream queens of yesteryear, give this one a shot. You can purchase a copy of the 20th Anniversary Special Edition from Wild Eye Releasing’s official website today.

I give this film 1.5 VHS tapes out of 5.