Who is the greatest scream queen of all time? Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's not even up for debate at this point. She's the original vampire slayer, a slasher icon and constantly delivers Oscar worthy performances. I hope to see more of Sarah on the big screen in 2020 because she has a way of portraying her characters in a way that makes them all memorable and easy to differentiate, she gives them so much depth and we should forever thank her for changing the game in terms of horror.
1996's Miss Croaker Queen deserved better. 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' is one of the most iconic slasher movies of all time, it shows four friends dealing with the aftermath of a hit and run, whilst being stalked by a psychotic killer. Playing the role of Helen Shivers was Sarah Michelle Gellar's commencement into the world of horror movies. I have never stressed over the fate of a character as much as I did over Helen's. She fought for her life and the movie gave us false hope that she was going to survive, before she was brutally murdered. When she tragically died, I believe that the movie died with her because HELEN SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FINAL GIRL, not boring Julie James AKA the worst final girl in all of horror history. The first time that Helen is shown in the movie, she was being crowned 1996's Miss Croaker Queen in a beauty pageant. When asked by the pageant host what her contribution to her community/society will be, she shares that she plans to move to New York to pursue a career as an actress, and that her goal is to entertain the world through artistic ambition. Later on that night, Helen is celebrating the Fourth of July with her friends at a party before they go to a beach, where they start telling horror stories about a killer with a hook for a hand, that nobody believes apart from Ray. In the car, on the way home from the beach, Barry continues drinking and stands in the car's sunroof when he drops his alcohol bottle, distracting everyone from whats infront of them. He then screams "Watch out" like a maniac, but it's too late because immediately after Ray looks back infront of him, he accidentally runs someone over with the car due to Barry distracting him from focusing on the road. When they get out of the car, Barry begins blaming Ray for what happened and for the state that the car is in, despite it all being Barry's fault in the first place, Helen has to tell him to leave Ray alone to stop him from blaming everyone but himself. They find the man who they ran over, lying down on the floor, Helen and Julie serve as the group's moral compass as they try to convince the boys to tell the truth to the police, to which Ray says that it's manslaughter, they then all go back and forth deciding what to do, ultimately agreeing to dump the body into the river, when everyone starts arguing again because Ray becomes hesitant and Barry won't stop shouting, Helen takes one for the team and announces that she will be the one to throw the body into the river. As soon as Helen bends down to do it, the man's eyes open and he grabs her, causing everyone to become frantic and Barry to push the body into the water. Helen screams "He's got my crown" and Barry jumps into the water to retrieve it for her, when everyone is walking back from the pier, he makes them all make a pact not to mention what happened ever again. One year after the incident, Helen appears to be working at her fathers department store and reveals that she went to New York for a while however it didn't work out. Helen and Julie feel guilty about the roles that they played in the man's death and research newspapers, finding out that the man's name was David Egan and they attempt to track down the family of David, finding his sister and going to her home to tell her what happened. When nobody answers the door, Helen says "Well it was a good try" clearly scared about what is about to happen, and Julie walks over to a window on the side of the house, looking through it, before a woman asks her if she can help them and they ask if they can use her phone. They use fake names when inside the house, and Helen goes to "use the phone" whilst Julie talks to the David's sister. Julie leaves without telling the woman the truth about what happened and Helen follows her. In the car, Helen tries to lessen the guilt that she feels, coming up with theories about how the man was sitting in the road waiting for them to hit him. When Helen asks boring Julie "What happened between us? We used to be best friends." and told her that she missed her, Julie ignored her, rudely shutting her out. She drove off without reciprocating Helen's feelings, which was unnecessarily unkind because everything that Julie was going through, Helen was going through too, but as the movie progresses Helen goes through worse. Helen goes into her home, her
father watching television and ignoring her when she greets him, when she is in the kitchen having a glass of Coke, the killer enters the house without being noticed and hides in her wardrobe whilst she changes. Helen was looking at her pageant crown when her sister approaches her, startling her, and says "Was the washed up has been having a moment?" to which Helen asks her what she wants and her sister tells her that she needs to work at the store tomorrow, Helen tells her that she is participating in the Fourth Of July parade tomorrow, and her sister smugly tells her that their father put her in charge of the store and she wants Helen there by 10AM. When Helen is brushing her hair in the mirror, her sister remarks "You and your hair. It is so pathetic." before leaving the room, and Helen goes to sleep. When she wakes up, she finds her pageant crown on her head and is horrified to find out that her hair was cut off in her sleep. She goes to look in her vanity mirror, only to be met with the word 'SOON' written in red lipstick. She screams and smashes the mirror out of rage and calls Julie. Despite her her being chopped off and her clearly being a target of a psychotic killer, Helen put on a brave face and her crown for the pageant event that day and styled her hair gorgeously which is the best thing she could have done to show the killer that he wasn't going to get the best of her. Unfortunately for Helen, her trauma starts to take its toll on her at the event and she sees what she believes to be the killer fisherman in the crowd, so she starts freaking out and telling Barry that she sees the fisherman, Barry chases down the first person he sees in the killers attire, unfortunately the man he tackles to the ground ends up being an innocent old man. After being consoled by Barry, she goes on stage for the pageant competition and when she looks up to the balcony to see Barry, she is met with the view of the fisherman coming up from behind Barry and when she starts screaming, people start hovering around her to try and console her, whilst Barry is being murdered. The police man that goes up to check the balcony with her doesn't find a body and doesn't believe what she's saying, when she says that he has to believe her, he offers to drive her home. On the drive home, he mocks her story and laughs at what she tells him. One of the roads is blocked off so they have to drive down an alley way to get to her house, when the policeman stops to see what trouble the car infront of them is having. Helen realises who the man standing infront of the car is, and starts screaming whilst the police officer is approaching the man, however she's too late because the fisherman immediately forced his hook into the police officers guts. She tries to get out of the car only to find out that it's locked, so kicks the car window until it smashes and escapes. She runs to her family's store, while the fisherman is following behind her at a much calmer pace. She bangs on the window and begs her sister, Elsa, to open the door, and her sister takes what feels like forever to open the door. When Helen is trying to contact the police, the fisherman murders her sister and drags her body away. Helen goes downstairs to try and find her sister and hidden among the many mannequins in her store, the killer fisherman jumps out at her and one of the greatest chase scenes in Horror history begins. He tackles her to the ground, and she gets up and runs away from him then tries to open a door that appears to be locked, when she turned around, she's met with the dead body of her older sister, covered in blood. She screams and then realises that she doesn't have time to freak out over what she has just seen so she continues trying to escape the fisherman. She climbs onto an old fashioned elevator and begins pulling the rope to pull herself up, whilst the fisherman reaches his arm out with his hook to try and catch her. Once upstairs, she climbs out of a window and falls down onto a load of rubbish outside, then she continues running for her life. Que the music because now the real tragedy begins, she continues running through the alleyway when she sees fireworks and runs towards them, she sees a parade happening in the street and turns around to see if the fisherman had caught up to her, but when she turns back around to run into the street, the hook-wielding killer is there and he grabs her and murders her. If only she did not stop and turn around, and the people at the parade were more observant (HOW DID NOBODY SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING?). Helen was bubbly, beautiful, supportive of her friends, charismatic and so emotionally strong. She lost everything, had to endure an abusive sister, she watched her boyfriend and a police officer get murdered by the same man that was trying to kill her, she had her beautiful blonde hair cut off before a pageant event and she had to carry around the guilt of covering up the accident that happened the year before a psychotic fisherman went after her and her friends. Helen's fatal ending will forever be one of the most memorable deaths in horror. I will forever stand by the fact that when Helen died, the movie died with her. She is beauty, she is grace, she is MY FINAL GIRL.
Buffy Summers is the title character in the popular show 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', which has developed a large cult following ever since it debuted in 1997. Buffy is the most powerful vampire slayer to have ever existed and is the unofficial leader of the 'Scoobies'. Originally a superficial, spoiled popular cheerleader who was elected to be prom queen before her move to Sunnydale (Due to an incident involving a group of vampires at her old school in Los Angeles, Hemery High School) to a reluctant hero who wanted nothing more than an ordinary life, to a fearless leader who learnt how to embrace her destiny that she struggled with at first. She is stubborn with a strong moral compass, and always puts other people first. The show presents Buffy slowly coming to terms with her supernatural destiny. Buffy's personal issues such as her love life, the impact of her parents' divorce, mean girls at school, the death of her mother, her best friend's (Willow's) substance abuse and many more are also shown in a way that makes them relatable for the viewer (Without the supernatural elements of course). Buffy contrasts with the cliché of teenage girls in horror films around the time that she debuted, she was a hero, courageous, and she returned from death... twice.
Cici Cooper from 'Scream 2' unfortunately became one of Ghostface's victims when she decided to be the 'Sober Sister' for the night, in case any of her fellow sorority sisters who were out partying needed her to drive them home or help them. We were first introduced to Cici Cooper during a Film Theory class when the class is discussing sequels, and Cici makes it known that she is not a fan of sequels, which is ironic since she doesn't live through the 'Scream' sequel that she is in. The night of her death, Cici was at her sorority house, on the couch, on the phone with her friend, channel-surfing when Ghostface calls her and she mistakes it for her boyfriend, Ted. When she finds out that it isn't Ted on the phone with her, she asks who the person on the other line is calling for, and they continue to talk over the phone until she gets suspicious of him answering all of her questions with a question, ultimately asking her "Do you want to die tonight, Cici?" before she hangs up the phone. Completely freaked out by this, she tells her friend over the phone about it, to which her friend replies with "It's that movie Stab, it's bringing out the crazies.". Cici then starts hearing loud noises upstairs, indicating that she is not alone in the house. She goes outside (Smartest move she could have made) but begins losing reception on her phone, so her friend tells her to call campus security and goes back inside to until she can get good phone reception, when somebody shows up behind her and Cici jumps. It turns out that the person behind her was her friend Dawnie, which explains the noises that Cici was hearing from inside the house, and Dawnie reveals that she stopped back at the house to get changed before going to the party. The phone rings again, Dawnie answers and the person on the other line claims to be Ted, whilst this is happening, Ghostface has snuck into the house whilst the girls are distracted with the phone call. After finding out that Ted was on the other line, Dawnie tells Cici "It's your ill conceived boyfriend." and gives her the phone, telling Cici not to forget to set the alarm, before leaving the house and leaving Cici alone. Cici greets Ted on the phone, only for the person on the other line to say "You wish it was Ted. Don't forget to set the alarm.", causing Cici to throw the phone from fear and hurry to set the alarm. The sound of dogs barking from outside gives Cici a sudden shock, and when the house starts creaking, that only worsens the level of fear she feels. When Cici is walking around the house to try and find out what is happening, the phone rings again, and for the last time... When she answers it, Ghostfaces jumps out at her from a closet behind her and the chase begins. He chases her up the stairs, and she throws a plant at him which knocks him back for half a second, and keeps running up the stairs, even throwing a bicycle his way, but once she reaches the attic, all hope left for her is gone, and he grabs her and throws her through a glass door that leads to the balcony, then stabs her twice in the back and throws her over the balcony where she falls three stories down to her death. In my opinion, Cici's death is another one that could have been avoided had she stayed outside when she left the house to get help, or followed Dawnie to the party, I mean if you are being harassed wouldn't you follow your friend out of the house rather than stay in there all ALONE? If Cici Cooper's death taught us anything, it's: DO NOT RUN UPSTAIRS WHEN A SERIAL KILLER IS CHASING YOU. Cici had one of the best deaths in the entire saga, and that might be due to me being biased because I'm a huge SMG fan, or it could be due to how intense her death scene is... The whole 'cat and mouse' situation, and being thrown through a window, then stabbed in the back twice and thrown over a balcony? Gorgeous.
Fun fact: Sarah signed on to star in 'Scream 2' and play Cici without having read the script or having any idea of what character she would be playing because of how successful the first movie was.
'The Grudge' is Sarah Michelle Gellar's most successful Horror film, and is also the one film in the world that I struggle to watch even to this day due to me being absolutely terrified of Japanese horror films. When I was a little girl my parents would scare me with stories about the ghost from the movie, Kayako, so blame my parents for my fear of Japanese horror films. It's a cruel twist of fate that my favourite actress in the world stars in the one movie that I would rather die than watch.
Whilst 'Scooby Doo' might not be considered a traditional horror movie, it does have elements of horror in it. The role of Daphne Blake is completely different to all of Sarah's other roles. Daphne is fashion-conscious, clumsy and more prone to danger than the rest of her friends, but despite that she is always determined to play an active role in mystery solving. After Mystery Inc's 2 year departure, Daphne learnt martial arts, or as she put it 'transformed her body into a dangerous weapon' because she was tired of being the damsel in distress. In the 'Scooby Doo' sequel, 'Scooby Too 2: Monsters Unleashed', Daphne presents her best character development, she shows how how she found a way to go from being 'The pretty one' to 'The pretty one who saves her friends', Daphne picked a laser thumbprint scanner lock using makeup, she was the one who cut the rope to prevent the Pterodactyl flying away with Shaggy and Scooby at the beginning of the movie and she fought the black knight when he knocked Fred out and the rest of her friends couldn't fight him. Daphne no longer wanting to be saved and wanting to break out from being the stereotypical 'pretty one' reminds me of Buffy Summers, another character played by Sarah who went from being a shallow girly girl to a selfless hero.
In conclusion, Sarah Michelle Gellar is one of the most versatile and underrated actresses ever. My favourite character played by Sarah has to be Buffy Summers, but I absolutely love Kathryn Merteuil ('Cruel Intentions') and Daphne Blake too, therefore it's extremely difficult for me to choose only one character that Sarah has portrayed to be my favourite. One of my favourite thing's about Sarah's acting career is that she generally tends to stay away the stereotypical role of 'The wife' or 'The girlfriend' which doesn't allow much character development, all of her roles are easy to differentiate which makes her so versatile. The fact that she was in two of the most legendary slasher movies of all time, 'Scream 2' and 'I Know What You Did Last Summer', and WAS NOT the final girl is still difficult for me to come to terms with, but at least her corpses were drop dead gorgeous.
Furthermore, in 2004, David Gonzalez, also known as the 'Spree Killer' went on a murder spree which lead him to killing 4 people and injuring 2 others over the period of 2 days across Sussex and London. People believe that he was inspired by legendary slasher movies, 'Friday The 13th' (1980) and 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' (1984). I've binge watched multiple horror films in one night, countless times, yet you don't see me attempting to violently murder anyone. He was arrested at Tottenham Court Road Tube Station, after he purchased a tube ticket with a blood-stained £20 note. The thought of that blood-stained £20 note makes me shiver for some reason, it's as though he expected to get away with murdering multiple people and thought he could do something as simple as go on a train ride after taking peoples lives away from them. David killed himself in 2007 when he was 27 years old, and before his arrest was a drug user, didn't have a normal social life/friends and was just a borderline freak. In fact, before he went on his killing spree, his mother had desperately tried to get doctors and mental health specialists to try and help David, however she was brushed off by everyone she reached out to about David's behaviour. It is clear to me that he would have been severely mentally messed up without having watched any horror movies. Being a horror fanatic is not to blame for murder. Sure, he might have been a horror fanatic, but they are not the cause for his mental health issues.
