Growing up during the video age, and with cable television, you tend to come across a lot of recurring faces. Over the years I’ve managed to build a list of some of my all time favorite B movie queens, and these five are only a select few of the many women that influenced my love for cult cinema, and inspired me to dig deeper in to underground and horror cinema over the years.
Brigitte Nielsen
Brigitte Nielsen was a powerhouse of a woman who appeared in so many action and fantasy films. The three that I fondly remember seeing her in was as the heroine “Red Sonja,” the Stallone action horror movie “Cobra,” and as Drago’s wife in “Rocky IV.” As a kid I rewatched the trio of movies whenever they were on television, and she had an immense presence that only she was capable of. Despite the movie being somewhat regarded as goofy, “Red Sonja” really does allow Nielsen to shine in the title role, and she plays a convincing red head, all things considered. She was always better at playing powerful roles than the damsel in distress.
Gabriella Hall
I admit as a younger lad in the 90’s myself I almost always “accidentally” clicked over to Showtime and or Cinemax late on Friday or Saturday nights. And most of the time I’d always see Gabriella Hall starring or co-starrring in the latest softcore skin picture. There were even a number of years where she was kind of my secret crush. The statuesque brunette brought a lot to the small screen, stealing the show in what ever erotic thriller or softcore skin flick she was apart of. It’s a shame she’s all but receded in to obscurity these days, because she was insanely gorgeous.
Kari Wuhrer
Kari Wuhrer is another B movie star that I sorely miss, as she kind of ducked out of the film world in the early aughts. It’s a shame because she could be insanely sexy, as well as very likable in what ever roles she took up. Most of her career is spent on direct to video and late night cable erotic thrillers, and raunchy dramas, with Wuhrer making the occasional detour to horror. Along with myriad thrillers in her filmography, she also made memorable appearances in films like “Thinner,” “Anaconda,” and stole the show in the monster movie “Eight Legged Freaks.” At least she’s still around doing some great voice work for animation.
Linnea Quigley
It’s impossible to go through a list of some of the famed cult horror movies of all time without coming across Linnea Quigley at least five or six times. She’s been in everything with big memorable roles to very small ones. She was a body double in “The Dream Master,” she was Trash in “Return of the Living Dead,” a young mute in “Savage Streets,” a punk rock juvenile delinquent in “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl O Rama,” a hotty turned demon in “Night of the Demons,” hell, the list goes on and on. She’s an icon.
Sybil Danning
I initially learned about Sybil Danning after watching her salvage the otherwise silly “The Howling II.” Danning is a force of nature both sexually and charismatically and garnered a ton of truly memorable roles in some of the best and most notorious cult, horror, and exploitation films ever made. Along with the alpha werewolf Stirba in “The Howling II,” she could be seen in “Malibu Express,” “Battle Beyond the Stars,” the always great “Chained Heat,” and of course “Reform School Girls,” just to name a mere few. She’s one of the greats. And she’s probably the only woman to ever make werewolves look sexy.