We all watch horror movies, but how many of us consider the actors who contribute to the films’ addictive nature? Some may argue that the villains are the true stars of a horror film. What would John Carpenter do if he did not have The Thing, or Ridley Scott and James Cameron if they did not have the Xenomorphs?
But do not forget about Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. It is important, however, to take a moment to appreciate the female leads and protagonists in horror films. When we think of heroines like this, Barbara Crampton’s name comes to mind first.
The daring and stunning Barbara Crampton is most known for being a scream queen, but this veteran actor and diva is much more than that. She began acting at a young age and participated in school plays. She studied acting as a child and had her big break in the soap opera The Days of Our Lives. She made her film debut in Brian de Palma’s Body Double in 1984, but it was not until Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator in 1985 that she became well-known.
Barbara Crampton played a reverend mother in the 2016 comedy picture Little Sister, in which she featured alongside some of the best horror actors. In this video, we will introduce and reacquaint you with some of Crampton’s most memorable roles. Friends, as a side note, Crampton has a long list of fantastic films under his belt, and we all have our favorites. As a result, we have tried our hardest to compile a comprehensive list.
Re-Animator (1985)
Herbert West develops a reanimating chemical and uses it on his dead professor of the University of Zurich named Hans Gruber to bring him back to life. However, mad scientists are never immune to the drastic side effects of their mad science.
Hans Gruber’s reanimated body turned pale, and his eyes burst out, spilling blood, and he eventually died again. Although, West believed that he gave him life, and Hans could have survived if the dosage was not too large.
After this episode, West came to Arkham, Massachusetts, to study and research at Miskatonic University. He started living with a fellow student named Dan Cain, who was engaged to Megan Halsey, the dean’s daughter. West converts Dan’s basement into his personal laboratory and furthers his research there.
After Dan gets convinced of the reagent’s efficacy, he goes to the dean Dr. Halsey to tell him about the breakthrough, but Dr. Halsey gets angry and stops both West and Dan from continuing their education at Miskatonic University. In order to save their education and careers and prove themselves to Dr. Halsey, West and Dan break into the morgue and inject the reagent into a corpse.
The corpse does come alive, but as a zombie, it then attacks and kills Dr. Halsey, who happened to arrive at the scene. An excited West injects the reagent into Dr. Halsey, who also turns into a zombie. Dr. Halsey’s colleague Dr. Carl Hill takes charge after the former’s death.
Carl drools over Megan, and he dislikes West. When he learns that Dr. Halsey’s body was reanimated, he goes to investigate Dan’s basement, but West decapitates him and reanimates him. However, the resurrected Carl could telepathically control other reanimates. He gets Megan abducted, strips her, and tries to assault her physically. It is up to West and Dan to save Megan and stop Carl from wreaking further havoc. In the process, they’ll realize the costs of playing God.
The film is based on H. P. Lovecraft’s 1922 work Herbert West–Reanimator. This piece of literature is fascinating for two reasons, firstly does the name Hans Gruber ring a bell? Yes, Alan Rickman played Hans Gruber in the first Die Hard film as the villain. Secondly, the fictional city of Arkham that Lovecraft created was the namesake for Gotham City’s Arkham from the DC Universe.
Director Stuart Gordon received positive reviews from both critics and fans for his work. The film is fast-paced, and it packs humor as well as horror. Apart from several reasons behind the film’s success, a great deal of credit goes to Barbara Crampton for her role as the hot and beautiful damsel named Megan. She stole the show with her acting and, of course, her hot body.
Crampton’s character always found herself present in a wrong situation, first, she saw West reanimate Dan’s dead cat, and then the poor girl had to see her own father turning into a zombie and get abducted by him. However, the most iconic scene from the film is when she’s lying at the operating table. This scene received a mention in the 1999 film American Beauty that starred Kevin Spacey and Wes Bentley.
Beyond the Gates (2016)
Gordon and John Hardesty are brothers but haven’t met each other in ages. After their mother’s death in a car accident, their father pushed the two brothers away. However, Gordon and John meet again after senior Hardesty went missing for more than seven months. Gordon and his girlfriend Margot spend the night at his father’s house, but Gordon mysteriously wakes up at 3:13 am and stumbles upon a key that’s labeled with the word OFFICE.
The following day, Gordon suggests to John that they should check their father’s office. While inspecting the office, they find a VCR board game named BEYOND THE GATES and a VHS tape. They figure that their father probably watched the tape before disappearing, so they play the tape, and a woman named Evelyn appeared and asked them if they were willing to risk their souls to play the game.
The brothers freak out and shut the tape. On further investigation, they find that the game was purchased from an occult store and must be played if Gordon and John wanted back their father. They return to turn on the tape once again, and Evelyn reappeared to reveal that she knows quite a lot about the family for a character in a VCR board game. Things take a drastic turn when John cuts open a rag doll on Evelyn’s instructions but simultaneously, his friend Hank has his guts disemboweled by something unseen. Would Gordon and John continue playing this voodooistic game?
Director Jackson Stewart sought to monetize the nostalgia of anyone who was old enough to relish the VCR board games of the late 80s and 90s. The film garnered a largely positive response from the critics. It is retro in style and story, and such a film needed to have someone who was a veteran in acting in horror films.
Unsurprisingly, Barbara Crampton was cast as Evelyn, the lady who was the shot caller as well as the guide in the game. Miss Crampton doesn’t scream or get scared in this one, but she sure becomes the reason for other people to wet their pants. And, every time Barbara is on screen, viewers get to relish the classic horror films from the past.
Although her role was short, she added much worth to the character due to her experience in doing horror films. Crampton produced Beyond The Gates for the same reason. According to Barbara, she participates in these independent horror films to support the upcoming directors and artists.
Robot Wars (1993)
The film is set in a post-apocalyptic world in the year 2041. Most of the land has become inhospitable because of toxic gasses. The United States and a few other nations form the western power bloc called the North Hemi, while the other countries have formed the Eastern Alliance. Despite being on the opposite sides of the line, North Hemi builds defense robots called Mini Megs for the Eastern Alliance in a bid to revive the economy of North Hemi. The Mini Megs are smaller versions of a once-popular defense robot called Mega-Robotic Assault System-2.
The MRAS 2 robots looked like scorpions and came with advanced technology like laser weapons for assault and a magnetic shield for defense. However, only one specimen of the MRAS 2 robot has survived, and the government uses it as a tourist vehicle. In one such tour, captain Drake and his copilot Stumpy get ambushed by raiders called “Centros.” Drake opts for the defense mechanism of MRAS 2, but Rooney, the chief of his operation, instructs Drake to attack the Centros.
The purpose of Rooney’s move was to impress general Wa-Lee of the Eastern Alliance, who had come to negotiate the purchase of the mini megs. On the MRAS 2 tour, Drake meets an archeologist named Dr. Leda Fanning, and they start sharing a love-hate relationship from the first instance. However, both Drake and Leda feel that Eastern Alliance is not all that it seems and could be working in tandem with the Centros to further a nefarious plan.
Producer and director Albert Band made this cyberpunk film at a time when horror and slasher films were the way to go if one wanted a film to be released on VHS. Naturally, the film didn’t perform as was expected, but it managed to give Barbara Crampton the role of a leading lady as Dr. Leda Fanning.
Until 1993, she was known for her work in horror films but Robot Wars turned things around a bit and gave her a more significant role as an archeologist who was brave and intelligent. Barbara’s character is extremely layered and representative and goes against an entire power bloc and a band of brutal raiders.
As a film, it doesn’t keep any great expectations from itself. They could have named it Robot War instead of Robot Wars because there’s literally just one battle between robots. Don Michael Paul gave a reasonable performance as Captain Drake, but we have to admit that Barbara Crampton was the only saving grace in the film.
From Beyond (1986)
Crawford Tillinghast and Dr. Edward Pretorius develop a machine called the Resonator. It has the ability to stimulate the sixth sense in humans by activating the pineal gland in the brain. Upon turning the machine on, Crawford sees creatures from another dimension. He rushes to his senior, Dr. Pretorius, hoping that he would help shut the machine down. However, Pretorius instead asked Crawford to shut up. Naturally, he is killed by a creature from another dimension. On the other hand, Crawford is taken to an asylum on suspicion of schizophrenia.
At the asylum, Dr. Katherine McMichaels takes Crawford’s custody of the cruel Dr. Roberta Boch, who was assigned to deal with Crawford. Convinced that Crawford is innocent, she goes with Detective Bubba to turn on the machine once again. We see Dr. Pretorius coming back to life in the form of an ugly Frankenstein-styled tentacled beast who is determined to kill people.
In the struggle to stop Dr. Pretorius, Crawford goes through a similar fate. He has the pineal gland protruding out of his forehead in the form of a worm-shaped tentacle and has turned into a monster that eats brains. The climax is genuinely grotesque and savage, where two brain-eating tentacled beasts fight each other.
The film is a loose adaptation of a short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft. Director Stuart Gordon updated the story and kept the central theme, in which extra-dimensional beasts float all around but are imperceptible to the naked eye and can only be seen with heightened senses. Interestingly Dr. Pretorius is named after the protagonist of Bride of Frankenstein and Dr. Roberta Boch after the author of Psycho.
Gordon had previously worked with Crampton on Re-Animator, which was also a Lovecraft film. Gordon and Crampton shared professional chemistry, which was needed on a Lovecraft film because the nature of these films is such that actors are expected to do all sorts of weird things. The ever-beautiful Barbara Crampton was younger and more attractive when the film came out, and she didn’t hesitate to flaunt her body, especially in the black leather suit.
Her character of Dr. Katherine McMichaels was smart and resourceful, but like many other movies that Barbara starred in, Katherine also had an affinity towards being caught and assaulted by the bad guy. In the movie, Dr. Pretorius says, “The greatest sensual pleasure there is, is to know the desires of another.” Well, there’s another way to get such pleasures, like watching the beautiful Barbara on screen.
Road Games (2015)
A Britisher named Jack was on tour to France, and for his return, he was looking to hitchhike a car and reach the ferry. However, despite various attempts, no vehicle would stop for him. Jack continued to walk for several hours until he came across a couple fighting in a car. The man who was driving pulled over, and Jack pulled him out of the car before he could hit the girl.
The man eventually got back into the car and drove off. The girl introduced herself as a fellow hitchhiker named Veronique and told Jack that there was a serial killer on the loose on the road that they were walking.
And this was the reason why no cars would stop. However, the two of them continued to walk until another car stopped by them. A Frenchman named Grizzard offered them a ride and the two of them accepted the kind offer. When Jack told Grizzard that he was British, Grizzard wanted him to meet his wife Mary, who was also British. Veronique objected to this, but Jack convinced her to make the detour.
They meet Mary but she was an American who spent a few years in Britain. Mary and Grizzard seemed like good hosts and offered the young couple a place to stay the night. Veronique was once again apprehensive but Jack was once again persuasive. The couple spent the night at Grizzard and Mary’s and made some love.
However, things take an ugly turn when Jack fails to find Veronique anywhere, despite her telling him that she would come with him to Britain. Jack is about to learn a few dark secrets of Veronique, Mary, and Grizzard.
Written and directed by Abner Pastoll, the film definitely has a few shocking, if not nasty, surprises up its sleeves that it holds back until the very end of the film. Road Games has many great ideas and could have worked wonders if the execution of those ideas was more organized and systematic. Nevertheless, the film does have a decent and engaging story, but the ladies stole the show. Joséphine de La Baume as Véronique and Barbara Crampton as Mary were tremendous in their roles. As the film progresses, the line between victim and victimizer continues to fade and leaves the audience with a number of interpretations. Miss Barbara obviously doesn’t shed her clothes in this one, but the French beauty Josephine was kind enough. Crampton’s character of Mary as the American wife builds tension and mystery throughout the film. All we can say is that you’ll have to watch it to know it.
Castle Freak (1995)
John Reilly strangely inherits a twelfth-century castle after an Italian dutchess passes away. In order to get the property liquidated, he travels to Italy with his estranged wife Susan and blind teenage daughter Rebecca. John has had a persistent drinking problem, and Susan blames him for their young son’s death and Rebecca’s blindness because the tragedy happened due to John’s drunk driving.
The castle’s caretaker asks the family to stay in the caste until liquidation is completed. John agrees but what he doesn’t know is that the dutchess were her half-mother whom his father left for her sister. So, John’s father married the sister of the Dutchess and eloped to America. Also, his father had a son named Giorgio with his first wife, the dutchess.
After she was left abandoned, she trapped and imprisoned Giorgio in the castle’s basement as revenge. The little child grew up into a monstrous and hideous beast with a mutated appearance. Still saddened by the loss of his son, John resorted to drinking and even hired a local prostitute.
Giorgio broke out of his restraints by breaking his thumb and killed the prostitute. The police arrested John for the prostitute’s murder, but Susan and Rebecca were still at risk. John must now fight his addiction to prove his innocence and save his family from a relentless beast.
Director Stuart Gordon took up the responsibility of Castle Freak after producer Charles Band agreed to give him complete artistic liberty and freedom to choose his cast. Gordon immediately thought of Barbara for the role of Susan Reilly, as he had already worked with Barbara on Re-Animator and From Beyond.
Interestingly, this film is nothing like the other two, and it’s a very serious film that’s focused on a mature audience. There’s plenty of Lovecraftian symbolism spread throughout the runtime, but the most significant influence would be Lovecraft’s work called The Outsider.
In this story, a man manages to flee out of a dungeon after years of imprisonment and is shocked to see his image in a mirror. Barbara Crampton made her character fairly believable. She was a woman who could go to any extent to save her young daughter, even if it involves risking her life.
Her character had potentially more depth when compared to the other horror film that she starred in, at least until 1995. In 2020, Barbara Crampton co-produced a reboot of this film. Clearly, Miss Crampton must have enjoyed the film. Castle Freak was released directly to video in 1995, which makes it a hidden gem. We recommend this one to all those who love horror and Crampton.
You’re Next (2011)
A young girl Erin accompanies her boyfriend, Crispian Davison, to his family reunion at a farmhouse in the countryside of Missouri. The family consists of Crispian’s parents Aubrey and Paul, Crispian’s elder brother Drake and Drake’s wife Kelly, the younger siblings Felix and his girlfriend Zee and Aimee, and her boyfriend, Tariq.
It’s a beautiful and happy family that loves to live, laugh, and love. However, during dinner, a crossbow bolt races through the window and kills Tariq. Panic and frenzy engulf the family as they find themselves trapped in the house and being hunted by a group of assassins wearing animal masks.
They find that their cell phone signals are jammed, and fatal booby traps surround the house. Aimee runs outside the house but has her throat sliced by a garrote wire. One of the killers, who was wearing a fox mask, then arrived and wrote the words ‘You’re Next’ in Aubrey’s blood after killing her in cold blood. But all is not lost because one of the family members has had training in survival skills and knows how to set up nail traps, etc. However, it’s a battle between one and many.
Writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard created a film that feels like Scream mated with Cabin Fever, but the resultant child was adopted and nurtured by Final Destination. A horror fan will feel nostalgic while watching the film, but the pitch dark humor will appeal to the general audience alike.
The use of a handheld camera to increase the tension deserves a special mention but so does the acting of all those who starred, including writer Simon Barrett, who played the Tiger Mask assassin. Barbara Crampton played Aubrey Davison, a good old mother who just noticed her daughter’s boyfriend being shot to death by a crossbow, and it’s not long before her daughter,
Aimee managed to have her throat slit. Aimee died while choking in her own blood, and this was too much for her mother Aubrey to take. She’s taken to a room where she can rest and possibly dream about her dead daughter, but an assassin in a wolf mask won’t let her see such painful dreams.
So, yeah, he just stuck his big old… machete into her skull. Or did you think he was going to stick something else somewhere else? Just before dying, Aubrey gave us the classic Barbara Crampton scream. Anyway, the killer chose to use her blood to remind the other actors what film they were in. You’re Next was made on a budget of one million dollars and earned almost $27 million. Naturally, this one is highly recommended.
Sun Choke (2016)
Janie is a young girl who’s recovering from a violent psychotic break, but it could very well be the trauma from a dark past more than a mental illness. Nevertheless, she is under the care of her lifelong caretaker Irma who’s tough like a nail, but all Irma wants is to keep Janie calm.
Or else, Janie would go through seizures, violent outbursts, etc. To achieve this, Irma has made a holistic and tough routine for Janie, and it includes everything from eating healthy to meditating. Whenever Janie has an issue with Irma, she lashes out by not following the set of rules that Irma has made for her.
Janie feels that she’s Irma’s victim and prisoner. All Irma wants is Janie’s well-being and mental peace, so she allows her some unsupervised time as a mark of trust. Janie ventures out of her villa but begins to stalk Savannah and her boyfriend, Connor.
It’s not evident for quite some time who Janie was more obsessed with, Savannah or Connor. Soon, Janie starts to feel that she shares a mysterious yet profound bond with Savannah and risks her health, and her relationship with Irma gets further soured. Will Janie risk her life to explore this new woman? And, is Irma testing the limits of Janie’s powers and mental state?
There was a slight break in Barbara’s professional life when she reached middle age. She was not young enough to star as a damsel or a leading lady, nor was she old enough to get the roles of a boss lady, mother, etc. We are not saying that Miss Barbara was ever in a bad place or an economic slump.
Nevertheless, as time passed, Barbara started appearing in more independent films, and she produced some of these. Her role in Sun Choke is that of a strict caregiver who doesn’t hesitate from playing mind games to get the job done. The film itself is a piece of visually graphic art with intense and steamy scenes. But that’s not the only good part about the film, it’s an intricately designed film about psychology, trauma, violence, desires, and above all, the feeling of being unwillingly stuck in a cage that no one else seems to call a cage.
Even though this video is dedicated to Barbara Crampton, it would be criminal not to appreciate the work of Sarah Hagan as Janie. Both Hagan and Crampton complement each other’s quality of work and seek to elevate each other’s performance. Their on-screen chemistry is nothing short of a real-life archetypal abusive mother vs. rebellious daughter relationship.
We Are Still Here (2015)
Anne and Paul Sacchetti move into a house in rural New England. It was built in the 1800s by the Dagmar family, and it served as a funeral home. However, when the townspeople learned that they were burying empty caskets and selling the corpses, the Dagmar family was forced to flee.
Anne and Paul moved to their new home when Anne went into depression following the death of their son Bobby. When Anne started to feel Bobby’s presence in the house and the Sacchetti’s learned about the house’s history, they invited their spiritualist friends May and Jacob Lewis to conduct a séance and contact Bobby. As the two couples go out for dinner, May and Jacob’s son Harry arrives with his girlfriend, Daniella. Both of them get killed by vengeful spirits.
However, it is later revealed that the Dagmar family never left the house, and the townsfolk sacrificed them to suppress an evil that lives under the house. The evil needs to be fed every thirty years to keep it hidden, and the lives of Anne, Paul, May, and Jacob are under threat by the townspeople as well as the spirits that lurk in the old house.
Writer and director Ted Geoghegan have shown some real love and affection for the genre in this film. Interestingly, the role of Anne was specifically and specially written for Barbara Crampton to play. She had starred in You’re Next in 2011, but it was really this film that made people say, ‘Oh, she’s back!’ 2015 was a busy year for Crampton, as she also starred in Road Games.
We Are Still Here is set in 1979, and it was close to the time when Barbara was the leading horror lady in Hollywood. Naturally, she brought with her the same old charm, charisma, and a few screams that were needed for playing Anne. The character gave Barbara more opportunities than just getting stuck in the wrong situations and screaming. For instance, there’ve been very few depressed women on screen who are believable and yet beautiful.
There’s a scene where Barbara Crampton stabs a local woman, and her blood spills on a white tarp. It’s a homage to Dario Argento’s Tenebrae, where a woman has her arm severed and blood sprays all over the white wall. Among others, We Are Still Here stars Larry Fessenden as Jacob Lewis. Larry is known for writing and directing claustrophobic horror films like Wendigo and The Last Winter.
Chopping Mall (1986)
Park Plaza Mall desired to increase and upgrade its security system and they installed new shutters on the exits, but their greatest addition was three state-of-the-art security robots that can hunt and neutralize thieves and trespassers using tasers and tranquilizers. Four couples decided to use the security of the mall and one of its furniture stores to have the time of their lives by drinking, fondling with each other, you know… the usual young blood things, etc.
The couples were having a stormy and rough night in the beds and sofas of the furniture store, and unbeknownst to them, a thunderstorm was striking the mall with several bolts of lightning. The lightning eventually corrupted the computer system that was controlling the mall’s security system and the three robots. It wasn’t before long that the robots killed the mall’s technicians and janitor.
After the blood bath, they started their night patrol, or rather they began to prowl for their next victim. As fate would have it, young Mike and sexy Leslie get killed by one of the robots as they left the store. The others witnessed the carnage and scattered around the mall for safety.
The unfortunate victims of this technological disaster armed themselves with guns from a sporting goods store and gasoline, flares, etc., from a locomotive store. Suzie, who had a gasoline tank with her, was shot by one of the robots, and she died a gruesome death by burning.
As the title suggests, the film was supposed to be nothing more than a slasher film. It is one of those films that you may want to watch with your buddies on a Saturday night with some beer. With ingredients like gratuitous nudity and overwhelming violence, Chopping Mall is a broth that would satiate a gorehound’s hunger and quench a movie buff’s thirst for the absurdly beautiful.
Having said that, after 1985’s Re-Animator, this film brought Barbara Crampton into the limelight as the leading scream queen of the 80s, a title that she has been loathing in recent years. Barbara Crampton’s character Suzie runs with a gasoline can with two other girls, but one of the robots starts to shoot laser beams.
Barbara was clearly not a great runner and took a hit on her leg. She screamed at the robot, probably as a humble request to the mechanical slasher to spare her life. The robot probably granted her request, and instead of her, it shot the gas tank. The explosion was so massive that it transformed Barbara Crampton into a stunt double.
Jakob’s Wife (2021)
Anne Fedder finds herself trapped in a boring life and marriage with Pastor Jakob Fedder. Anne has spent more than thirty years being a dutiful and obedient wife and has kept herself involved with household chores. Her marriage has been uneventful and monotonous, but the husband doesn’t even realize it.
Pastor Jakob is not an abusive husband, but he unintentionally subjects Anne to emotional pain and suffering. Anne feels that her life revolves only around her husband, who is emotionally and sexually unavailable. Amidst these circumstances, Anne’s old flame comes back to town, intending to pick up things where he had left off.
Anne gives in to the temptation of healthy life in bed, and they go to a secluded compound to make love. But they were surprised by a vampirish entity that killed her old lover and took over her. Suddenly, the good old homely wife changed into a wild and adventurous woman who dressed sensually and drank blood for food, among worms and other things. What will Jakob do with his wife?
The film stars two legends of the genre. Barbara Crampton as Anne Fedder and Larry Fessenden as Pastor Jakob Fedder has made the film’s 98 minutes worthwhile. Producer and director Travis Stevens did what many genre writers have done in the past.
He took a person from a small and quiet neighborhood and used her personal troubles, psychological commotion, etc., and used them as a means of submission to a demonic entity. The beauty of the film is that it is essentially a domestic drama with a genre element in it. So, the film tends to attract genre fans but also successfully gives a message to them. Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden’s chemistry keeps the film gripping and serious, but their comic timing almost always lightens the serious tone.
No, the jokes are obviously not from a sitcom. They’re pitch dark, but then they successfully manage to trigger a burst of laughter and become the perfect example of a guilty pleasure. In our opinion, this is by far the best film that Miss Crampton has starred in. She’s sixty-two and, fortunately for us, doesn’t seem to stop anytime soon.