In a deliberate move, this article does not contain any pictures of the lady in question. If you want that sort of thing, buy ‘Slaughterhouse’ – Trash City is a clean, morally uplifting publication, and will do nothing likely to encourage readers to practice self-abuse. Can we get into W.H.Smith’s now, please? [2020 update: fuck that shit. Bring on the pics!]

“I like her in tight-fitting clothes that are real revealing. But I’d rather have her out of her clothes. And so would the crew.”

—- Dave DeCoteau, director.

Over the years, there have been several contenders for the title “Queen of the B’s”; Caroline Munro, from the Hammer stable, Sybil Danning and Linda Blair have all been claimants to the throne. However, if you were to carry out an opinion poll, the probable winner would be Iowa’s finest, Linnea Quigley. Born in Davenport an indeterminate number of years ago – though she doesn’t discuss her age we do know she graduated from high school in 1976 (her yearbook pic is above); I’ll leave it up to you to do the arithmetic. Her family moved out to sunny California where Linnea, after a brief spell as a model (following her graduation from the John Robert Powers Modelling School), entered the acting profession courtesy of Charles Band, who selected her to appear in ‘Fairy Tales’ (though there seems to be some discussion as to whether this was her first film, or whether ‘Summer Camp’ or “Don’t Go Near the Park” came first).

Since then, her career has consisted of appearing in a long series of otherwise instantly forgettable films with her contribution usually being little more than to take her clothes off at the slightest excuse (having had to watch these, I can testify to the mind-numbing awfulness of some of them!). The budget of these pictures is very low by Hollywood standards, usually less than a million dollars and sometimes sinking to figures like $175,000 (“Creepozoids”) or even lower. How has she managed to become such a cult figure given these factors?

Charisma has certainly got something to do with it. Having had the privilege of meeting her briefly, I can tell you she does have a certain ‘presence’ (the other thing that struck me was her size [height, perverts!] – I’m not tall, and she barely came up to my chin, even in high heels). Her continuing devotion to the genre has won her fans too; unlike certain actresses we could mention, she hasn’t moved onto ‘better things’ and tried to disparage her early efforts.

She doesn’t make a fortune out of her film-making. As bimbos come, she’s pretty cheap, being only paid union rates, and the low end of the scale at that. This is about $1300/week, worth bearing in mind if you’re making that low-budget picture, though I’m not sure whether that includes food and transport.

You’ll also have to be aware of Linnea’s taboos. Oddly, and perhaps contrary to what you might have thought, she doesn’t do full nude scenes. In “Return of the Living Dead”, she wore a flesh coloured ‘prosthetic device’, which left her looking even more like a Barbie doll than usual. Nor does she do anything involving cruelty to animals, which means she might not be the best person for “Debbie Does Dobermans”… Space prevents a full description of all of her films, as we managed for Nastassja – Linnea is a busy little bee and churns pictures out at an impressive rate. There is also a SEVERE problem with titles; many of her films have appeared under a couple of names or more and there are also occasional projects announced which never manage to see the light of day, for whatever reason. Thus, the list has been divided into two parts: the first section is ‘confirmed sightings’ while the other half is a collection of ‘maybes’ to keep an eye out for.

• 1978
  FAIRY TALES
• 1979
  GRADUATION DAY – ‘Friday 13th’ style clunker also starring Christopher George which involves members of a high-school track team being bumped off (pic, above)
  SUMMER CAMP
  DON’T GO NEAR THE PARK (aka Nightstalker) – this one made it onto the DPP list of video nasties. A potential future Incredibly Bad Film, it resembles a school production – “There is not one single aspect… that could possibly be rendered any worse” — Greg Goodsell.
  STONE COLD DEAD
• 1980
  STILL SMOKIN’
• 1981
  CHEECH & CHONG’S NICE DREAMS – this and the previous one are both ‘comedies’ starring Cheech and Chong, two Americans who spend all their time stoned. Might be funny if you’re in the same state.
• 1982
  THE YOUNG WARRIORS – Bizarre teenage vigilante thriller also starring Ernest Borgnine, Richard Roundtree and Lynda Day George.
• 1983
  THE BLACK ROOM
• 1985
  SAVAGE STREETS – Shock! Horror! A surprisingly decent pic, with Linnea playing Linda Blair’s deaf-mute sister, who is raped, causing Linda to go after the attackers. The British version has a lot of nudity and violence cut, yet still has a low-life nastiness that bites. Probably her best bit of acting to date.
  SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT – Mundane slasher pic that achieved a certain amount of notoriety after being withdrawn from circulation, chiefly because of it’s use of Santa as a psycho. Linnea is one of his victims, impaled ( topless, natch! ) on a set of antlers.
  RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD – Possibly the movie she’s most known for, this remains one of the few films to successfully combine horror and comedy. Linnea plays a punkette with some odd ideas about death – her idea of fun is doing a strip-tease on a tombstone, prompting the immortal line “Trash’s taking her clothes off again!” (pic, below).
• 1987
  NIGHTMARE SISTERS – written in six days, filmed in four. Enough said.
  TREASURE OF THE MOON GODDESS – shot in two chunks. It started off in Mexico, and was so bad (having a director who spoke only Spanish didn’t help) it was shelved for two years before eventually being finished in the Philippines.

• 1988
  CREEPOZOIDS – Made in fifteen days, this post-holocaust remake of ‘Alien’ without the frightening bits lacks the humour that’d justify the bad FX. A group of survivors are picked off by a genetic experiment; Linnea is the second last to get killed. tho’ she takes a shower first. If a nuclear war would stop films like this being made, I’m for pressing the button now.
  THE IMP – (aka “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama”)
  HOLLYWOOD HOOKERS – (aka “Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers”) this was made over two weekends on a budget rumoured to be as low as $80,000, by schlock-meister Fred Olen Ray. Blood and nudity in equal (large) measure, courtesy of some chainsaws and Linnea respectively; the latter is a chainsaw-worshipper, wearing little apart from a snake tattoo, which took six hours to apply. Ah, how the artist must suffer.
  NIGHT OF THE DEMONS – (aka “Halloween Party”)
  DOCTOR ALIEN – (aka “I was a Teenage Sex Mutant”) High bimbo quotient, a decent script (by Ken ‘Metamorphosis’ Hall) and good performances, especially from Judy Landers in the title role lifts this ‘aliens-turn-nerd-into-sex-machine’ movie above the average, even if the end sucks. LQ’s role is fortunately negligible; she barely says a word and just takes her top off instead.
  VICE ACADEMY
  AMERICAN RAMPAGE
• 1989
  ASSAULT OF THE PARTY NERDS

A SELECTION OF UNCONFIRMED SIGHTINGS, ALTERNATE TITLES, PROJECTS IN PRODUCTION AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES.

Tantalizer	Sex Bomb	Deadly Embrace
Blood Nasty	Psycho in Texas	Hauntings
Space Sluts in the Slammer	Sorority Succubus Sisters	American Gigolo
Nightmare on Elm Street IV

I don’t REMEMBER seeing her in the last one, tho’ I wasn’t really looking!

Linnea Quigley’s Knockers

[Sorry, couldn’t resist that one!] Let’s be honest and admit there are certainly people who don’t like her and will have read the previous pages through gritted teeth. The case for the prosecution:

10 THINGS WRONG WITH LINNEA QUIGLEY

1. She’s too short.
2. Her ribs stick out too much.
3. Her lips.
4. Her hair.
5. She looks generally grotty.
6. She works more than Barbara Crampton.
7. She believes her hype.
8. Her husband worked on a film in South Africa.
9. The films she appears in.
10. She never pulled that lipstick back out from inside her breast.

A sense of chivalry forces me to Linnea’s defence. The first five, dealing with her appearance, probably come down to personal taste; she IS small – I don’t regard that as a problem. Never really noticed her ribs much – normally when they’re visible, so are more, er, interesting things. Her lips don’t seem at all abnormal, though I must admit her hair does resemble an explosion in an asbestos factory. The second five are a little more objective; a few more Barbara Crampton films would certainly be good to see and it is probably true that there are millions of better looking bimbos who CAN act out there.

Eight may well be irrelevant and isn’t her fault anyway. Nine, well, alright – unlike Sybil Danning, who can drag an otherwise appaling film up to acceptable (“The Howling II”) by sheer power & charisma, the best movies LQ is in are good for reasons other than her presence. And can I have an explanation of number 10, please? It’s clearly connected with ‘Night of the Demons’, where she did screw a lipstick into her nipple – beyond that, I’m at a loss…

I could certainly have reviewed more of her films, but after having watched the ones I did, I ran out of interesting ways to say ‘this is a total waste of time and those responsible should be fried in batter’. Space is TC is short enough without wasting it on low-budget movies with no originality just because an average-looking bimbo is in them. I MIGHT, I stress MIGHT, review some more next issue. Oh, sod it, I’m off to watch ‘Passion Flower Hotel’ again…

Thanks to Just, Richard Owen, Steve, Mark Stevens & Glyn Williams for their help in writing the preceding pages. All incoherencies & inaccuracies are mine…