Scream Queens

It is women who love horror,' said the cinema's first Dracula, Bela Lugosi.

Since the horror genre began in the 1930s, the female role has changed. The passive victims of the classic monsters of the past have become resourceful heroines competing on equal terms with their male co-stars, both human and inhuman.

Reece Shearsmith meets a coven of female horror stars and charts the development and changing roles in the genre; from the femmes fatales of Dracula's Daughter, through Hitchcock's leading ladies, to Hammer's lesbian vampires of the 1970s and the present-day action heroines such as Buffy the Vampire-Slayer.

Featuring:

* Screen legends Barbara Shelley and Madeline Smith

* TV's 'Woman in Black' Pauline Moran.

* Linda Hayden - star of one of Reece's favourite horror films 'Blood on Satan's Claw

* Jane Merrow who went from appearing in horror movies to producing them.

Producer: Stephen Garner

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2012.

Reece Shearsmith meets the female screen stars of horror.