We really love scream queens, so we’ve decided to start a sub-series honoring them individually. To kick things off, we humbly present two films featuring a big crush for innumerable genre nerds: Jill Schoelen! We’ve already shown two of her biggest films, Cutting Class and Popcorn, and you all loved those so much that we guarantee you’ll love these, too.

The Phantom of the Opera (1991)
We would bet that you didn’t know that this movie existed, because it’s criminally underrated. Jill Schoelen plays Christine Day, an opera singer in 1991 NYC that discovers a lost piece written by a composer who may have been a serial killer. Despite having this information, she sings the piece anyway and gets whisked back in time and space to 1885 London, where the more well-known version of this story plays out. The big difference here is that friggin’ Robert Englund plays The Phantom! And there’s a lot more gore. Like, a lot more.

The Stepfather (1987)
After we delight you with campy gore in Victorian London, let us whisk you away to somewhere more terrifying: the suburbs. In this intense classic, Schoelen is Stephanie, an angsty teenage girl who’s pretty sure there’s something wrong with her stepfather… like, REALLY wrong. Since she’s known to be trouble, she’s having a hard time getting anyone to believe her when she says she’s pretty sure he might be a psychotic killer. Trust us: this one is worth the price of admission, even just for its masterfully creepy opening scene!