Horror Actressing: Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween"
Monday, October 28, 2019 at 3:00PM by Jason Adams
It is October 28th as I write this and so naturally one is thinking of Halloween -- not the holiday but John Carpenter's movie, I mean. I think in movies exclusively now, ya see. But with this franchise it's hard not to -- the original film was released 41 years ago yesterday and its star Jamie Lee Curtis is out there right now still playing Laurie Strode for the first of two brand new sequels, Halloween Kills for next year and then for 2021 (the no doubt deceptively titled) Halloween Ends. What a good time to celebrate Laurie Strode then...
I wasn't a huge fan of last year's film from David Gordon Green but Jamie Lee is always worth watching, and nothing she did with the character in that too reverent film did anything to convince me that there's any greater Final Girl than Laurie Strode. Others have maybe fought bigger -- think of all the boobytraps that Nancy manages to rig in the last act of Elm Street -- but Curtis imbues Laurie with so much relatable humanity that whether she's squeaking out protests about the cute boy Ben Tramer or plunging a knitting needle into a monster's throat you are always right there with her at her elbow, trembling alongside.
The last act of the 1978 film is pure terror, with all the running and screaming and running and screaming, and it's certainly memorable, but when I think of Laurie Strode I think of the small moments early on where she registers that preternatural Final Girl sense that something is wrong in Small Town America -- a disturbance in the Force driving a station-wagon down Main Street. Final Girls are Horror Movie Jedis -- they sense the bad stuff first, and then telekinetically throw knives in its general direction to save the day.
The Carrie allusion there is pointed -- not just because of the PJ Soles through-line but because I've always thought Carpenter borrowed liberally from the way two years earlier De Palma & Spacek crafted audience sympathy for their wall-flower revenger. We get the same sense of wanting to take care of Laurie almost immediately as her friends, her horrible friends, berate her left and right. Curtis makes this girl practically pre-traumatized, just by the experience of being a Teenage Girl -- only she can fight back because only she's already down in a defensive crouch. The new film made it even clearer (too clear, I think) -- Laurie is our collective trauma made manifest, and she's also our way through. And she's also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, stabbing him repeatedly.
Reader Comments (6)
Yes still the ultimate final girl,we root for her right from the start,that Ben Tramer line is a v funny line,I was upset she looked bored during the recent retwist and am perplexed at it being so Huge..
Deceased @ “she's also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, stabbing him repeatedly.” 💀💀💀🤣🤣🤣👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Jason, this may be the best-written entry in this series of yours, the final line is Golden.
One typo though: Nancy *Thompson* is the heroine of Nightmare on Elm Street, not Nancy Loomis (Nancy Loomis is, I mean *was*, the name of the actress who played Laurie's bitchy friend Annie (the actress has since changed her last name to Kyes). Just FYI!
Now I want to watch the movie again, for the 20th time...
Oh good catch, Rob, thanks. I'll fix that :)
One of the best films ever made.
She was great horror heroine