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"I'm just going over Katelynn's to play Donkey Kong, be back later! Love you!" I yelled at my mom right before I ran down the lane and crept into my friend's basement to face my fears and watch the one, the only, the classic...Halloween.
From an early age, I fancifully found myself a prestigious, blossoming cinephile, but the allure of the horror genre was always present and ominous and forbidden. Sure, I had my mini obsessions—Hocus Pocus, Monkey Trouble...Oh, Thora, thank you—but being the deeply closeted tween that I was, I didn't care about any superheroes.
It wasn't until I secretly watched Halloween on that fateful day in 1998, 20 years after the film's original release, that I finally witnessed a movie character that I identified with: Laurie Strode. Since I wasn't alive when the movie was first released, my discovery of Halloween actually came from me noticing the buzz surrounding Halloween: H20, but the moment the original movie ended, I wanted to watch it again. I couldn't believe how worried I was for this fictional character. My new hero didn't wear a cape, she was just an average teen, grounded in total reality. Before, I didn't really have anyone to look up to. Now, I had Laurie.
To quote Jamie Lee Curtis herself, Laurie was "complex, intelligent, sensitive, vulnerable, and funny." To me, she was pure goodness. Something I felt I was and still strive to always be. I didn't just fear for Laurie, I felt that I embodied her. Like Laurie, I too was a little social and had some rebellious friends, but I was shy and different. I floated through life until the days came when I had to face the bullies, being called gay, as a slur, on a daily basis before I even knew who I was. Laurie didn't want life to hit her the way it did on October 31, 1978 but it did, in the form of Michael Myers and she had no choice but to stick it out, fight back and somehow escape that closet she was trapped in and survive.
I walked into the now-defunct Suncoast Video soon after my first viewing and bought the VHS of Halloween. The cashier took no issue with this. I had inherited my dad's Iranian facial hair, so, even at twelve years old, I was sporting a nice five o'clock shadow.
Soon after, my mom got her hands on the box and read phrases like "brutally slaughtered" used to describe its contents. I knew I was in trouble.
Scared, I threw it away. We were just a year away from the tragedy in Columbine that would rock the nation, and the question of blaming violence in movies and video games for real-life crimes had already arisen.
I remember having to explain to my mom that I wasn't watching the movie for the carnage, I was watching it for the good person who was facing evil! Mom didn't get it, but she got it. Much to her chagrin, Halloween: H20 was getting a final theatrical bump in the fall of that year, and my dad took me to a matinee. To this day, to me, no film ending has captured that true victory. Here was my little Laurie, a regular old person, now grown-up, slaying the dragon!
For four glorious years from 1998, the world was at peace and Laurie Strode was the victor. But the lucrative nature of the franchise meant that Halloween: Resurrection would be right around the corner.
There was no mystique to the rumors surrounding the movie's 2002 release; Laurie Strode would have to die. I went to see it, of course. Now, working at said Suncoast Video and midway through high school, I had an even greater love of cinema, more knowledge and a little more of a backbone. Maybe I'd be okay without her.
I loved seeing Laurie again and wanted to believe that by some miracle she would still emerge strong and take Michael down. It was the worst gut punch ever witnessing that death on the big screen. I was sad. I was confused. My hero was dead. That isn't to say Ms. Curtis wasn't a hero of mine in her own right. I grew to become such a fan that I even briefly met her at a book signing in 2005. Though the encounter was swift, Jamie was in Washington, D.C. and had to be back in LA for a PTA meeting that evening, I still felt thrilled to witness her mighty presence in person and get a quick autograph. Sadly, I was not calm, and I gave her a poem I wrote about her in middle school and a letter in which I think I tried to tell her how we could fix this mess with another sequel.
In 2011, after many years spent recovering from my epistolary faux pas, I attended a 30th-anniversary screening of the 1981 Halloween II and asked the director Rick Rosenthal if there was a chance Laurie could still be alive? I reasoned that she had only been stabbed and fallen from a building into a soft bush.
Sure, he assured me, the unstable grown man in the audience, sure.
Shortly after that, at The HorrorHound Convention in Indianapolis, Jamie herself finally faced the fans and the loaded question of: Do you ever regret that Laurie Strode was killed off?
I couldn't afford to travel to the convention. I anxiously awaited footage to be released as this was her first and only convention appearance. I watched as she so eloquently explained from start to finish the excitement surrounding the Resurrection movie and how crushing it was to watch her character's fate end up the way it did. But, here she was clarifying that she did all in her power to at least make sure we super fans could watch Halloween: H20 and enjoy it as a stand-alone movie.
By 2017, I was living in Hollywood, struggling to fulfill my dreams as a writer and actor, a dream I was pursuing all because of this damn little movie I had fallen in love with called Halloween.
I was in a deep, dark, depression at the time and one day, while tending bar, the news broke. There it was: A picture of Jamie on the porch with Michael lurking behind. "Same porch. Same clothes. Same issues" read the movie tagline for Halloween, the first in a new trilogy from the franchise.
Holy S***! My hero was back! If Laurie had been given a second chance, perhaps I had a second chance? My customers and co-workers were concerned about why I was running back and forth from the bathroom, checking my phone, and crying. At a time in my life when I was worried I couldn't feel anything, Laurie's resurrection if you will, gave me a little jolt back into existence!
It has been beautiful to witness Ms. Curtis' realization that Laurie Strode has always been just as important and iconic as Michael Myers, that there are fans rooting for her to win, fans that aren't just watching for blood and guts, but watching for the catharsis that horror films can bring to us. Laurie even has her own doll now! Little me needed that doll, but adult me is glad it finally exists.
Now, we come to the Halloween Ends of this fun, five-year ride with a new trilogy. After watching the new installment's trailer for the 500th time, I felt and knew that everything had finally come full circle.
So thank you, John Carpenter for this masterpiece, thank you, Debra Hill for creating this character, and thank you Jamie Lee Curtis for unknowingly bottling lightning and portraying my lifelong hero.
Devin is an Iranian-American LGBTQ+ writer and actor from Maryland now residing in Los Angeles. He is also the host of "I Don't Want To HEAR That!", a Podcast for fans of hit show The Comeback!
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
