Jamie Lee Curtis’ 45 Year Film Moment!

Monday is about Movies (and sometimes TV). Today it's about Jamie Lee Curtis.

There I was, last week, in an empty movie theatre at 10.30am – waiting half an hour on my own for the final chapter in the legendary horror franchise, Halloween Ends.

I’ve written a spoiler-free review.

If you pop on over to Twitter, and why would you, every avatar and handle will be telling you it’s a dud movie.

I rather loved it.

The film is not clean, it’s far from perfect, there are aspects of it that didn’t fully gel with me – but as an experience I thought it was pretty wonderful. Wrapping up nearly 45 years of story, that has played out in my life across 30 years and several rewatches of most of the movies in the franchise, I was actually quite emotional watching it.

And the star of the show – rightfully – was Jamie Lee Curtis.

I think Halloween Ends is worth seeing for many reasons, particularly in a year when so many great horror films have provided so many great big-screen experiences of thrills and jump-scares and laughs too. But the main reason to see it is to watch Curtis, as Laurie Strode, have a beautiful story-wrap.

What a journey for Laurie Strode. But also what a journey for Jamie Lee Curtis.

The daughter of two Hollywood legends (mother Janet Leigh and father Tony Curtis), Jamie Lee was still a teen when she was cast in the original Halloween, a low-budget indie film that nobody had any real hopes for. Jamie wasn’t even that into acting, the family trade wasn’t something she was all that interested in at that point.

But overnight she became the “Screen Queen” of her generation and in the four years between Halloween and its first two sequels, Jamie Lee was in close to a dozen horror films – even with a voice cameo on Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, after reprising Laurie for Halloween II.

From there she cast horror aside and became a star of many genres with breakout roles in the comedy Trading Places and the workout romantic drama, Perfect.

The hits just kept on coming after that. A Fish Called Wanda, Blue Steel, My Girl, True Lies, Freaky Friday and most recently Knives Out and last year’s bonkers-but-brilliant Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Crucially, Curtis returned twice as Laurie Strode. In 1998 she makes her first comeback as the character, allowing the franchise to reboot for Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (and 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection).

I’m sure there was a time when she had no interest in horror, nor Halloween – but she clearly never resented it. The role is what made her.

From that small indie film a huge career was born. And if Curtis hadn’t returned as Strode, we might not have had the Michael Myers films scattered across the last two decades.

When Halloween was rebooted in 2018 for a trilogy that has now been concluded, the writing/directing team decided to ignore all previous sequels, and set the action 40 years after the first film, as a follow-up to that movie’s plot. Jamie Lee Curtis needed to be there for this to make any sense at all. And she has been a feature of the three recent films.

Her character’s story is one of survival, true grit and gumption. Laurie Strode was dubbed the original “final girl”, a concept in horror which has allowed the blatant sexism of big boobs and naked women to have a moment of power that transcends; these big, bad boogeymen are ultimately defeated by the woman – or girl – that makes it to the end of the movie.

Laurie Strode’s story has now been fleshed out, erm yeah, to show a survivor dealing with grief and trauma, growing as a person, reflecting on her role as matriarch or a cursed family.

Hey, it’s just horror. It’s just a bit of fun, light entertainment – nothing too serious. But without Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween franchise there is no ongoing legacy.

I was instantly struck by this when Halloween Ends began.

And it sat with me – heavily, beautifully – throughout the film.

Jamie Lee Curtis is brilliant to follow on social media (especially Instagram) and in her candid interviews and podcast appearances (her own podcast, and the ones she guests on).

I’d recommend you check out her recent chat with horror legend Mick Garris.

It's a surprisingly emotional story-arc. Well, actually, it’s not that surprising. But you’ll also hear the threads and connections, how she scored Trading Places as a result of that early work. How John Cleese saw that and wrote the role in A Fish Called Wanda for her. How that movie set her up for True Lies, and so on.

Fascinating stuff from a brilliant actor – someone I’ve been watching my whole life. I realised when listening to the podcast that I’d seen so many of Curtis’ early/mid-period roles (Trading, Perfect, Grandview U.S.A, Love Letters – and the 90s blockbusters) before starting in on Halloween and then The Fog, Prom Night, Roadgames and Escape From New York.

It feels like Jamie Lee Curtis is in the middle of a deserved victory lap right now. And I am very much here for it.

For the completion of the Laurie Strode story alone, Halloween Ends was hugely rewarding and vital.