[Editorial] Laurie Strode: A Portrait of Trauma and Survival in The Halloween Franchise, Part 2

Iconic final girl, Laurie Strode (Jaime Lee Curtis) has seen more than a lifetime of trauma and terror. On Halloween night of 1978, she was stalked and attacked by Michael Myers, a masked killer who would turn out to be her biological brother.

Part 1 of this analysis examines the trauma she experienced when she was seventeen, as well as her struggles with mental illness and her ultimate empowerment twenty years later. When last we saw Laurie, she had turned the tables on Michael and cut off his head, finally killing her monster and putting an end to the long years of nightmares. 

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Or so she thought. Many fans consider Laurie’s story concluded in 1998 as she definitively kills the boogeyman who’s been plaguing her for 20 years. But her story continues in the 2002 film Halloween: Resurrection. We learn that unbeknownst to Laurie, Michael (Brad Loree) had swapped places with a paramedic who was wearing the iconic jumpsuit and mask when Laurie cut off his head. Rather than kill the boogeyman, she accidentally ended the life of an innocent father of three. 

Since that Halloween night, she’s been confined to a mental health care facility sitting wordless for three years. They believe her to be depressed and catatonic, but she has merely been lying in wait. Trips to the roof her doctors believed to be suicide attempts, were actualy spent setting a trap for Michael, knowing he would inevitably return to kill her. She’s also been pocketing her pills and faking her silence. 

Michael returns to kill Laurie, just like she knew he would and she is able to maneuver him into her trap. But remembering the death of the paramedic, she pauses before killing him. She wants to remove his mask to be sure. Laurie again reaches out to Michael and he ensnares her, stabbing his sister before dropping her to her death. It’s a brutal and heartless way to say goodbye to a beloved character. Laurie is essentially killed using her own empathy by a faceless monster defined by his lack of it. 

Halloween (2018)

Those heartbroken by Laurie’s cruel death get another version of her story in the 2018 film Halloween. We rejoin her 40 years after the original attack. This story eschews all sequels and assumes that Michael (James Jude Courtney) was incarcerated in 1978 after being shot by Dr. Loomis and falling off the balcony. Laurie and Michael are not related and his attack was purely random. Though the manifestation of her trauma is different, the pain she suffers is similar. She lives in self-imposed isolation as a survivalist, preparing for the inevitable day when she believes he will come back for her. Michael’s attack is said to define her life and she’s described as a monster who’s sole mission to kill him is what keeps her alive. Even Laurie admits that she prays every night for Michael’s escape allowing her the ability to kill him. She is unable to let go of her trauma and channels it by plotting his death.

In this timeline, Laurie is mother to Karen (Judy Greer) and grandmother to Allyson (Andi Matichak), but her relationship with both is strained. Karen describes her own traumatic upbringing, learning to defend herself and preparing to hide from Micahel in the basement. Now a therapist, she sets firm boundaries with her mother and refuses to see the world as a terrifying place. It’s unclear if Lauria has sought treatment, but she behaves erratically, abusing alcohol, breaking into Karen’s house, and monitoring police communication.

When podcasters ask to interview her hoping to learn from her story they rip this wound open again, asking her sensitive questions about losing custody of her daughter. They suggest she talk to Michael; to unburden herself by expressing her rage and pain to the one who caused it.  But they are only concerned with their own content and not how triggering this would be for her. She declines this condescending offer for closure and ends the interview

Allyson’s advice to let go feels more genuine, but she is still unable to do so. Letting go of her mission to kill Michael would mean accepting that she was a victim of unpreventable tragedy. If Michael is not her destiny, he’s just a random attacker. There could be more killers like him lurking somewhere nearby. Part of her defense is projecting a grander weight to her trauma and viewing Karen’s upbringing as a necessary element of a fundamentally unsafe world. But it is also keeping her locked in her pain.

Michael is transferred to another facility the day before Halloween, already likely to be an extremely triggering time for Laurie. As he boards the bus, she drinks alone in her car nearby screaming in pain and frustration. She arrives late to a family dinner and sobs that she didn’t know what to do when she saw him. While Karen attempts to offer support, she is clearly triggered by Laurie’s actions. This would be an upsetting time of year for her as well and she chooses not to celebrate, wearing a Christmas sweater in rejection of the holiday. With more emotional distance, Allyson is able to offer Laurie kindness and understanding, but she is not prepared for the magnitude of her grandmother’s pain. 

When Michael finally finds Laurie again, she is ready and waiting for him. Leaving nothing to chance, she clears the rooms of her house then drops impenetrable gates, systematically sealing off places he could hide from her. She uses Michael’s own iconic moves against him, appearing behind him from the darkness just as he did 40 years ago. She jumps off the balcony then disappears while his back is turned. This time she is the one to search behind the slatted closet doors as he hides from her. She is in a position of strength, mentally reclaiming the power she lost 40 years earlier. But she is gaining this power by becoming Michael, not a stronger version of herself. 

The tragedy here is that had he not been driven there by his new doctor, Michael might never have made his way back to Laurie and though she survived his original attack, she would have lost her life waiting for him. She is attempting to reclaim a new place in the equation of power, transforming herself from victim to hero and Michael from villain to victim. But this necessitates him remaining in her life. She may find closure by trapping him then burning him alive, but she will never truly move forward with her life until she can leave the boogeyman behind. 

Laurie’s story continues in Halloween Kills, releasing on October 15th. Stay tuned for a detailed examination of her response to trauma and methods of empowerment .

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