Jamie Lee Curtis Says Halloween Sequels Will Unpack Original Movie and Examine Cultural Phenomenon of Violence

Jamie Lee Curtis — who played terrorized babysitter Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween, a role she reprised in last year’s 40-years-later sequel directed by David Gordon Green — says Green’s two sequels, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, will “unpack the first movie” with the return of past characters before examining the “cultural phenomenon of violence” in the “sensational” finale of his sequel trilogy. Returning in Kills alongside Curtis’ Laurie, who spent 40 years preparing for her second encounter with Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney), are Lindsey Wallace (played again by original Halloween ’78 star Kyle Richards), Tommy Doyle (franchise newcomer Anthony Michael Hall) and Lonnie Elam (franchise newcomer Robert Longstreet).

“What I love that David and [co-writer] Danny [McBride] and company did is they connected the dots for forty years, now they’re going back to really unpack the first movie, bringing back all those characters whose lives were affected by what happened in 1978,” Curtis told Collider at the Saturn Awards, where Curtis was named Best Actress for Universal and Blumhouse’s Halloween.

Halloween Ends, planned as the final installment in what will be a four-movie saga, looks at “the sort of cultural phenomenon of violence,” Curtis added. “That’s what the third movie ultimately is, a very powerful examination of violence. It comes at it from a slightly different way. You’ll like it… If you believe in me at all, I promise you what David Gordon Green has come up with as a way to complete this trilogy is sensational.”

On her return for last year’s Halloween — her first time stepping back into the role of Laurie since 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection, which marked her fourth time playing the character after returns in 1981’s Halloween II and 1998’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later — Curtis was drawn to its examination of trauma. The newly reimagined Laurie was presented there as a paranoid recluse traumatized by her near-fatal encounter with mask-wearing murderer Michael Myers on Halloween night 1978.

“The ass-kicking part is the fan-favorite part, but from my standpoint, I didn’t go into it because I got to kick Michael’s bottom. I was particularly drawn because it was a movie about trauma,” Curtis said. “We have horror movies that are horrific and we have these horrific events take place, but we leave the movie theater and then we complain that the dishwasher doesn’t work. The trauma that occurs for these character for forty years, I felt was very important that David understood that and was really giving Laurie great honor to acknowledge that her experience of her life was very challenged.”

“And then kick his ass. And then you realize that it, in fact, was all like a spider’s web, but in order to go to the spider’s web, you also had to see the fragile person,” added Curtis. “And I was grateful that that was the angel. I think that if from the opening section I was kicking butt, it wouldn’t have had the emotional reaction that people actually had.”

Universal and Blumhouse next open Halloween Kills Oct. 16, 2020. Halloween Ends follows one year later on Oct. 15, 2021.