28 Years Ago, An Iconic Final Girl Returned to Revive a Failing Horror Franchise & Two Decades Later She’d Have To Do It Again

Almost three decades ago, one of the most iconic final girls in the history of horror cinema revived a slasher franchise, only for her to return and repeat this feat some 20 years later in a second reboot. By the late ‘90s, the slasher movie was in a tricky place. The horror subgenre had exploded in popularity during the early ‘80s, and became a multiplex staple by the middle of the decade. However, while the early ‘80s were filled with a diverse array of slashers from Madman to The Dorm That Dripped Blood, the mid ‘80s saw the subgenre converge around a few famous franchises.

By the mid ‘90s, an endless string of sequels to Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare On Elm Street ensured that viewers were sick of slashers that all felt the same. The arrival of the Scream franchise ushered in a new golden age of self-aware meta slashers, as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Cherry Falls, and Valentine all scrambled to recreate the success of director Wes Craven’s satirical slasher. This left the traditional slasher franchises struggling to maintain relevance, at least until Halloween H20 invented the legacy sequel in 1998.

Halloween H20 Arrived In Theatres On August 5, 1998

On August 5, 1998, Halloween H20 welcomed Halloween’s original Final Girl, Laurie Strode, back to the franchise for the first time since 1981’s first sequel, Halloween II. Like the first Alien sequel, Aliens, this belated followup turned the original movie’s traumatised survivor into a resilient badass. However, as tough as Laurie was in this reboot, the killing spree of Michael Myers had still taken a toll on her.

Halloween H20 revealed that Jamie Lee Curtis’s character had faked her death to escape media scrutiny after the events of Halloween II, a setup that allowed the movie to effectively retcon the rest of the franchise’s many slasher sequels post-Halloween II. In an era when even the Universal movie monsters get frequent reboots, this strategy might not seem that innovative, but Halloween H20 was the first slasher reboot to pioneer the legacy sequel approach.

In the years to come, the legacy-sequel model became Hollywood’s default strategy for slasher franchises that had long since run their course. Interestingly enough, however, it was a while before the studios caught onto the popularity of this angle. Throughout the 2000s, almost every iconic slasher franchise, from Halloween to Friday the 13th to A Nightmare On Elm Street, received straightforward reboots that recast all their main characters.

Halloween H20 Pioneered The Legacy Sequel Slasher Trend (Before Halloween 2018 Repeated This Trick)

It wasn’t until 2018’s Halloween retconned the franchise’s story a second time, bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode for a second, unrelated legacy sequel, that this approach became a mainstream slasher phenomenon. After the success of Halloween 2018, 2021’s Candyman, 2022’s Scream, the same year’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer all followed the formula.

Like Halloween 2018, these legacy sequels maintained the original movie’s recognisable title, brought back the iconic Final Girl, and added a slew of new, disposable teens to the cast list. While this slasher franchise approach yielded mixed results with critics and at the box office, it is worth noting that Halloween H20 pioneered the risky retcon 20 years before the next Halloween legacy sequel popularised the formula.

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