Jamie Lee Curtis Teases Details About Loomis Character in ‘Halloween’ Sequel

The upcoming Halloween sequel will make some drastic changes to the franchise’s familiar mythology, with the events of this film taking place immediately after the 1978 original. One drastic change is that Dr. Loomis, originally played by Donald Pleasence, will be absent from the film, though Jamie Lee Curtis revealed that her character will be taking up a similar mantle this time around.

“Laurie has been traumatized and Laurie also understands Michael Myers in a way that nobody else does,” Curtis shared with Sunrise. “In a weird way, she’s become the new Loomis character because Loomis was the one who understood that [Michael] needed to be stopped because he was pure evil. You see, Laurie knows that – and nobody’s paying any attention, but Laurie is…Laurie is patrolling these streets.”

In the original film, Loomis was Michael Myers’ doctor who was seemingly the only one who understood the terror the character was capable of creating. While the series is often directly linked with Curtis and her character of Laurie Strode, Pleasence appeared in five films as the character, with this new film being Laurie’s fifth appearance.

Pleasence’s last appearance was in the sixth film, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. The original cut of the film focused on the Thorn Cult and their plans of summoning an evil entity to live inside Myers, explaining his pursuit of death. The film’s climax involved a ritual that purged the entity from Myers and ended up in Loomis, potentially kicking off the doctor as the villain in future installments.

Test audiences didn’t respond positively to this narrative development, resulting in a large portion of the film being re-shot. Unfortunately, Pleasence passed away before those reshoots could be completed, giving the seminal actor an underwhelming sendoff as his character was killed off-screen.

In Rob Zombie’s reboot films, Malcolm McDowell played the character, though Curtis’ comments seem to imply the character will be largely ignored, as Laurie has developed an unhealthy infatuation with Michael Myers.

As evidenced by the first trailers for the film, another major change to the mythology is that Michael will no longer be Laurie’s brother, a narrative element that was introduced in Halloween II and played a major role in subsequent sequels. By ignoring all of the sequels, this new film can explore uncharted territory.

The new Halloween will land in theaters on October 19th.

Do you think it makes sense for Laurie to become Loomis? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

[H/T YouTube, JazzyUte]