Laurie Strode

Original appearances

Laurie Strode first appears in the original Halloween. The 17-year-old Laurie (Curtis) has plans to babysit Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) on Halloween night, 1978. However, throughout the day, she keeps seeing a mysterious masked man watching her wherever she goes; unbeknownst to her, he is Michael Myers (Nick Castle), an escaped mental patient who murdered his sister, Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson), 15 years ago and has begun stalking her. Laurie is also unaware that she is Myers' sister. As Laurie babysits Tommy, Myers kills Laurie's friends, Annie (Nancy Loomis) and Lynda (P. J. Soles), in the house across the street. Growing concerned when they fail to call her, Laurie goes to investigate and sees their corpses laid out for her to find, before being attacked by Myers. Barely escaping, Laurie races back to the Doyle house. Michael gets in and attacks her again, but Laurie manages to fend him off long enough for Tommy and Lindsey to escape. Laurie is saved by Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who shoots Myers off the balcony.^[2]

Halloween II picks up directly after the first film, with Laurie Strode being taken to a hospital. Upon learning who attacked her, Laurie asks "Why me?" After being sedated, Laurie has a dream in which she visits an older boy in a hospital. Waking up, she begins to roam the hallways of the hospital until coming face to face with Myers, who has been killing his way through the hospital staff in search of her. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis is told that Michael and Judith Myers are actually Laurie's biological siblings; she was put up for adoption after the death of their parents, with the records sealed to protect the family. Concluding that Laurie is still in danger, Loomis rushes to the hospital and causes an explosion which engulfs himself and Myers, while Laurie escapes the blast. The traumatized Laurie is last seen being transferred to another hospital.^[3] In Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Laurie is said to have died prior to the film's events, with the role of protagonist taken up by her young daughter, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris). A photograph of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie appears in a scene where Jamie remembers her mother.^[4] The character of Jamie would go on to reappear in two more Halloween sequels,^[5][6] while Laurie's cousin Kara (Marianne Hagan) and her family appear in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.^[6]

Curtis returned as Laurie Strode in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, the seventh film in the series. The screenplay was based on a story by Kevin Williamson,^[7] and the story was situated as a sequel to the previous six movies, thereby keeping the timeline's continuity.^[8] However, the screenplay was developed by Robert Zapia and Matt Greenberg to function as an alternate timeline, in which the previous three installments never happened and the Jamie Lloyd character, her daughter, never existed. Laurie is revealed to have faked her death in a car accident as a way of escaping her murderous brother, whose body was not found after Halloween II. She is now 37 years old and living under the name Keri Tate, and works as the headmistress of a California private school, where her teenage son John (Josh Hartnett) is a student. Laurie, who by now has become an alcoholic, is still haunted by memories of her brother's rampage, and lives in fear that he may return. Although John dismisses her as paranoid, her fears become reality when Myers (Chris Durand) resurfaces on Halloween and murders John's classmates. After getting her son to safety, Laurie decides to stop running and face her brother. She stops Michael, but, unconvinced that he is truly dead, goes on to steal his body and decapitate him.^[9] In Halloween: Resurrection, it is revealed that the man Laurie killed was a paramedic with whom Myers (Brad Loree) had swapped clothes. The guilt-ridden Laurie is now an inmate at the Grace Andersen Sanitarium, where the nurses believe her to be catatonic. Instead, she is preparing for Myers' return, and when he does, she lures him on to the institution's rooftop. Although he falls into her trap, Laurie's fears of again killing the wrong person get the better of her; when she tries to remove his mask, Michael stabs her and throws her off the roof, to her death.^[10]

Curtis will reprise her role as Laurie Strode in 2018's Halloween. The film will ignore all of the previous sequels in the franchise and will serve as a direct sequel to the 1978 film, taking place 40 years later. The plot twist from the 1981 sequel of Strode being the sister of Michael Myers also will be ignored. In the trailer for the film, Strode's granddaughter, played by Andi Matichak, explains how her life has been impacted by Michael's reign of terror 40 years earlier. When a friend hints that they heard Michael was Laurie's brother, Matichak's character replies, "No, it was not her brother, that was something people made up."^[11]

Rob Zombie series

Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) appears in Rob Zombie's Halloween remake. This movie establishes from the beginning that Laurie is Michael's baby sister, nicknamed "Boo". The young Michael (Daeg Faerch) shares a close bond with her. When Michael is sent away for killing his older sister Judith (Hanna R. Hall), Laurie's mother is unable to cope and commits suicide. The infant Laurie is discovered by Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif), who omits her from the records for her own protection, and she is eventually adopted by the Strode family. The adult Michael (Tyler Mane) escapes and comes home in search of his sister, killing her adoptive parents and her friend Lynda (Kristina Klebe) before kidnapping Laurie. Michael attempts to communicate with Laurie through a picture of them both as children, but she does not understand and attacks him. Laurie hides as Michael hunts her down in their old childhood home; when he finds her, she shoots him in the face with a gun she took from Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), after which she begins screaming hysterically as the scene fades to an old home video of young Michael and baby Laurie.^[12]

In the 2009 sequel, Laurie has moved in with the Bracketts. She suffers recurring nightmares about Michael and their mother, and is seeing a therapist to deal with the trauma. Laurie discovers on Halloween from Dr. Loomis's book that she is Michael's sister Angel, and that Sheriff Brackett had a hand in her adoption. Distraught, she moves out of the Brackett house only to later find Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris) dead at Myers' hand. Laurie continually sees apparitions and Loomis reveals she suffers from the same illness as Myers. In the film's climax, she tells an impaled and bullet-riddled Myers that she loves him, before stabbing him and then putting on his mask. In the film's close, she is in a mental institution, where she sees further apparitions of her mother. In the director's cut of the film, Laurie instead attempts to kill an injured and unconscious Dr. Loomis after Michael is killed and is shot dead by the police.^[13]