Characters / Halloween: Laurie Strode

Halloween Main Character Index
Michael Myers | Laurie Strode | Samuel Loomis | Jamie Lloyd | Rachel Carruthers | Tina Williams | Season of the Witch | Halloween (2007) | Halloween (2018)

Laurie Strode

Laurie Strode is the Final Girl and main heroine of the Halloween series. She becomes a target of Michael Myers while dropping off a key at his childhood home and is stalked by him.

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Pre- 2018 timelines

Laurie Strode/Cynthia Myers

Played By: Jamie Lee Curtis (original series), Nichole Drucker^note Flashback scene in Halloween II

Appearances: Halloween | Halloween II | Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers^note Photograph | Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later | Halloween: Resurrection

"Well, kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition."

Laurie Strode is the Final Girl of the 1978 Halloween film and some of its sequels. Originally just a target that he tries to kill, it is later learnt that she is actually Michael's younger sister and Laurie actively tries to stop him.

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• Accidental Aiming Skills: At the climax of Halloween II, Laurie, who has presumably never used a gun before, manages to shoot out both of Michael's eyes with a revolver.
• Accidental Murder: Resurrection reveals that Laurie, in an effort to kill Michael, beheaded a mute paramedic that had his outfit swapped with her murderous brother.
• Action Girl: Downplayed in the first and second movies, where she is a normal teenage girl with no known combat experience and would rather hide than fight. However, if she’s cornered, she will lash out and has attacked Michael in self defense. It’s played more straight in H20 where she actually kills Michael. Except not really, but she gets points for trying.
• Action Survivor: She made it out of Michael's first two rampages alive, even stabbing him three times in the first film and shooting him twice in the face in the second.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the original, an injured Laurie begs for help as she flees the Wallace house with Michael in pursuit. Those who hear her either assume that it's a prank or succumb to Bystander Syndrome, leaving Laurie to deal with Michael on her own.
• The Alcoholic: She is seen drinking in H20 and it is heavily implied to be a method she uses to cope with her past.
• All for Nothing: Her fate in the H20 timeline can come off as this. Despite her surviving two encounters with Michael over the course of twenty years, faking her death, and setting traps for him in the prelude to another confrontation, she still gets killed by him.
• Amicable Exes: Subverted. She refers to John's father as a chain-smoking, Methadone addict and sarcastically compliments him on sending a birthday card for his son two months late.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: The Chaos Comics miniseries, Laurie succumbs to her brother's madness after killing Michael. She ends up becoming the new Shape, bent on murdering people because she can.
• Anger Born of Worry: Her rage at John for trying to get "an off-campus lunch" is out of concern that he will stumble across Michael and be attacked or worse without her being there to protect him.
• Arch-Enemy: To Michael in the H20 timeline. All four films feature his pursuit of her in some capacity.
• The Atoner: She seems to have become this in Resurrection. Laurie goes to check Michael's mask to make sure he isn't the wrong person again, clearly still feeling guilty for killing the wrong man years ago.
• Audience Surrogate: In the original, she's just an ordinary teen, much like the targeted audience.
• The Baby of the Bunch: The second film reveals her to be the youngest of the three Myers siblings.
• Back Stab: As Laurie goes to check under Michael's mask, he catches her off-guard with a stab to the back that fatally wounds her.
• Badass Adorable: In the 1978 film, Laurie was a shy, cute teenager and defended herself from Michael by attacking him with a knitting needle, a clothing hanger, and his knife. She also shot him in the face twice with a revolver in the sequel.
• Badass Normal: She might be a normal teenage girl, but Laurie fights back against Michael with anything at her disposal, including knitting needles, a clothing hanger, and a revolver.
• Being Good Sucks: In wanting to end Michael's terror spree once and for all, she accidentally kills the wrong person, and gets killed later on thanks to her guilt of not wanting to kill an innocent person again.
• Being Watched: Throughout the first film, Laurie has a sense that she is being watched and is even mocked for it. Ultimately confirmed when she comes face to face with Michael in the Wallace house.
• Big Damn Reunion: In H20, the shot of Laurie and Michael seeing each other again after twenty years through a door with a window is one of the most iconic images from the film.
• Big Good: In the H20 timeline. The only protagonist to appear in all four films, Laurie takes over as the authoritative force seeking to stop Michael after II and is able to do more damage to him than anyone has since Dr. Loomis in H20.
• Big Sister Instinct: Despite being terrified, she vehemently protects Tommy and Lindsey from Michael in the first movie.
• Born Unlucky: Being the younger sister of a serial killer who specializes in familicide makes her count as this.
• Brainy Brunette: She has long brown hair in Resurrection and is smart enough to have created a trap for Michael once he comes for her.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Michael's Cain. While both want to murder each other, Laurie only develops this desire after Michael tries killing her for no reason other than being pure evil.
• Canon Welding: The Chaos Comics miniseries attempt to tie the Jamie Lloyd trilogy with H20, but was omitted from canon by the later release of Resurrection. In that version of events, Laurie did in fact kill Michael, but succumbs to madness and becomes the new killer.
• Car Fu: She demonstrates this in the climax of H20 when, as she notices Michael recovering from his injuries and about to attack her, she hits the brakes and sends him flying out the vehicle.
• Catapult Nightmare: At the start of H20, Laurie has a nightmare and jumps up in a scream so alarming that her son has to hold her down.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Laurie initially bars John from leaving the campus before changing her mind.
• Character Catchphrase: Seems to be "Do as I say", which she says to Tommy and Lindsey in the original, and to John and Molly in H20. The context is always getting them to follow her orders and get away while she stays behind with Michael.
• Character Development: In the H20 timeline, she goes from a frightened teenage girl who mostly runs away from Michael to a woman sick of running from her past and willing to bravely stand up in the pursuit of ending his terror.
• Combat Pragmatist: In H20 Laurie knows from past experiences that she cannot beat Michael in a one-on-one fight, and like Loomis before her, uses weaponry and other tactics to catch him off-guard and injure him.
• Connected All Along: Halloween II reveals that Laurie and Michael, who seemingly crossed paths by coincidence, are actually sister and brother.
• Crazy-Prepared: In the 2018 movie, Laurie is seen practicing her marksmanship (hitting the target right in the head too), loading up her many guns, has a hunting knife on her person, has a house surrounded by boobytraps and cameras, the front door is double padlocked with the windows covered with metal mesh, and the inside has secret passageways. Laurie is not messing around.
• Cute Bookworm: The 1978 film presented her as this, a shy, bookish girl who's still a virgin not out of moral purity but because she's too awkward around boys. Later films toned it down, though.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Between being born into a family a few years before her older brother killed their older sister, being stalked by a serial killer seemingly randomly and then finding out he's your brother after he's killed your friends in the same night, and faking your death before assuming a new identity to get away from him, Laurie by H20 has quite a dark background.
• Deadpan Snarker: Laurie's sarcasm is much more subdued compared to Annie's but nevertheless a present trait of her character.
  Lynda: "It's totally insane. We have three new cheers to learn in the morning, the game is in the afternoon, I have to get my hair done at five, and the dance is at eight! I'll be totally wiped out!"
  Laurie: "I don't think you have enough to do tomorrow."
  (Upon seeing Annie in her underwear and a flannel shirt.) Laurie: "Oh, fancy."
  (To Tommy Doyle.) Laurie: "Lonnie Elamb probably won't get out of the sixth grade."
• Decoy Protagonist: Resurrection begins with Laurie laying in wait for Michael after she has planned for another encounter with him. She is killed within the first act of the film, and the focus then shifts to Sara.
• Didn't See That Coming: In the original film, Laurie decides to go over to the Wallace house to figure out what caused her bizarre phone call with Lynda, who she mistook for Annie. She never expected to find the latter's corpse, nor the person who killed her, there.
• Disc-One Final Boss: A rare heroic example. Resurrection begins with her laying in wait for Michael to attack her and the film's opening suggests the plot will center around their conflict once more. Instead she's killed in the first act and the focus shifts to new characters.
• The Dog Bites Back: Her beatdown of Michael in H20 comes off as this, as she's spent twenty years tormented by his original Halloween killing spree and now can defend herself even better than before.
• Dramatic Irony: In the first film, as Laurie answers a call from Lynda right after Michael beings strangling the latter, she mistakes her for Annie (who is already dead) trying to mess with her, and tells her that she will kill her if this is a prank.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Subverted for the most part.
  • In the Jamie Lloyd trilogy, she dies offscreen as a result of a car accident, leaving her daughter alone to Michael. This is ironically the closest she got to a happy ending in the previous films, as its assumed she lived a happy live with her daughter before her death and didn't have to contend with Michael for the rest of her life.
  • In H20, Laurie seemingly conquers her demons and kills Michael once and for all after twenty years of being haunted by him. Resurrection reveals she was tricked into killing an innocent man when Michael faked his death and was subsequently placed in a sanitarium before Michael tracks her down and kills her. Jamie Lee Curtis went on to state she doesn't consider Resurrection canon because of this.
  • In the Chaos Comics continuity, which bridged 4-6 and H20 together does have Laurie successfully kill Michael in that version of events...only to have succumbed to her demons and become the new Shape.
• Experienced Protagonist: Laurie is this in Halloween II onward, as she now knows Michael is after her and thus acts more carefully.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In H20, it's a short '90s cut to reflect her new Action Girl status. In Resurrection, it's long and messy after she's been living in an insane asylum.
• Face Death with Dignity: Her death in Resurrection features her accepting her fate and delivering a promise to see Michael in the afterlife before being thrown to the ground.
• Face–Heel Turn: In the non canonical Chaos Comics miniseries she becomes the new killer after suffering a mental breakdown following Michael's decapitation.
• Faking the Dead: Between II and H20, Laurie faked her death to convince Michael that she was deceased and started a new life under a new name.
• Fatal Flaw: Laurie's Guilt Complex from killing the wrong man leads her to unintentionally giving Michael an opportunity to kill her when she tries removing his mask to make sure it's him.
• Final Girl: The one that all the others have looked to. She Took a Level in Badass in Halloween H20.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Laurie doesn't get mentioned much after 4 in the original timeline.
• Four Is Death: In the original series, Laurie dies before the events of the fourth film and then dies on-screen in Resurrection, her fourth film appearance in the series.
• Generation Xerox: Seems to be one to her older sister Judith. Both are sisters of Michael Myers who he tries to kill due to their relation to him. While Laurie survives Michael's 1978 spree in the original series and dies from a car crash off-screen before 4, she is similar to Judith in dying prematurely from unnatural causes. In the H20 timeline, where Michael successfully kills Laurie, this gives her another direct parallel to her sister.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In Resurrection, it is stated that Laurie went mad when she killed the person she thought was Michael Myers, and was locked up in asylum because of it. Turns out this was a plan of hers to get Michael once and for all.
• Guest Fighter: Appears alongside Michael in Dead by Daylight.
• Guilt Complex: In Resurrection, after accidentally killing an innocent man who Michael changed clothes with, Laurie is shown to be worried about repeating this mistake and taking another life, as she never would have considered anyone but Michael wearing his ensemble in the past. This need to make sure it's really him also indirectly leads to her death, as it causes her to get close enough to Michael for him to stab her.
• Handicapped Badass: In Halloween II, she's able to shoot Michael to the point of blinding him even after sustaining injuries to her legs that lessen her running speed.
• The Heroine: She's the main character of the franchise as a whole as she actively tries to stop Michael's terror.
• The Hero Dies: Twice. Off-screen before the events of 4 and during the first act of Resurrection.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Annie, who she even calls the best friend she ever had in an H20 timeline comic.
• Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: She does this in H20 after Michael falls to his seeming death and she walks down stairs to get closer to the body. Justified, as her shoulder genuinely is injured from a stab wound.
• Iconic Outfit: Laurie's light blue shirt and dark blue pants from the original film is one of the most iconic ensembles associated with the Halloween franchise.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Laurie, despite never being indicated to have any training with firing guns, manages to shoot Michael in both of his eyes and blinds him.
• Improvised Weapon User: Laurie has this in both her physical encounters with Michael in the original and H20, using hangars and axes she doesn't own to fight back.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Laurie has blue eyes that match her purity in the original film.
• Irony: Her fate as revealed in Resurrection. In trying to kill a serial killer that had been tormenting her for years and killed multiple innocent people, she accidentally murders an innocent person herself who hadn’t done anything to her or harmed anyone else.
• It's All About Me: John calls Laurie out on this after she tries to get him to stay around her on Halloween, saying that he is not responsible for her and that he refuses to be complicit with her worrying over Michael's return any longer.
• It's Personal: Her agenda for wanting Michael gone in H20 comes from him targeting her and killing her friends years ago and wanting to ensure he doesn't harm her or her son this time around.
• Jumped at the Call: After realizing that Michael is on the campus in H20, Laurie prepares to confront him and locks herself inside the school with him to make sure that their twenty-year rivalry ends that night.
• Killed Offscreen: Her death in the original timeline happens off-screen, 11 months before 4 takes place.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In the original film, her response to encountering Michael in the Wallace house is this as she successfully flees before Michael can get to her. She only stops trying to get away from him when he follows her to the Doyle house and corners her there.
• Last of His Kind: In the original series, she is the last living relative of Michael until the birth of her daughter in between II and 4. The same applies for the H20 timeline with her son's birth.
• Leitmotif: She had her theme tune throughout the films where she appeared.
• Mama Bear: Though she has no qualms against attacking Myers in the first movie, she really makes him suffer in H20 after he attacks her son. This will likely apply to her daughter and granddaughter in the 2018 film.
• Neat Freak: It's subtle but we see most of her home in H20 and it is well-kept together.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Seems to be this with Dr. Loomis and Marion Chambers in the H20 timeline. They were the only two people who knew she faked her death at the time it occurred and kept her secret until their deaths, which apparently happened years after they had last heard from her.
• Never Mess with Granny: In the 2018 movie, Laurie is pushing 60 years old and her daughter, Karen, has a daughter of her own, Allyson, making Laurie a grandmother. Laurie is also show to have become a gun-toting survivalist who has been anticipating Michael's return since 1978, saying she's prayed every night he'd escape so she could kill him. Laurie has truly become a force to be reckoned with.
• Nice Girl: Laurie was a pretty kind and friendly girl in her teenage years, until her trauma involving Michael caused her to become paranoid.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Laurie trying to avoid her mistake at the end of H20 and confirm Michael's identity brings her close enough for him to turn the tables and kill her.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Delivers one to Michael in H20 that causes him to fall into a state of unconsciousness.
• Odd Friendship: With Lynda. Besides the fact that they're both teenage girls who go to the same school, they seem to have nothing in common.
• Older and Wiser: In H20, Laurie is now an adult woman with her own child who is the most experienced as dealing with Michael when he eventually finds his way to them.
• Out of Focus: After being the lead of the original film, Laurie's screentime is greatly reduced in II as she recovers from her injuries in a hospital.
• Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: A subtle example but Laurie is strongly implied to be the only virgin out of her friends and shows discomfort towards sexuality. However, she does clearly pine for guys in her class, namely Ben Tramer, showing she does have an interest in the opposite sex, but is too repressed to express it. Word of God states that Laurie's sexual repression was intended to make her comparable to Michael who is also sexually repressed, and that the end of the first movie where she stabs Michael several times is her taking out her sexual frustrations.
• Parental Neglect: Implied to have this in II, as Nurse Alves mentions that hospital staff is having trouble locating Laurie's parents, who seemingly would rather be out partying when their daughter is being hospitalized from injures sustained from fighting off a serial killer.
• Parents as People: In H20, Laurie is shown to love her son John, but also be very controlling and protective in regards to him as a result of her past with Michael. She's also depicted as being open to changing her mind, as she lets John go to Yosemite after first refusing.
• Parents in Distress: H20 opens wit her waking from a nightmare and screaming until John comes to calm her down and retrieves her medication.
• Playing Sick: In Resurrection, Laurie plays the role of catatonic while an inmate at a sanatorium as she lays in wait for Michael to try killing her again.
• Plucky Girl: Probably the most relatable part of her character is that she can stand up against pure evil despite being scared to tears.
• Posthumous Character: In the 4-6 timeline; Laurie died in a car accident, orphaning her daughter Jamie, but Jamie's familial connection to Michael through Laurie is what makes her evil uncle chase after her, and in The Curse of Michael Myers, Laurie's adoptive relatives make their home in the Myers house, bringing themselves to the attention of Michael and the Cult of Thorn.
• Precision F-Strike: She delivers one to John after she catches Charlie and him off-campus on Halloween.
  Laurie: What the fuck do you think you're doing?
• Properly Paranoid: She's extremely tense and paranoid about the possibility of Michael's return in H20. She's right to be worried. In the 2018 movie, she has a house surrounded by booby-traps and cameras, the inside has secret passage ways, and enough guns to start a small war with which she practices shooting frequently. With Michael's transport bus crashing, Laurie has been right to prepare for his return.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Laurie's death before the events of 4 and at the start of Resurrection are due to her actress not wanting to continue playing the character.
• Retcon: Her killing of Michael at the end of H20 was revealed to have been a paramedic that Michael switched places with in Resurrection.
• Sanity Slippage: In H20, she's clearly been adversely affected by her experiences as a teenager, and in Resurrection, she's left barely responsive in a mental institution. Halloween (2018) has her a little more unhinged than in H20.
• Save the Villain: Subverted. At the end of H20, it first appears that Laurie is going to take Michael's hand and help him, with the former even giving him a look of sadness. This is followed by her chopping his head off.
• Say My Name: As she prepares to face Michael at the climax of H20, Laurie calls out her evil brother's name to get him to show himself.
  Laurie: MICHAEL! MICHAEL! MICHAEL!
• Scars Are Forever: In the 2018 movie, a close up shot of Laurie's left shoulder is seen with a prominent scar where Michael slashed her with his knife 40 years prior.
• Screaming Woman: This is the role that made Jamie Lee Curtis an iconic scream queen.
• Secret Identity: Before the events of H20, after faking her death, Laurie assumes the identity of "Keri Tate" and very few people know who she really is.
• Secret Legacy: While unknown to everyone at the time except Michael, by being the former's last living sibling, Laurie has inherited Judith's position as the sister he wants to kill.
• Secret Relationship: Has one with fellow teacher Will Brennan in H20.
• See You in Hell: Laurie says this to Michael after he fatally stabs her in Resurrection.
• Silk Hiding Steel: A responsible, put-together and bookish high school student who is willing to face and fight off Michael Myers in order to protect herself, Tommy and Lindsay.
• Slain in Their Sleep: Subverted. Laurie initially rejects being put to sleep at the hospital in Halloween II because she knows it will leave her defenseless against Michael. The latter does track her down to the hospital and strike her bed, only to pull the blankets back and see that she has already woken up and left.
• Skeptic No Longer: Throughout the original film, Laurie assures Tommy that there's no such thing as the Boogeyman. After her encounter with Michael, however, she knows otherwise.
• Sole Survivor: Laurie is the only teenager to survive an encounter with Michael in the original film and one of the few he is unable to kill in either II or H20. She ends up as one of his first victims in Resurrection.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Survives for even longer with each new timeline. H20 ignoring 4 through 6, and the 2018 film ignoring all the sequels.
• Staircase Tumble: Has one after Michael cuts her shoulder and she goes down a flight of stairs. The injury slows her running from him.
• The Stoner: A little known fact about innocent Laurie here is that in the original film, she smoked a blunt with Annie in her car, nearly getting caught by Sheriff Brackett, Annie's father. A comic set after the events of the first and second film features Laurie befriending a girl named Sally Winters, who she starts dabbling in drugs with to cope with the stress from the killings, smoking a blunt in one scene, taking "allergy pills" before graduation, and getting drunk in a party, the last of which nearly gets her shanked by Michael incognito in a clown costume. Thankfully, she's seen mostly sober (save for alcoholism) in Halloween: 20 Years Later (The comic is in the H20 continuity).
• Struggling Single Mother: Although she is seemingly financially stable, her trauma over her encounter with Michael in 1978 plague her relationship with her son John, especially when Halloween comes around.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Offscreen before the events of 4, and again at the beginning of Resurrection.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: In the non-canon CHAOS! Comics storyline that reconciles the timelines of Halloween 4-6 (the "Thorn" trilogy) and H20, Laurie Strode follows in her brother's footsteps (and her daughter's initial footsteps in the finale of the fourth film) by succumbing to madness after she seemingly kills Michael for real by beheading him at the end of H20, assuming his identity as the "Shape" complete with his mask and outfit, killing Tommy Doyle and other victims while being groomed by the Thorn Cult to become his successor.
• Sympathy for the Devil: The ending of H20 subverts this. After Laurie has ran over Michael in a clear attempt to kill him, she watches him struggle and extend his hand to her. The look on her face is one of anguish and a seeming regret over how things have turned out, though this is followed up by her cutting his head off.
• Take Up My Sword:
  • After her death in the original series, her daughter Jamie becomes Michael's next target.
  • Following her passing in the H20 timeline, Sara Moyer fulfills her role as the Final Girl who survives Michael's spree while those around her do not.
• "Take That!" Kiss: Laurie gives one to Michael's mask after he stabs her in the back.
• Taking You with Me: She attempts this with Michael in Resurrection. It fails.
• Tears of Fear: Laurie cries at the end of the original, once Loomis finds that Michael has vanished into the night.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In H20, as Michael lays unconscious from a fall, Laurie tries to finish him off with a stabbing but is stopped by Ronny since the latter believes him to already be deceased.
  Ronny: He's dead! He's dead! He's dead!
• Time-Shifted Actor: Though normally portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis, Laurie is played by Nichole Drucker in the Halloween II flashback.
• Tired of Running: In H20, after twenty years of avoiding Myers, Laurie sends her son away in a car while she goes back inside to fight him.
• Too Dumb to Live: Laurie incapacitates Michael with a trap and can kill him, but wants to make sure its really him by checking under his mask, in spite of the unlikelihood of her assailant being anyone else. This allows Michael to stab and kill her.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • In H20. She goes from a shell-shocked survivor to a determined fighter who tries her damned hardest to put Michael down.
  • In Halloween (2018), while just as, if not more paranoid and fearful than in H20, she's been preparing herself for 40 years to finish off Michael once and for all.
• Trauma Conga Line: The first film serves as this for Laurie. She realizes that she is being stalked by a man, then finds the corpses of her friends shortly before realizing the same man was responsible for their deaths, and narrowly avoids being killed by him thanks to the intervention of his psychiatrist. The second film only adds to the disparity by revealing that her would-be murderer and the killer of her friends is her older brother. If you add in events from the H20 timeline, she witnesses the murder of her secret boyfriend, one of the few people she felt comfortable telling about her past. And just as it seems that she has finally killed Michael and thereby alleviated herself of the worry that he will ever come after her again, she discovers it was the wrong person.
• Two Girls and a Guy: By the end of Halloween II, after Michael murders the state trooper, Laurie is this with Marion Chambers and Dr. Loomis. In the H20 timeline, the pair are also the only ones who know she faked her death.
• Undying Loyalty: Laurie demonstrates this toward Tommy and Lindsay in the original. Even though she's not related to them and could leave to save herself at any time, she values their lives over her own, to the point of staying with an unconscious Michael to ensure he doesn't follow them when they run for help.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Ben Tramer, who is accidentally killed by a police officer in Halloween II before Laurie can speak to him again and develop a possible romance.
• Unstoppable Rage: Laurie stabs repeatedly after she sneaks up on Michael and is only stopped when he falls.
• Villain Killer: Subverted. Although it appears that she has finally killed Michael at the end of H20, the next film reveals it was a paramedic that Michael dressed in his clothes to cover his own escape.

Remake Duology

Laurie Strode/Angel "Boo" Myers

Played By: Scout Taylor-Compton

Appearances: Halloween (2007) | Halloween II (2009)

A young teenage girl and resident of Haddonfield who is Michael's long-lost baby sister whom he is very affectionate of. Much like her original counterpart, she here is once again the Final Girl.

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• The Alcoholic: While the original Laurie wasn't adverse to smoking weed, this version is a lot more willing to partake in vices, and in the sequel, has started pounding beer heavily and partying as a unhealthy coping mechanism from her horrific ordeal with Michael. Granted, the original Laurie started drinking heavy as well in two separate versions.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed. Before meeting Michael, Laurie is somewhat brattier than the famously innocent original character, but she's still something of a Nice Girl at least until after she meets her long-lost brother.
• Adaptation Name Change: Has the first name of Angel instead of Cynthia.
• Adaptational Personality Change: She's more outgoing and cheerful rather than being the more reserved and introverted. Laurie is also more prone to swooning over boys and has a tendency to be lustful at times, making overly sexual comments. Laurie in this version is also less humble and more prone to being overconfident.
• Broken Bird: Happens to her after encountering Myers.
• Cain and Abel: Downplayed; Laurie certainly hates and fears Michael, and she's devastated to find out that he's her brother, but the enmity is mostly on her part; Michael would prefer to reunite with his sister than to kill her.
• Death by Adaptation: In the Director's Cut of the second movie, Laurie is gunned down by the police alongside Michael.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: H2 shows that Laurie was already slipping through the cracks and ends up a screaming wreck after learning she was Michael Myers' sister, after years of not being told.
• Happily Adopted: Despite typical teenaged brattiness, Laurie is shown to be very happy with her adoptive parents. She's devastated when Michael murders them, and the absence of their stabilizing influence contributes to her downward spiral in the sequel.
• Killed Off for Real: Gets accidentally shot by the police in the Director's Cut of the second film after killing Michael. Word of God, though, is that she also died in the theatrical version and that the scene of her in the asylum seeing her real mother with the white stallion is the final image she has before fully passing on.invoked
• Sanity Slippage: The trauma Laurie experiences, combined with the realization that she's Michael's long-lost sister, devastates Laurie's mental health.
• She Who Fights Monsters: The combination of Sanity Slippage from learning that Michael is her brother and the horror of him re-entering her life sees Laurie take after her murderous brother, seeing the same hallucinations of their late mother and Michael's younger self. The Theatrical Cut goes even further, concluding with her stabbing Michael to death with his own knife and emerging from the scene silent, unresponsive, and wearing Michael's mask.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Laurie's traumas take a toll on her personality, especially in the director's cut of Halloween II, making her embittered and hostile, even to Annie.
• Villain Killer: The Theatrical Cut of Halloween II end with Laurie putting Michael down for good, stabbing him to death with his own knife.

2018 and after continuity

Laurie Strode

"You don't believe in the boogeyman? You should."

Played By: Jamie Lee Curtis

Appearances: Halloween (2018) | Halloween Kills | Halloween Ends

The original survivor of Michael Myers' 1978 massacre. She has been preparing for his return for the past 40 years.

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• Abusive Parents: Subverted. She never intended to be seen as one, but her paranoia about Michael coming back and all the training and doomsday prepping she pushed on Karen was enough to leave her traumatized and convinced the CPS to take her away from Laurie's custody for the rest of her childhood.
• Action Girl: Laurie has spent the last 40 years preparing for Michael's return by becoming a sharpshooter, boobytrapping her property, and creating secret passageways in her home.
• Adaptational Badass: Laurie was always an Action Survivor as a teenager, and the H20 timeline had her graduate into an Action Girl ready to fight Michael if he showed himself. Here, however, Laurie is an experienced survivalist ready to fight tooth and nail if Michael was ever free again. And unlike the H20 timeline, where Michael eventually got the best of her, here, both of their climactic showdowns in the 2018 film and Halloween Ends conclude with Laurie as the winner, with the latter having her kill Michael once and for all.
• Adaptation Name Change: Of a sort, as since she and Michael are not related in this timeline, Laurie Strode is her actual birth name and she does not have the name of Cynthia or Angel Myers.
• The Alcoholic: The stress of seeing Michael move prisons clearly brings this on - she's got a whisky flask with her she's swigging from when she sees Michael's bus leave. A few minutes later, when she visits the family gathering to celebrate Allyson's academic achievement, one of the first things she does is to drink half of Ray's wine before Karen asks her to stop.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Seemingly seen as this by her daughter, Karen, as the latter refuses to talk to her because of the way Laurie treated her as a child. It's reinforced early on, as Laurie (who is dealing with emotion after seeing the prisoner bus containing Michael leaving Smith's Grove) shows up unannounced at Allyson's honor roll celebration, shotguns half of Ray's wine and starts freaking over Michael before Karen asks her to go outside.
• Arch-Enemy: Laurie takes the late Sam Loomis' place as Michael's nemesis, determined to see him dead. Michael doesn't initially return the sentiment, but by Halloween Kills, is implied to have developed a particular hatred for Laurie and her family. Their enmity is deepened even further when Michael kills Karen, the film's extended cut ending with Laurie promising to kill Michael, which she fulfills in Halloween Ends.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: She'd apparently prayed Michael would escape so she could finally have a chance to kill him for good. Well, she got it alright; by the end of the night after Michael's escape, more than 40 people, including Laurie's own daughter, are dead, and adding insult to injury, Laurie's chance at killing Michael was for naught; he survived and ends Halloween Kills bloodied, but unbeaten and still at large.
• Big Good: Her experience with Michael back in 1978 and the fact she has been prepared for another confrontation makes her this of this movie.
• Broken Bird: It is clear that Laurie has, understandably, been left with deep psychological trauma since her friends were butchered and she was nearly killed herself on Halloween in 1978. She has essentially dedicated her life to protecting herself and others from Michael Myers.
• Broken Pedestal: In Halloween Ends, she loses the sympathy and respect of the townspeople of Haddonfield who blamed her for Michael's rampage in the previous movies and loses the trust and faith of Allyson who blames her for the deaths of her friends and family and disowns her as her grandmother as she prepares to leave town. By that point she's reduced to a Failure Hero Hated by All. But after finally killing Michael for good, she becomes a Rebuilt Pedestal to both the citizens and her granddaughter.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Downs Michael with a frying pan in the film's finale; before that, she bites him several times to get him to let go of her. And that's not getting into her wiring her house into one gigantic bomb.
  • In Ends, Laurie stages a suicide to lull Corey into a false sense of security, shoots him as soon as shows himself.
• Crazy-Prepared: The front door of her house is double padlocked and the windows covered with metal mesh, the perimeter of her property is boobytrapped and has several security cameras set up, the inside of her house has secret passages, and she's got enough guns to start a small war.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Corey comes to kill her, she realizes that he is in her house and stages a suicide attempt that has her shoot a pumpkin instead of herself, luring him into the room before she shoots him twice, and leaving her without a scar as Corey lays critically-wounded from a *very* unsuccessful murder attempt.
• Death Seeker: She seems to have become this by Ends, telling Corey to kill her if that is what he came to do after mortally wounding him and throwing her gun to the side, and later being willing to let the dying Michael choke her to death before Allyson intervenes.
• Dented Iron: Kills shows us that, while she's determined to end Michael once and for all, the injuries Laurie endured against Michael in the previous film out shows a great effect it has on her body and mind. While Karen has to keep her mother from going out of the hospital, Laurie opts into using drugs to keep active for a short while, and when the drugs wear off, it keeps her bedridden for most of Kills.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Just before she heavily wounds him, Laurie taunts Corey for believing she killed herself when he opens the door to her room.
• Didn't Think This Through: Neither Laurie nor her daughter and granddaughter considered that setting their house on fire to kill Michael might provoke a response from the fire department.
• Distaff Counterpart: By the time of the 2018 film, Laurie has followed in the footsteps of her rescuer, Dr. Samuel Loomis. Both characters at their senior ages prepped to take on Michael to stop him from killing anyone else. However, Dr. Loomis had seven years while Laurie had forty years to plan for Michael's return. Also, like Loomis in the 1981 sequel and 2009 remake sequel, she is Misblamed for Michael's escape and killing spree in Halloween Ends.
• Driven to Suicide: Subverted in Halloween Ends; when Allyson walks out on her to stay with Corey (who, unbeknownst to Allyson, has become a virtual carbon copy of Michael), Laurie prepares a handgun and calls emergency services to report a suicide... only to fake shooting herself to get the drop on Corey, having correctly predicted that he planned to kill her before leaving town with Allyson.
• Dysfunctional Family: Laurie and her daughter are strained at best and being targeted and attacked by Michael Myers is what it takes to bring them back together again. Additionally, Laurie seems to favor her granddaughter than she does with her own daughter.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Ends concludes with her becoming the first version of the character to successfully kill Michael. Free of him, she ends the film with a good relationship with Allyson and preparing to go on a trip to Japan with Frank Hawkins.
• Excellent Judge of Character: In Halloween Ends, Laurie sees the Michael-esque darkness in Corey before almost anyone else does, and becomes suspicious of him. Her fears turn out to be well-founded; by the end of Halloween night, Corey is responsible for or an accessory to ten murders and tried to kill Laurie herself.
• Everyone Has Standards: Laurie is an embittered and antisocial woman with few friends, but she still values human life; while hunting for Michael, her first instinct is to order people to get to safety, she avoids shooting at anyone or anything other than Michael, and she tries, ultimately in vain, to prevent the mob in Halloween Kills from hounding an innocent man to his death.
• Expy: Her characterization in Ends resembles that of Dr. Loomis in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Like Loomis in that film, she has moved on from Michael after not seeing him for years, has become calmer than she previously was, is writing a book about her experiences with him, and faces some new adversary who is helpful to Michael (Dr. Wynn for Loomis, and Corey for Laurie.)
• The Extremist Was Right: Her trauma led her to put her daughter Karen through Training from Hell that cost her both her custody of her and her relationship with her. Then Michael comes back for another swing at her, and her paranoia is swiftly vindicated.
• Fake Kill Scare: As Corey stands outside of her room in Ends, Laurie fires an off-screen shot after placing a call reporting a suicide. Corey opens the door and it is revealed Laurie shot a pumpkin to trick Corey into thinking she had taken her own life.
• Failure Heroine: In Halloween Ends, she is mistreated and shunned as a pariah by both the Haddonfield citizens and her own granddaughter Allyson for her failure to protect them and their loved ones from Michael.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Inverted. She’s a badass old woman and Tank-Top Tomboy who spends her free time target practicing while her daughter, Karen, is more motherly, demure and soft-spoken.
• Four Is Death: In previous timelines, Laurie either died in her fourth appearance (H20 timeline) or was confirmed dead in the series' fourth entry (4-6 timeline). This timeline bucks that trend; in it's fourth installment, Halloween Ends, Laurie, despite a fake-out suicide, ends the film alive and well, while it's Michael who dies.
• Good Counterpart:
  • She has become this to Michael of all people. She recreates several of his iconic shots from the original film, even stealing one of Michael's favorite tricks to get the drop on him. Halloween Kills even ends with matching shots of the two of them staring through windows into the night, implicitly at each other.
  • Halloween Ends has her as one for Corey Cunningham; they've both had traumatic events happen while babysitting, both are shunned by Haddonfield, and they both walk away from an encounter with Michael fundamentally changed. However, while Laurie managed to maintain her humanity and stay a good person despite her trauma, Corey fully succumbed to his demons, becoming almost as much of a monster as Michael himself. Corey ends the film having become a spiteful mass murderer who will gladly die to spite someone he hates, while Laurie managed to win a happy ending and move on with her life.
• Good Parents: More like grandparent, but she has a far better relationship with Allyson than her own daughter.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Her hairstyle is little different than it was in the original film, a visual sign of how she's been mentally trapped in that fateful Halloween night for the past forty years. Halloween Ends shows her having cut her hair shorter after four years of emotional recovery.
• Hated by All: In Halloween Ends, she is reduced to this in the eyes of Haddonfield. Only Allyson, Hawkins, and Lindsey are willing to give her the time of day anymore, and Allyson has her own buried resentment towards Laurie that comes out during the film.
• Heroine With Bad Publicity: In Halloween Ends, being blamed for Michael's killing spree in the previous films, even Allyson hates and blames her (at first she kept it hidden, but once packing up to leave town, she vents out her true feelings towards her).
• Home Field Advantage: In both the 2018 film and Ends, Laurie faces Michael in her home, using elements of it to her advantage. In Ends, she also uses a pumpkin that she decorated her home with for Halloween to stage a suicide which allows her to deceive Corey into thinking she killed herself and leave him open to being shot by her.
• Implacable Woman: During the climax, no matter what Michael tries, Laurie keeps on coming after him, essentially pitting one Implacable Man against another, with Laurie as the eventual victor.
• Important Haircut: Her hair is shorter in Ends and meant to symbolize that she has moved on from her 1978 trauma.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Laurie's traumas have turned her caustic, unsocial, cynical, and paranoid, with very few positive relationships. That said, she values her family deeply, is good friends with Hawkins, and does everything in her power to put Michael down not just to heal her own trauma, but to stop him from hurting anyone else.
• Mama Bear: Is very protective of both her daughter, Karen, and her granddaughter, Allyson.
• Mirror Character: To Michael. Many iconic shots from the original film are recreated with Laurie in Michael's place. She watches her granddaughter at high school from across the street in a manner identical to how she was stalked by Michael, is a Combat Pragmatist who uses stealth and her surroundings to her advantage in her fight against Michael, and pulls off his iconic Enemy Rising Behind and Stealth Hi/Bye moments.
• Misblamed: Characterizations of Laurie in Ends include accusations that she pushed Michael to the point of snapping, completely negating that he had already killed before they even met.
• Mistaken for Murderer: In Ends, after Corey stabs himself in the neck once his attempt to kill Laurie fails, Allyson walks in and assumes Laurie killed him. After seeing the radio station on fire on her way out of town, however, Allyson realises Corey's true nature and understands the truth.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Ends features Laurie writing a memoir about her past with Michael.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye:
  • In Halloween Kills, Laurie's daughter Karen dies by Michael's hands, just as she and Laurie had started to make peace after years of estrangement.
  • In Halloween Ends, Laurie is shown to keep a picture of herself with her best friends, Annie and Lynda, showing that she never forgot them, even after 44 years.
  • Averted with Michael, of all people; as she kills him, Laurie makes sure to bid the Shape farewell, and mulching his corpse doubles down on the finality of the affair as Laurie rids herself and Haddonfield of Michael Myers once and for all.
• Never Mess with Granny: Laurie's daughter has a daughter of her own, making her a grandmother. And she is at her most badass in this movie.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Is one for Ray, whom Laurie disliked for the age difference between him and Karen and the fact he is an idiot. But she has enough care for him to shelter him at her house, and expresses concern for him when she hears the gunshot he fires off right before his death.
• Older and Wiser: Or more like "Older and Badass-er," in contrast to the fleeing and scared teenager she was back in 1978, Laurie has become more experienced and ready for any danger coming her way in the form of Michael.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: In Ends, Laurie is in her sixties when she comes into conflict with the murderous Corey, who is in his twenties.
• Only in It for the Money: When Aaron and Dana drive to her house to interview her about what happened 40 years earlier, she only lets them in after they offer her $3,000. She kicks them out soon after, notably asking for her "payment" before they leave. Subverted soon after, as she brings the money to Allyson and tells her to use it on a nice trip, or for college.
• Out of Focus: Most of Laurie's screen time in Kills is spent at the hospital as she recovers from her injuries in the previous film, not even having an encounter with Michael.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Her daughter Karen is killed by Michael near the end of the sequel.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Cutting a man's throat and wrist while he's pinned to a table, helpless to defend himself, then tossing his body into a junk shredder, would normally be an utterly reprehensible thing to do; as Laurie did it to Michael Myers himself, however, it's justice well-served.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Happy Halloween, Michael!"
• Properly Paranoid: She has been anticipating Michael's return to Haddonfield since his 1978 massacre. When he escapes after his transport bus crashes, her fears are swiftly vindicated. And the sequel which continues from the same night only further solidify it.
• Red Baron: The novelisation of Kills has Michael of all people bestow (internally) the title She Who Will Not Die on her. It's the only time in the book he makes any distinction amongst the people he targets.
• Scars Are Forever: A close up of her left shoulder shows a prominent scar which Michael caused when he sliced her with his knife 40 years earlier.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: It is clear that Michael killing Laurie's friends and nearly killing her as well has understandably left her with some long lasting trauma, leading her to become a gun-toting survivalist. Jamie Lee Curtis even stated Laurie's life was rough after that Halloween.
  Jamie Lee Curtis: Very clearly, Laurie Strode had no help. She had no mental health services, a group of psychologists didn't descend on Haddonfield. I believe Laurie Strode went back to high school two days later with a bandage on her arm, and that's about it. I don't think people talked about it, and so for me the exploration of trauma was integral to, not only the writing, but for then, the performance.
• Ship Tease: Laurie and Frank Hawkins get quite a few flirtatious moments throughout the films, and by Halloween Ends, they're very obviously interested in each other. After Michael is dead, Laurie agrees to take a trip to Japan with Frank, but the film ends before any solid confirmation that their relationship will advance into a romance.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: In the 2018 film and Ends, Laurie is commonly seen wearing glasses.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Laurie in this continuity gets to live to see her daughter all grown up and has a 17 year-old granddaughter. And she ultimately lives all the way to the end of Ends, finally having a chance to live a life free of Michael. This makes it the first time that Laurie survives to the end in any continuity.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: After she's tossed out of the second-story window of her house by Michael, she seemingly disappears when the latter's attention is diverted (in a Continuity Nod to the original, where Michael did the exact same thing in the ending). She's gone for several minutes, only reappearing from the shadows behind Michael when Karen pulls her Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: Subverted. She has a crossbow in her weapon stash, but never bothers to use it against Michael.
• Taught by Experience: Her house/compound has hidden switches for every room, allowing her to lock it down once she's checked it over (which would either trap a hidden Michael or limit his ability to stalk). She also has a means to cage Michael and self-destruct her property, just in case.
• There Are No Therapists: In both Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills, Laurie has a number of unresolved psychological issues resulting from what happened on Halloween Night in 1978, and she's spent the past 40 years trying to solve them on her own. Averted in Halloween Ends, as its offhandedly noted that she has been getting therapy as a result of the previous two movies.
• Took a Level in Badass: Laurie has spent the past 40 years grinding levels in badass, just in case Michael ever returns. In the finale, she even turns one of Michael's favorite tricks against him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Unlike the Nice Girl she was as a teenager, the older Laurie is cynical, bitter, cold, angry, and paranoid, the result of living with her trauma for decades. Her heart of gold still exists, though, shining through in her interactions with Karen and especially Allyson.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After the harrowing events of the 2018 film and Halloween Kills, Laurie underwent therapy and got sober during the four-year Time Skip; in Halloween Ends, she's much less visibly jaded and unfriendly, and socializes to a degree. She even expresses some sympathy towards Corey, even after he's murdered several people and tried to kill her.
• Unknown Rival: Downplayed; Michael certainly remembers Laurie, but while she has spent the last four decades living with the trauma he inflicted on her and hoping for a chance at killing him, Michael doesn't pay her any mind at all until circumstances beyond his control bring them together. By Halloween Kills, however, Michael is more aware of Laurie and shows a good deal of anger and hate towards her family, even if he doesn't go out of his way to seek them out.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: It's been made clear that she and Michael are not siblings in this continuity (although it's apparently a common misconception that they are).
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In Ends, she introduces her granddaughter to Corey Cunningham, shortly before the latter begins going down a murderous path. Laurie unsuccessfully tries to get Corey to leave Allyson alone after recognizing something is wrong with him, though Corey notes her role in introducing them.
  Corey: You started this! You brought me in! You invited me! But you're the one to blame.
• Villain Killer: In Halloween Ends, Laurie quickly gets the better of and severely wounds Corey Cunningham, although it's Michael (despite Corey's own efforts) who finishes him off. More importantly, after one last brutal showdown, Laurie finally succeeds in killing Michael Myers himself once and for all.
• When She Smiles: Throughout the film, she looks stressed and worn down, reflecting her cynical nature and paranoid personality. But she seems noticeably more animated when interacting with her granddaughter Allyson, enough that she smiles for a brief time when with her.
• You Killed My Father: Inverted; Michael kills Laurie's daughter Karen at the end of Halloween Kills, redoubling the enmity between them.

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"I've said goodbye to my boogeyman, but the truth is evil doesn't die. It changes shape."