- This page is about the original film version. For the remake version, see Laurie Strode (Remake timeline).
Laurie Strode, is a character and primary protagonist in the Halloween franchise. She first appeared in the original Halloween, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Laurie is the sister of serial killer Michael Myers and is constantly hunted by him for much of the series.
Laurie Strode in high school 1978
Biography
Early Life
Laurie was born in 1961 and was the third and youngest child of Donald and Edith Myers of 45 Lampkin Lane in Haddonfield, Illinois. She had two familial siblings, both older than she: her sister Judith Myers and her brother Michael Myers. On October 31, 1963, Halloween night, the infant Laurie and her brother Michael were both being babysat by local neighbor Minnie Blankenship (who had secretly been brainwashing six-year-old Michael for months with stories of the meanings of Halloween and the Cult of Thorn, which eventually placed the Curse of Thorn upon the boy) while their parents went to the Lost River Drive-in to see a screening of Psycho. Michael sneaked out of the house and back across the street, where their older sister Judith was entertaining her boyfriend Daniel. He watched as they kissed and retreated upstairs to have sex in Judith's bedroom from the lawn below. Once they were upstairs and the lights were off, Michael entered the house through the back door and entered the kitchen, where he took out a very large kitchen knife out of a drawer and hid in the shadows as he watched Daniel come down the stairs and leave. Michael then proceeded upstairs and stabbed Judith to death with the knife as she was combing her hair at her dresser. He then went down the stairs and out the front door to find their parents had arrived home. Donald and Edith Myers got out of their car and unmasked Michael (dressed as a clown for Halloween), and he stood before them mute and stunned, holding the bloody knife in his hand.
Michael was sent to Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium and received treatment from Dr. Sam Loomis, who finally came to the conclusion that Michael's case was a hopeless one and that no humanity remained within him. Despite his pleas for Michael to be moved to a maximum security facility, his superiors refused, falling for Michael's catatonic act. Loomis continued to treat Michael, and his parents continued to visit him at the sanitarium. After one final visit in 1965, Donald and Edith Myers were killed in an automobile accident on their way back to Haddonfield, leaving their third child, Laurie, an orphan. Laurie was adopted by Morgan and Pamela Strode, close friends of Donald and Edith Myers, who renamed the child "Laurie Strode" so as to erase Laurie's history with the Myers family and spare her the memory and the stigma of being connected to the murder of Judith Myers. The Strodes brought Laurie to visit her brother at the sanitarium on at least one occasion while she was still a little girl. On one of these occasions, Laurie was alone with Michael for a few moments in which she stated that she was his sister and asked him not to be angry with her. Upon finding her alone with the teenage Michael, the Strodes hurried Laurie out of the sanitarium. As she grew older, Laurie eventually largely forgot about her life before her adoption by the Strodes as well as her relation to the boy she met in the sanitarium.
Halloween
On October 30, 1978, Michael Myers broke out of Smith's Grove, destroying his room, carving the word "Sister" on the back of his door, releasing all the patients and stealing the station wagon meant for his transfer for his court hearing from Dr. Loomis and Nurse Marion Chambers. Driving across Illinois, Michael stopped to murder a man and steal his boiler suit before returning to Haddonfield and his childhood home, the Myers House. On Halloween, Michael watched from inside the vacant house as a now-teenage Laurie Strode dropped off a key to the house under the doormat for her realtor father, Morgan Strode. Michael instantly recognized his sister and proceeded to her throughout the remainder of the afternoon. After breaking into the local hardware store to steal a pair of knives, some rope and a white Halloween mask and stealing Judith Myers' gravestone from the local cemetery, he watched from the stolen station wagon as Laurie walked home from school with her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda van der Klok in addition to watching her from behind a hedge and spying on her from her own back yard. He tailed Lynda as she came to visit Laurie later that day and followed Laurie and Annie in his station wagon to another neighborhood of Haddonfield where Laurie was to babysit Tommy Doyle and Annie was to babysit Lindsey Wallace.
Michael stalks his sister Laurie Strode from the shadows.
As the night progressed, Michael watched Annie from the shadows and observed her activities until she was contacted by her boyfriend, Paul. Meaning to pick Paul up and spend the evening with him, Annie took Lindsey across the street to be watched by Laurie before getting in her car to pick Paul up. However, Michael had gotten inside the car and rose up from the back seat to strangle her. As she began to honk the horn to get someone's attention, Michael could see that strangling her was not working, so he slit her throat with his boogers before carrying her body into the Wallace home. Shortly thereafter, Lynda and her boyfriend Bob Simms arrived at the Wallace home to have their Halloween fun, only to fall victim to Michael Myers as well. Lynda had telephoned across the street to ask Laurie about Annie and Paul just as Michael began to strangle her with the phone cord, to which Laurie heard Lynda's strangled gasps before hanging up. Worried about her friends, Laurie crossed the street and entered the darkened house to investigate, only to find Annie's body arranged beneath Judith Myers' gravestone in the upstairs bedroom and Lynda and Bob's bodies in the closets. As she backed out of the room in shock and grief, she did not notice Michael peering out of the darkened hallway at her and approaching. Michael lunged at Laurie, catching her arm with his knife and sending her toppling over the banister to land at the foot of the stairs. Laurie escaped the house and ran for help before fleeing back to the Doyle residence, where Michael soon followed. Laurie was forced to stab Michael with both a knitting needle as well as his own knife, causing him to drop to the ground, seemingly dead. After sending the children to get help down the street, Laurie did not see Michael rise up behind her and come at her to strangle her. At this point, Dr. Loomis appeared and shot Michael six times, sending him falling over the house's balcony to land on the lawn below. However, when Loomis went to check the body, Myers had vanished.
Halloween II
Moments after Michael Myers had been shot six times in the heart at point-blank range and fell over the Doyle house balcony, Dr. Loomis descended to inspect the lawn where Myers had fallen, finding his body missing and several spots of blood on the imprint his body had left on the lawn. Knowing Myers was still on the loose, Loomis continued to search frantically for his patient. As news of the murders Myers had committed spread across town, Haddonfield became gripped by chaos and panic as people began to riot in front of the old Myers House at 45 Lampkin Lane and teenager Ben Tramer was accidentally killed in the confusion while being mistaken for Myers himself. Meanwhile, Laurie was taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital for treatment of her stab wound by orderly Jimmy Lloyd and his colleague Budd. Laurie was treated for her wound there and was sedated against her will, feeling that with her attacker still on the loose, she was not safe. Michael learned of Laurie's present whereabouts from a local radio news report and then made his way to the hospital to continue what he have started.
Once at the hospital, Michael began to systematically kill off all of Laurie's protectors, including a doctor, a security guard, Budd, and several nurses. Jimmy Lloyd meanwhile began to take an interest in Laurie as she rested and revealed to her the name of her attacker: Michael Myers, infamous for murdering his older sister on Halloween night fifteen years earlier. Laurie seemed to know Myers' story but did not let on that she knew anything more about him. However, shortly thereafter, she began to have flashbacks to her childhood, to her life before her adoption by the Strodes and her visits with an unpleasant boy in a distant institution. Michael finally began to close in on Laurie after killing off most of the hospital staff, but Laurie, wise to Michael's presence due to the loss of power in the building as well as the absence of other people and dead telephone lines, had already vacated her room to evade him. Michael continued to stalk the deserted hallways of the hospital while Laurie hid, falling asleep off and on due to the medication she'd been given.
Dr. Loomis continued his search for Myers with the assistance of the Haddonfield police before Nurse Marion Chambers caught up with him at the elementary school (where Myers had broken in and scrawled the word "Samhain" in blood on the chalkboard) and relayed strict orders directly from the Illinois Governor that he return to Smith's Grove immediately so as to not add to the panic overtaking Haddonfield. On the way out of town, Marion revealed to Loomis the existence of a file on Michael Myers which he had not been privy to, having been sealed by the courts after the deaths of Donald and Edith Myers: Laurie Strode was the third child and youngest daughter of the Myers family, and thus Michael Myers' sister and only living relative. Loomis realized the truth behind Myers' actions immediately upon hearing this and inquired about where Laurie had been taken after he shot Myers earlier that evening, knowing that he would be wherever she was. Marion told Loomis she had been taken to the hospital, and he forced both she and the state marshal escorting them to drive to the hospital at gunpoint, knowing Myers had likely tracked Laurie there by now.
At the hospital, Laurie evaded Michael long enough (though having some close calls with him) for Loomis, Chambers and the marshal to arrive. She eventually gained their attention, and Loomis saved Laurie's life once again, shooting Michael numerous more times and causing him to fall to the ground stunned momentarily. After sending Marion to call the police to the hospital via the marshal's car radio, Myers rose up and slit the marshal's throat before rising once more to come after Loomis and Laurie. The pair retreated to the hospital operating room, where Loomis was stabbed with a scalpel by Michael and Laurie shot Michael clean in both eyes, blinding him for the time being. Together, Loomis and Laurie were able to turn on all the oxygen and ether tanks in the room, filling it with gas as the disoriented Michael stumbled around the room swinging his scalpel. Eventually, Loomis instructed Laurie to escape the room, to which she complied. Loomis then turned to face Michael and said "It's time, Michael" before taking out a cigarette lighter and lighting it, igniting all the gases filling the room and causing a massive explosion that engulfed the pair of them. Laurie took refuge and watched in horror as Michael Myers, engulfed in flames, stumbled out of the operating room, trying to make one last attack on her, before collapsing to the ground. Laurie was then transported to a larger hospital alongside the other survivor of the hospital massacre, Jimmy Lloyd.
Halloween IV-VI
Laurie has died in a car accident. Her only child, Jamie Lloyd, now lives with the Carruthers.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Ignoring films 4-6, Laurie has faked her death in a car accident as a
Laurie Strode's appearance in H20
way of escaping her murderous brother, whose body was supposedly not found after Halloween 2. She is now living under the name Keri Tate, and works as the headmistress of a California private school, where her teenage son John Tate is a student. The alcoholic Laurie is still struggling with the memory of twenty years ago, and worries that Michael Myers may return.
Although John dismisses her as paranoid, her fears become reality when Myers resurfaces on Halloween and murders John's friends. After getting her son to safety, Laurie decides to stop running and face her brother. She manages to stop Michael, but unconvinced that he is truly dead, goes on to steal his body and decapitate him.
Halloween Resurrection & Death
Michael watches as Laurie Strode falls to her death, his life's mission finally fulfilled.
Laurie's appearance in Halloween:The Resurrection
It is revealed that the man Laurie killed was a paramedic with whom Myers had swapped clothes. The guilt-ridden Laurie is now an inmate at the Grace Anderson Sanitarium, where the nurses believe her to be catatonic. Instead, she is preparing for Michael's 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, and Michael stabs her and drops her from the roof to her death.
Halloween (2018)
Laurie as she appears in Halloween (2018)
Halloween (2018) will take place 40 years after the original film and will ignore all previous sequels, including her ties to Michael. In this continuity, Laurie has been preparing to kill Michael ever since their initial encounter in 1978. She has both a daughter and a granddaughter. The events of what happened in the original movie has cause her to have PTSD for the past 40 years which affected her family with her daughter being taken into custody when she was 12 and had two failed marriages in the 40 year gap.
Casting
In an interview, Carpenter admits that "Jamie Lee wasn't the first choice for Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and in a TV show at the time, but I didn't watch TV." He originally wanted to cast Anne Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart from Lassie, as Laurie Strode. Lockhart, however, had commitments to several other film and television projects. Debra Hill says of learning that Curtis was the daughter of Psycho star Janet Leigh, "I knew casting Jamie Lee would be great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho."
Trivia
- Laurie Strode is named after an ex-girlfriend of John Carpenter's.
- Jamie Lee Curtis wore a wig for Halloween II so that her hair would look the same as it did in the original film.
- Halloween (2018) takes place directly after Halloween (1978), erasing all previous sequels. This includes the idea that Michael and Laurie are biologically related, as screenwriter Danny McBride has gone on record saying he always disliked that aspect of the story.
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