With a big smile on her face, Jamie Lee Curtis took the stage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas to show the first trailer to “Halloween,” the upcoming sequel to John Carpenter’s classic 1978 horror film that gave Curtis her big break in Hollywood.
“Aside from ‘Star Wars,’ I can’t think of another movie in which the same actor plays the same character forty years later,” Curtis said. “I am proud to return to the role that marked the start of my creative life.”
The trailer shows Curtis as Laurie Strode, now a grandmother, whose grandchildren are the subject of rumors at their high school because of the famous clash Laurie had with the murderous Michael Myers forty years ago. The spiritual scars of that confrontation still haven’t healed, with Laurie still training at a shooting range she built in her backyard, preparing for the day Michael comes back.
“I pray every night that he would escape… so I could kill him,” she hisses.
And on Halloween night 2018, that day comes, as an asylum bus containing Michael “mysteriously” crashes. Laurie knows what that means, running out into her neighborhood and ordering the kids trick-or-treating to get inside. With knives and guns drawn, Laurie prepares as Michael arrives wearing the mask that made him an urban legend.
David Gordon Green is directing the film from a script he co-wrote with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. Laurie and Michael will return to theaters October 19.