Laurie Strode

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Laurie Strode first appears in the original Halloween (1978). The 17-year-old Laurie is a high school student who has plans to babysit Tommy Doyle on Halloween night, 1978. Throughout the day, she keeps seeing a mysterious masked man watching her wherever she goes; unbeknownst to her, he is Michael Myers, an escaped mental patient who murdered his sister, Judith Myers, fifteen years before and has begun stalking her. Laurie notices Michael watching her and becomes increasingly worried, though her best friends Annie and Lynda brush off her concerns. As Laurie babysits Tommy, Myers kills Annie and Lynda 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 Michael. Barely escaping, Laurie races back to the Doyle house. Michael follows, but Laurie manages to fend him off long enough for Tommy and Lindsey to escape. Laurie is saved by Dr. Sam Loomis, Michael's psychiatrist, who shoots him off the balcony; when Loomis goes to check Michael's body, he finds it missing. An unsurprised Loomis stares off into the night, while Laurie begins sobbing in terror. Halloween II (1981) picks up directly after the first film, with Laurie Strode being taken to a hospital. Dr. Loomis discovers that Laurie is Michael and Judith's sister; she was put up for adoption after the death of their parents, with the records sealed to protect the family. Realizing that Michael has killed one sister and now wants to kill the other, Loomis rushes to the hospital to find them. Laurie shoots Michael in the eyes, blinding him, and Loomis causes an explosion in the operating theater, allowing Laurie to escape. Michael, engulfed in flames, stumbles out of the room before finally collapsing. The traumatized Laurie is last seen being transferred to another hospital, along with another survivor, Jimmy. In Halloween Resurrection (2002), Laurie is killed by Michael Myers after being lured into a trap, ending her story in that timeline.

In Their Own Story

In Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Laurie is revealed to have died prior to the film's events, with the role of protagonist taken up by her young daughter, Jamie Lloyd. A photograph of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie appears in a scene where Jamie remembers her mother. Curtis returned as Laurie Strode in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), the seventh film in the series. In this timeline, Laurie 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 living under the name Keri Tate, and works as the headmistress of a California private school, where her teenage son John 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 will return. After getting her son and his girlfriend 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. In Halloween: Resurrection (2002), it is revealed that the man Laurie killed was a paramedic with whom Michael had swapped clothes. The guilt-ridden Laurie is now an inmate at the Grace Andersen Sanitarium. When Michael returns, she lures him on to the institution's rooftop. When she tries to remove his mask, Michael stabs her and throws her off the roof, to her death. A new version of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) appears in the Rob Zombie remake (2007). This film establishes from the beginning that Laurie (born Angel Myers) is Michael's baby sister, nicknamed "Boo", with whom young Michael shares a close bond. The adult Michael escapes and comes home in search of his sister, killing her adoptive parents and her friend Lynda before kidnapping Laurie. Michael tries to make Laurie remember him by showing her a picture of them as children. This fails, and Laurie proceeds to stab Michael with his own knife. Laurie hides as Michael hunts her down in their old childhood home; when he finds her, she shoots him in the head with a gun she took from Michael's psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis, after which she begins screaming hysterically as the scene fades to an old home video of young Michael and baby Laurie. In the sequel (2009), Laurie has moved in with Sheriff Brackett and his daughter Annie. She suffers recurring nightmares about Michael and their mother, and is seeing a therapist to deal with the trauma. Loomis, who has become a greedy and arrogant mercenary profiting from the murders of the previous film, reveals in his book "The Devil Walks Among Us" that she is Michael's sister and that she also has his "illness". Laurie reads the book and discovers the truth, leading her to an hysterical outburst and storming out of the Brackett house. In the film's climax, she tells a mortally wounded Michael that she loves him, before stabbing him to death and putting on his mask. In the film's final scene, she sits in isolation in a psychiatric ward, grinning at a vision of her mother. In the director's cut of the film, Laurie picks up Michael's knife after Michael is killed and walks over to an injured and unconscious Loomis, and the police open fire on Laurie, apparently killing her too. Jamie Lee Curtis reprised the role in Halloween (2018), which in this continuity ignores the previous sequels in the franchise and serves as a direct sequel to the 1978 film. Consequently, Michael and Laurie are not related in this continuity since that revelation does not exist without the 1981 sequel. The film establishes that Michael was arrested following his killing spree in 1978, and institutionalized for 40 years in Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Laurie has post-traumatic stress disorder, has been divorced twice, and become an alcoholic. Michael escapes again and returns to Haddonfield for another killing spree. He is taken to Laurie's home by his deranged psychologist and engages in a showdown with Laurie, who traps him in the basement with the help of her daughter, Karen, and granddaughter, Allyson. They set the house ablaze and escape in the back of a passing pickup truck. Halloween Kills picks up where the previous film left off. Laurie is hospitalized, where she meets an old friend named Frank Hawkins, who is strongly implied to be Karen's father. Meanwhile, Karen and Allyson join a mob of Haddonfield residents to hunt down Michael and kill him for good. The mob surrounds and attacks Michael, but he arises from seeming defeat and slaughters them all while Karen and Allyson...

Reader's Guide

Laurie Strode is a character from the Halloween series. She first appeared in Halloween (1978) as a high school student who becomes targeted by serial killer Michael Myers, in which she was portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis. Created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, Laurie appeared in nine of thirteen films in the series (and is seen briefly in photographs and video footage in at least two others). The character has subsequently been represented in various other media, including novels, video games, and comic books. Most entries in the franchise depict Laurie as Michael's younger sister, although this detail is not present in the first film and was also disregarded by the most recent entries - the 2018 film and its two sequels. The character is primarily portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis, who appears as Laurie in the original film and six of its sequels. In the two films directed by Rob Zombie, she is played by Scout Taylor-Compton. Academic materials widely cite Laurie as one of the early and more influential examples of the "final girl" slasher film archetype.

Did You Know?

• Laurie Strode was created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.
• Laurie appeared in seven full films in the Halloween series (Halloween 1978, Halloween II 1981, Halloween H20 1998, Halloween Resurrection 2002, Halloween 2018, Halloween Kills 2021, Halloween Ends 2022) and makes brief
• Most entries in the franchise depict Laurie as Michael's younger sister, but this detail is not present in the first film and was disregarded by the 2018 film and its two sequels.
• In the two film