Laurie Strode

"Was that the Boogeyman?"

- Laurie to Sam Loomis in Halloween.

"I always knew he'd come back. In this town, Michael Myers is a myth. He's the Boogeyman. A ghost story to scare kids. But this Boogeyman is real. An evil like his never stops, it just grows older. Darker. More determined. Forty years ago, he came to my home to kill. He killed my friends, and now he's back to finish what he started, with me. The one person who's ready to stop him."

- Laurie in the upcoming film, Halloween (2018).

Laurie Strode (known as Cinthya Myers in the H20/Resurrection timeline and Angel Myers in the Remake timeline) is the main protagonist in the Halloween movie series and she is played by Jamie Lee Curtis (Original) and Scout Taylor-Compton (Remake).

Jamie Lee Curtis's performance as Laurie has been compared to Sandra Peabody's performance as Mari Collingwood in The Last House on the Left (1972) and Marilyn Burns's performance as Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

She was Michael Myers' sister in the 4-5-6 timeline and the H20/Resurrection timeline and the Remake timeline. This is no longer true in the 2018 timeline.

Halloween
By 1978, Laurie was a kind-hearted yet introverted girl of seventeen who attended Haddonfield High School with her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda Van Der Klok. Laurie was shy and bookish and did not share her friends' overt personalities. She always claimed that her brainy ways scared boys away, which accounted for her sparse dating history.

On October 31st, her adoptive father Morgan Strode, owner of Strode Realty, asked Laurie to drop off a set of keys to the old Myers house, which had been on the market for quite some time. Laurie had no idea that this was in fact the house she was born in.

During literature class, Laurie glimpsed a man staring at her across the street. After school, Laurie and her friends were walking home when she spied the same strange shape peering at them from around a corner. Annie went investigate, but found nothing. She teased Laurie, saying that she "scared another one away". At home, she thought she saw the same strange, masked man in her neighbor's back yard behind a clothes' line.

After taking a shower, Laurie was visited by a frantic Lynda, who claimed that someone had been following her. Laurie worriedly assumed that Lynda's stalker was the same man she had been seeing, and became increasingly paranoid.

Later that day, she went out with Annie and learned that someone had broken into Nichol's Hardware Store and had stolen a Halloween mask, a rope, and a couple of knives. As Annie and she drove around town, Laurie expressed an interest in going out with a boy named Bennett Tramer. Annie decided to take matters into her own hands and surreptitiously contacted Ben without Laurie's approval. Laurie was deeply embarrassed when she heard the news and begged Annie to call him back and break it off.

That evening, Laurie went to the Doyle residence to babysit young Tommy Doyle. She brought along a jack-o'-lantern and entertained Tommy by reading him some of his comic books and watching scary movies. As the evening wore on, Annie came over to the house with her own charge, Lindsey Wallace, in tow. She asked Laurie to keep an eye on Lindsey for the next few hours so she could go out with her boyfriend Paul Freedman. Laurie did not like the idea but agreed after Annie told her she would cancel her pending date with Ben Tramer.

What Laurie was unaware of at the time was that her psychotic brother Michael Myers had broken out of the mental institution and had returned to Haddonfield to kill again. It was him that Laurie had seen earlier at school, on the sidewalk and in her neighbor's back yard. While Laurie was watching over Tommy, Michael was killing her friends one at a time, including, Annie Lynda and Lynda's boyfriend Bob Simms.

Laurie went over to the Wallace residence to check on Annie, but instead found the bodies of Annie, Lynda and Bob strategically placed in key positions throughout the house. Michael emerged and attacked Laurie, slicing her arm with his knife. This caused Laurie to fall over the second floor landing, and she fell down the stairs, cracking her ankle in the process. [4] Screaming in horror, Laurie limped back to the Doyle house and called out to the children to let her inside. Tommy finally opened the door and Laurie quickly entered the house, locking the door behind her. Michael got in through the window and attacked Laurie again. She kept him at bay by stabbing him in the neck with a knitting needle then ran upstairs. Michael followed her up the stairs, cornered her in a bedroom closet and tried stabbing at her with his knife. Laurie straightened out the end of a clothes hanger and jabbed Michael in the eye, forcing him to relinquish his blade. Laurie picked it up and stabbed Michael in the stomach. He slumped to the floor and Laurie believed he was dead. Tearfully, she exited the closet and issued instructions to the children to leave the house. Moments later however, Michael rose and attacked Laurie again. He began strangling her and Laurie managed to pull his mask away, seeing his face for the first time. At this moment, Michael's former psychiatrist Doctor Samuel Loomis burst into the house and fired a bullet into Michael's body. He followed with five more shots, which drove Michael through the bedroom window, out over the balcony and down onto the ground. When Loomis looked over the balcony however to check on Michael's body, he was gone. A shocked Laurie meekly stated, "It was the Boogeyman," to which Loomis replied, "As a matter of fact... it was."

Halloween 2
Laurie was taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, but she was in too much of a state of shock to provide the EMTs or hospital staff with any pertinent information regarding her assailant. A young ambulance driver named Jimmy took a liking to Laurie and promised to watch over her as she recuperated. Jimmy told Laurie the name of the man who had been trying to kill her.

Laurie was terrified about being put to sleep out of fear that the "Boogeyman" would get her. The chief of medicine Frederick Mixter dismissed her concerns and kept Laurie heavily sedated. After awakening, Laurie was alarmed to learn that the man who had pursued her was in fact Michael Myers, and worried when head nurse Virginia Alves told her that her parents could not be contacted. Later, Laurie learned from Jimmy that Michael had supposedly died in a car accident, although the victim in question was in fact Laurie's crush Ben Tramer. Laurie panicked and tried to escape, causing the staff to sedate her once again. While unconscious, Laurie had a dream wherein she saw images of her brother at a young age and she recalled her mother telling her that she was actually adopted. Waking from this dream, Laurie began to slowly grasp her connection to Michael Myers, though she had yet to realize that he was in fact her brother.

Michael meanwhile, having survived his initial encounter with Dr. Loomis, had tracked Laurie to the hospital and sought to finish her off. One by one, he cut his way through each member of the attending hospital staff until nothing stood between Laurie and himself. When Laurie realized that Michael was still hunting her, she left her hospital room and began shambling down the empty corridors. Michael eventually discovered her and gave chase, but Laurie managed to escape by climbing through a window in a storeroom. She then hid in an unlocked car that happened to belong to Jimmy, who joined her shortly. He told her that they were going to get away, but soon passed out due to a concussion he had suffered earlier. Laurie tried to start the car but was unsuccessful and she was forced to get out. She then saw Dr. Loomis, his assistant Marion Chambers and Marshall Terrence Gummell enter the front doors of the hospital. Laurie tried to call out to them, but her voice was too hoarse. Michael appeared before her yet Laurie managed to get back inside the hospital. Dr. Loomis pushed Laurie behind him and temporarily halted Michael by firing several more shots into his chest. This only slowed Michael down by a matter of seconds however, and he quickly got back up and began chasing them.

Loomis and Laurie took shelter inside one of the empty examination rooms. After the doctor handed Laurie a gun and locked the door, Michael broke through and critically injured Loomis. Laurie fired the gun, shooting both of Michael's eyes. Though blinded, Michael continued to slash away at the air, hoping to connect with Laurie. The bleeding Dr. Loomis and Laurie then began releasing the valves on several canisters of ether. As Laurie vacated the room, Loomis ignited the ether, causing a massive explosion. Laurie turned around to see a burning Michael still trying to walk towards her, but he finally fell down and was assumed dead. Laurie was then taken into an ambulance. Laurie stared outside until she was surprised by Jimmy, who sat up behind her in the ambulance. Laurie began to cry and took Jimmy's hand, relieved that they had survived.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Following her traumatic experiences, Laurie faked her own death, relocated to California and changed her name to Keri Tate. She had at one point gotten involved with a man whom she married and had a child with in 1981, named John. Based on how she referred to John's father as an abusive, chain-smoking methadone addict, it is clear they had a bad relationship. Following her divorce, she and John moved to Summer Glen, California where she became the headmistress of a small private prep school called Hillcrest Academy. The two of them lived on campus with the rest of the students. Laurie still struggled with the events of Halloween 1978. Her past trauma, as well as the stress of living under false pretense, had turned her into a functioning alcoholic. She was also heavily dependent on medication for her emotional condition. Eventually, Laurie got into a secret relationship with the school's guidance counselor, Will Brennan.

On October 31, 1998, twenty years to the day after the original Haddonfield murder spree, Will and Laurie decided to have lunch together. During their date, she revealed that she was scared that she was losing her son and that she had a horrible background. She also revealed to him that despite seeking many recovery methods her past continued to haunt her. After her lunch date Laurie found John and his friend Charles Deveraux roaming around town against school rules. She and John argued about what he was doing as John felt he had enough of being so over-protected all the time. He told her that Michael Myers was dead and was not going to come back. Laurie returned both boys to Hillcrest and expressed disappointment in Ronald Jones, the security guard at the school. Unknown to them all, the resurfaced Michael Myers was following Laurie back to the school.

After contemplating John's words, Laurie decided to grant her son permission to go on the school trip to Yosemite. However, John had already made plans to spend the weekend at school with his friends and stayed behind in secret. Meanwhile, Laurie and Will returned to her house, where she revealed her secrets to him. While talking, Laurie made a sudden connection - Laurie and Judith had been attacked on Halloween after turning seventeen, and John had recently celebrated his seventeenth birthday. Even though Laurie's logic was flawed - as Judith died at age fifteen - she turned out to be correct in the fact that Michael was after John. Upon returning to the school, Laurie and Will found and rescued John and his girlfriend Molly Cartwell from Michael, who had already killed Charlie and their friend Sarah. After hiding John and Molly in a closet, Laurie and Will moved through the school and spotted a shape in the distance, whom Will shot. Unfortunately, that person turned out to be Ronnie, and Will was killed by Michael when he knelt over Ronnie's body. Laurie, John and Molly escaped from the building and drove to the gates, where Laurie sent the teenagers to the nearby Becker house to call the police. Once John and Molly were gone, Laurie locked herself inside the grounds, got a fire axe and went hunting for her brother.

Michael attacked Laurie when she returned to the building. The siblings inflicted wounds on each other as they fought through the school, with Laurie emerging seemingly victorious as she stabbed Michael several times in the chest and forced him off a balcony in the cafeteria. Laurie approached the killer, intending to finish the job, but Ronnie, who had recovered, dragged her away from the scene. The police soon arrived and officials came to take Michael away. Knowing her brother could not have died so easily, Laurie took the fire axe and drove the medical van with Michael in it away, keeping an eye on the body bag.

While Laurie drove frenetically, the masked man began to wake, prompting her to step down on the brakes and knock him through the windshield. Once he stood up, Laurie drove right into him, sending the van off the cliff. Laurie fell out of the van, but he was pinned to a tree by the tumbling vehicle. Laurie retrieved the fire axe and walked over to her enemy. He reached out, seeming desperate for mercy. Breaking down, Laurie reached out as well, before realizing what she was doing and beheading the masked man with a single chop.

Halloween 4 - 6 Timeline
Following the traumatic experience of 1978, Laurie married Mr. Lloyd and in 1980 had a daughter with him named Jamie. Both Laurie and her husband died in an unspecified accident in November 30, 1987, leaving Jamie in the care of Richard and Darlene Carruthers, whose daughter Rachel Laurie had babysat as a teenager. Jamie was left with a shoebox full of pictures of her parents, including one that had been taken of Laurie on Halloween 1978. When Michael Myers returned to Haddonfield to kill Jamie in 1988, he used these pictures to ensure that the girl he was pursuing was indeed Laurie Strode's daughter.

In 1995, Laurie's adoptive cousins John, Debra, Kara, Tim and Danny Strode moved into the Myers house. It is unknown what the Strodes' opinion on Laurie was.

2007 Remake Timeline
Laurie Strode was born Angel Myers in 1990, the daughter of Deborah Myers and an unidentified father. Her father passed away shortly after she was born. When Laurie was less than a year old, her ten-year-old brother Michael Myers suffered a psychotic break and murdered their older sister Judith, Judith's boyfriend Steve Haley and their mother's boyfriend Ronnie White. Despite these violent acts, Michael felt nothing but love for his baby sister who he affectionately referred to as "Boo". Their mother came home from work that evening and found Michael sitting on the steps outside their house, cradling Boo in his arms. He was subsequently admitted to Smith's Grove Sanitarium in Warren County where, a year later, he killed one of the nurses. This additional murder proved to be too much for Deborah Myers's psyche and she took her own life. An anonymous person heard the gunshot and called 911. Sheriff Lee Brackett responded to the call and discovered Deborah's body, and also found baby Angel in her crib nearby. Fearful that the child might grow up bearing the stigma of the Myers name, he omitted her from his report, drove the infant to another town and dropped her off at a hospital. Three months later, the baby was adopted by a realtor from Haddonfield named Mason Strode, who just happened to be a friend of Sheriff Brackett. Brackett could not believe that the child he had sought to rescue was now living under a new name, Laurie Strode, just down the street from the place where he first found her. Laurie grew up in a loving family, completely ignorant of her birth family's tragic history.

Babysitting
Some seventeen years later, Laurie attended Haddonfield High School with her friends Annie Brackett and Lynda Van Der Klok. On Halloween 2007, Laurie had already arranged to babysit a boy named Tommy Doyal for Halloween, but Annie had convinced her to also take care of her own charge, Lindsey Wallace, so that Annie could spend time with her boyfriend Paul. While walking home from school, the three girls spied an ominous shape staring at them from across the street. Annie and Lynda made some comments towards the stranger, but Laurie was put off by his appearance. Little did she realize that the masked man was actually her older brother Michael, who had just escaped Smith's Grove and made his way to Haddonfield.

That evening, Annie picked Laurie up from her home and dropped her off at Tommy Doyal's house. Tommy was an excitable young boy who regaled Laurie with stories of the Mexican Wolf Man and the Boogeyman. Later on, Annie stopped by to drop off Lindsey. The two girls talked and Annie impressed upon Laurie the importance of getting a boyfriend. She told her that she could set her up with a boy named Ben Tramer, but Laurie was resistant to the idea as Ben had been called 'retarded'.

As the evening wore on without Annie returning, Laurie decided to walk Lindsey back to her house. When she arrived, she found that Paul had been murdered and posed, while Annie was on the floor covered in blood and cuts, crying in pain. Laurie ordered Lindsey to run back to Tommy's house. While Laurie was calling 911, Michael stepped out of the shadows and attacked her, grabbing his sister and tossing her about. Laurie picked up a chair and threw it through a pair of French doors. She then climbed out into the yard, but injured her ankle in the process. She shambled back to the Doyal house screaming for Tommy to let her in. Once inside, Laurie locked the door behind her, but Michael smashed his way through. Laurie and the children ran upstairs and tried to lock themselves in the bathroom. Two officers responded to the 911 call, but Michael killed both of them, stabbing them with his large butcher knife. Turning his attention back to Laurie, he managed to get a hold of her, whereupon Laurie fainted

Michael carried Laurie back to the house in which they grew up. When she awakened, she found herself in the basement of the Myers house, the dead body of Lynda and the stolen headstone of Judith Myers lying next to her. Michael silently approached her and dropped to his knees. He set down his knife and pulled an old photograph of himself and Angel as children out of his pocket. Laurie failed to understand the significance of the photo, but took the opportunity to seize Michael's knife and stab him in the shoulder.

Laurie escaped from the house and ran across the neighbor's yard where she fell into an emptied swimming pool. Michael, still managing to walk, pursued her, until his former psychiatrist Doctor Samuel Loomis arrived and shot him several times in the back. Dr. Loomis helped Laurie out of the pool and into a police squad car. Stricken, Laurie asked Loomis, "Was that the Boogeyman?", to which Loomis replied, "As a matter of fact... I do believe it was".

Confronting Michael
Unexpectedly, Michael reappeared and pulled Laurie out of the car. He dragged her back into the house, this time with the intent of killing her. Loomis distracted Michael at great physical cost to himself, so that Laurie was able to scramble away into the spaces between the walls. Michael began searching for her, punching through walls and pieces of plaster. Laurie picked up Dr. Loomis' handgun and climbed into the rafters. While crawling through the ceiling, one of the patches gave way and she fell through to the floor, landing on her face. Michael found and tackled her, sending them both barreling through a weakened wall onto the upstairs balcony and over the edge to the ground. Laurie revived first, her face completely covered in blood. She picked up the gun again and aimed it at Michael's face. She pressed the trigger several time with no results. Michael suddenly awakened and grabbed her wrist, and Laurie pulled the trigger again. The gun fired directly towards Michael's face and Laurie began howling in fear, pain, and terror.

Laurie was found walking dazedly through the streets by Sheriff Brackett and was promptly taken to Haddonfield General Hospital to recuperate. She had suffered several injuries, including cuts, a broken finger and various minor wounds. In time, Laurie healed from her injuries, left with only minimal scarring on her face as a physical remnant of her ordeal. The emotional trauma however, was not so easy to heal from. The revelation that her parents had been murdered along with Lynda and Paul on Halloween sent her into a psychological tailspin that only grew as the months passed. Sheriff Brackett invited Laurie to stay with him and Annie, who had likewise survived her encounter with Michael Myers. Laurie remained ignorant for the next year (or two) of the truth regarding her birth family.

One year later (two years later in the unrated cut), Laurie had been seeing a psychiatrist named Doctor Barbara Collier, who prescribed Laurie medication, but the young woman's psychological makeup continued to degrade even with her prescribed medication. She found herself prone to fits of rage and suffered from intense nightmares. One such repeated nightmare involved Michael tracking her to the hospital mere hours after his initial attack and killing more people in his pursuit. Laurie also may have converted to vegetarianism following the grisly events of 2007.

Laurie also began working at a coffee-shop/vintage record store known as Uncle Meat's Java Hole where she befriended two of her co-workers named Mya Rockwell and Harley David. It was easier for her to hang out with Mya and Harley than it was with Annie, for every time she saw Annie's facial scars, she became overwhelmed with guilt over the collateral damage incurred by her best friend during Michael's murder spree. Laurie's guilt regularly emerged as spouts of vitriol directed towards Annie. The two young women maintained an uneasy and often explosive relationship as they lived together.

Having Nightmares
By 2008 (2009 in the unrated cut), Laurie's panic attacks and nightmares reached a critical mass. She began experiencing waking nightmares that she could not explain. In one of these tormented fantasies, Laurie saw herself dressed up in a Halloween clown costume and murdering Annie. What she didn't realize at the time is that she was experiencing actually psychic impressions from the memories of Michael Myers. Laurie began seeing images of young Michael Myers as well as her birth mother Deborah.

On Halloween night, Laurie's world came crashing down. She discovered that Doctor Sam Loomis had written a second book about Michael Myers, this one detailing the events of the massacre from two years prior. Laurie read the book and learned the truth about her family lineage. Her real name was Angel Myers and she was Michael's little sister.

Final Fate
Distraught, Laurie sought solace in her friends Mya and Harley. She could not bear the idea of being Michael's sister and wanted only to drown herself in alcohol and partying. The three of them went to the "Phantom Jam" rave in town and Laurie dressed up as Magenta from the monster musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She became heavily intoxicated at the party and began seeing images of Deborah and young Michael trailing after her. Mya eventually decided to walk Laurie home. ===

When they arrived back at the Brackett house, Laurie was horrified to discover that not only was Michael Myers still alive, but he had attacked Annie. Laurie cradled Annie in her arms while Mya called 911 and was killed by Michael. This time, help did not arrive in time and Annie died in Laurie's arms. Michael then burst into the room and attacked Laurie who fled from the house onto the highway.

A passing motorist found Laurie scrambling across the road and offered to take her to the hospital. Michael caught up with them and murdered the young driver. Capturing Laurie, he brought her back to his cabin hideout in a field off Eagle Road. Laurie came to and saw Michael, as well as the ghostly figures of Deborah Myers and young Michael standing before her. Deborah spoke to Laurie, forcing her to repeat the words "I love you, Mommy" over and over again. Laurie tried to escape but the apparition of young Michael held her on the floor.

Killing Michael
Soon afterwards, police squad cars and helicopters surrounded the house. Sam Loomis entered the cabin and was slaughtered after a final unsuccessful attempt to reason with Michael. Brackett saw the scuffle and was able to make a clean shot, shooting Michael in the chest. Michael was forced backwards by the recoil and ended up getting impaled on farm machinery. Laurie got up, the visions having dissipated. She knelt down next to Michael saying, "I love you, brother", before taking his knife and stabbing him several times in the chest and one final time in the face, seemingly killing him. Laurie emerged from the shack, wearing Michael's tattered mask. Succumbing to insanity, Laurie dropped to her knees. Laurie was subsequently placed in a mental asylum, where she sat silently in her bedroom. She looked on, with sinister satisfaction, as Deborah Myers slowly approached her, a large, white horse walking by her side.

2018 Timeline
To be added.

In Other Media
Laurie appeared as a survivor in Dead by Daylight alongside Michael Myers.

Trivia

 * Emma Stone auditioned for the role of Laurie Strode in the remake
 * Of all the female leads (all the girls are supposed to be in high school including Judith Myers), only the actress playing Laurie, Scout Taylor-Compton was actually a teenager at the time of filming, much like how Jamie Lee Curtis who played Laurie in the original Halloween (1978) was the only girl who was a teenager.
 * Danielle Panabaker auditioned for the role of Laurie Strode. Scout Taylor-Compton was cast instead. Two years later, Panabaker was cast as the female lead in Friday the 13th (2009), another horror remake. Compton had also auditioned for that role, but lost the role against Panabaker.
 * Director Rob Zombie originally wanted Danielle Harris to play Laurie Strode and Sheri Moon Zombie to play Lynda.
 * In the commentary for the film, Rob Zombie incorrectly states that Jamie Lee Curtis was in her 30s during the original Halloween (1978). She was actually 19 during the production.
 * The hoodie Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) wears is from Sheri Moon Zombie's personal clothing line, Total Skull.
 * A young Jamie Lee Curtis was so disappointed with her performance that she became convinced she would be fired after only the first day of filming. When her phone rang that night and it was John Carpenter on the phone, Curtis was certain it was the end of her movie career. Instead, Carpenter called to congratulate her and tell her that he was very happy with the way things had gone.
 * As the film was shot out of sequence, John Carpenter created a fear meter so that Jamie Lee Curtis would know what level of terror she should be exhibiting.
 * John Carpenter considered the hiring of Jamie Lee Curtis as the ultimate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock who had given her mother, Janet Leigh, legendary status in Psycho (1960).
 * All of the actors wore their own clothes, since there was no money for a costume department. Jamie Lee Curtis went to J.C. Penney for Laurie Strode's wardrobe. She spent less than one hundred dollars for the entire set. She shot the film while on hiatus from the sitcom Operation Petticoat: Operation Petticoat (1977).
 * Jamie Lee Curtis' first feature film. She was paid a reported $8,000 for her efforts.
 * Anne Lockhart was John Carpenter's first choice for the role of Laurie Strode.

Appearances

 * Halloween (1978 film)
 * Halloween II (1981 film)
 * Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
 * Halloween Resurrection
 * Halloween (2007 remake)
 * Halloween II (2009 remake)
 * Halloween (2018 film)