Halloween Ends may be a disappointment to a segment of the lifelong Shape fandom, if not a bane to their existence, but the mixed feelings about what was supposed to be the conclusion of a trilogy are nothing compared to the allegedly dirty and disappointing treatment by its lead, Jamie Lee Curtis, to actresses who came after her.
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Danielle Harris started young with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers as Laurie Strode’s daughter Jamie, named for Curtis, and would star in three more movies over the next twenty years. In two of those, she acted opposite Scout Taylor-Compton who stepped into JLC’s shoes as the new Laurie under the direction of Rob Zombie.
Both Harris and Compton gained a cult status in the horror genre for their efforts that might not be at Curtis’s level of stardom, but theirs is no less remarkable. At least, that is the way it is in the eyes of their fans. If you were to ask Curtis, she apparently doesn’t know anything about the two of them or their movies.
The actresses found out the hard way when they met JLC at the LA premiere of Halloween Ends. Giving an account of the unusual experience to the Talk Scary To Me podcast, they said they left the afterparty “feeling very, very hurt.”
Harris went more in-depth than Compton and recalled introducing herself to Curtis as the one who played her daughter in H4. Curtis was a big figure in ’80s horror but she’d bowed out of the series by that point, so what she had to say is understandable on a level though it’s still dismaying. She replied, “I’ve never seen those movies, I don’t know who you are.”
And Curtis wasn’t kidding. When Compton explained her experience, she began to cry and only confirmed hers was similar to Harris’s. They tried to make sense of the ordeal, hoping Curtis’s attitude was due to her mood or being swamped by her obligations.
They defended her further for paving the way for them and other Scream Queens but the old axiom still applies: never meet your heroes.
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The experience was unusual in another way that makes the situation more awkward. The premiere and afterparty were the first big studio event for Compton and Harris in years related to Halloween as they aren’t typically invited to one. At the upper echelons, they are basically afterthoughts.
As bad as that and the afterparty was, they aren’t even the worst bout of drama Harris suffered working on Halloween movies. Originally, she was going to reprise Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers and had to go through the laborious process of emancipation as a teen to be in it.
Sadly, she never got a look at the script beforehand and was unaware Jamie was getting killed off. Worse yet, Harris’s pay was scale and not enough to cover her legal fee. Disgusted, she quit the film and was replaced by J.C. Brandy who, depending on the cut of Curse you see, is either shot or impaled on farming equipment.
The Curse of Michael Myers and its fraternal Thorn Trilogy comprise one of the most divisive points in franchise history — second arguably to Zombie’s duology. Time will tell if Danny McBride and David Gordon Green’s new trilogy, and the way it wrapped up, has those installments beat in terms of notoriety.
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