Dead End

After 44 years, the blood feud between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers is coming to a killer conclusion in Halloween Ends , the “passionate” and “unexpected” climax to David Gordon Green’s latterday slasher trilogy. Ultimate final girl Jamie Lee Curtis and the ’ween team reveal the story behind a grudge match decades in the making.

- JORDAN FARLEY

It was 4am in Savannah, Georgia when Jamie Lee Curtis said goodbye to Laurie Strode.

Owing to the practicalities of production, Curtis’ final scene as Strode wasn’t the conclusion of Halloween Ends. Neither was Curtis filming the long-awaited showdown with babysitter butcher Michael Myers. Instead it was a quiet, contemplative moment featuring Laurie alone in her car by the side of the road. Shortly after, as Curtis watched playback of the shot from basecamp over the shoulder of sequel trilogy director David Gordon Green, the magnitude of what she was looking at hit like a chef’s knife gliding between the ribs.

“I realised that would be the last time I ever saw Laurie Strode,” Curtis tells Total Film, on the verge of tears – and not for the last time – while discussing a film she is adamant will be her last as Halloween’s lone survivor. “It was very powerful for me. I wept. David wept. We all recognised that moment, that it was the wrap for Laurie Strode and me. And this community of artists who made these movies. It was a big deal.”

Neither Andi Matichak (who has played Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson Nelson across all three Green Halloweens), nor James Jude Courtney (the man behind Myers’ mask since 2018) were scheduled to work that day, but both made the early morning pilgrimage to the Savannah location shoot to bear witness to film history. “My heart just broke open,” says Matichak. “It was incredible to know that this is it for Jamie as Laurie Strode.” “It was bittersweet for all of us,” adds Courtney. “She’s definitely ready to put it down. She’s carried this for 40-some-odd years.”