Jamie Lee Curtis Will Return to the Halloween Franchise in 2018

Well, here’s an announcement that horror fans probably couldn’t have seen coming, considering that the character is technically dead: Jamie Lee Curtis will return to the Halloween franchise as Laurie Strode one last time. The film, which is being produced by Blumhouse and scheduled for an Oct. 19, 2018 release by Universal, just got a lot more interesting. Blumhouse confirmed the casting and return via tweet on Friday.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns to her iconic role as Laurie Strode in HALLOWEEN, released by Universal Pictures October 19, 2018. #HalloweenMoviepic.twitter.com/6tbbz2W1ZV

— Blumhouse (@blumhouse) September 15, 2017

This is something of a shock, considering that Laurie Strode was killed off in the opening scenes of 2002’s poorly received Halloween: Resurrection, the last of the original Halloween series before the two Rob Zombie-helmed Halloween reboots. But then again, how hard is it really to bring back a character from the dead with “they didn’t really die” in this series? It’s already been done with Strode once before, when it was revealed in Halloween: H20 that she had faked her death after the events of Halloween 2, which more or less nullified the events of Halloween 4, Halloween 5 and Halloween 6. The death of slasher icon Michael Myers was also implied in H20, only to be undone in the opening moments of Resurrection. So who the hell knows? All we know is that we get another slasher with Curtis, and that’s good enough for us.

Also of interest: Given that Michael Myers is the older brother of Laurie Strode, that will officially make Myers a sexagenarian killer, somewhere in his 60s in this film. Perhaps bullets will be a little bit more effective in stopping him, considering his advanced age? It’s a shame that Donald Pleasence is no longer with us to reprise his classic role as the psychiatrist Dr. Loomis, but he would be almost 100 years old if he was still alive.

The still-untitled new Halloween film will be directed by David Gordon Green, the co-creator of Eastbound & Down on HBO and director of films such as The Pineapple Express. The film also features a script co-written by Danny McBride, which was praised by original Halloween director John Carpenter back in February:

“David and Danny both came to my office recently with Jason Blum and shared their vision for the new movie and … WOW. They get it. I think you’re gonna dig it. They blew me away. I might even do the music. Maybe. It could be kind of cool. And you’ll get to see it in theaters on October 19th, 2018.”

Let’s hope that we’ll indeed get Carpenter back in the composer’s chair, if not the director’s chair. Curtis, meanwhile, has continued to parlay her status as a horror icon in recent years, appearing in Scream Queens on Fox. She also places prominently in our list of the “best “final girls in horror film history. Perhaps this final Halloween film will continue to move her up the rankings?