The new Halloween is a film which discounts every previous sequel in the franchise in order to pay homage to the original film from 1978. While many of the film's references may be obvious to fans of the original, there's one subtle moment that may have passed by many eagled-eyed viewers. In one scene, Jamie Lee Curtis is seen making herself a glass of strawberry milk, a decision that was made by Curtis because, when director David Gordon Green asked the actress what Laurie Strode might be doing on any given morning, she figured it would be the exact same thing she would have been doing as a teenager. According to Curtis...
And I went like this. [Snaps] She's making Nesquik strawberry milk. Because she's still frozen at 17, when she used to make strawberry milk in the morning. I came back from this movie remembering--this can be super fun and creative and collaborative! It kicked me into a creative space.
It's a minor detail, but one that makes a lot of sense considering the film. In the new Halloween Laurie Strode is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. The events of the original Halloween have damaged her severely and she's either unwilling or unable to find the help necessary to deal with the trauma. To that end, Jamie Lee Curtis remembered one of the things her character did in the original film, starting the day off with a glass of strawberry milk, and decided she would still be doing that today because in her head she's still the same 17-year-old girl.
It's that sort of attention to detail that has helped make the new Halloween a hit, taking the box office crown for the second weekend in a row. Even if you didn't make the strawberry milk connection, I certainly didn't, it's that sort of detail that shows that the people involved in the new film were committed to making the new Halloween work by being a real follow up to the original film. There's little argument that at some point (exactly where may be up for debate) the Halloween sequels lost their way. The new movie is designed, among other things to be a course correction.
It's nice to see how collaborative a process the new Halloween movie was. Clearly writer and director David Gordon Green had ideas about the story he wanted to tell, but he considered Jamie Lee Curtis to be part of the team creating the story, not just an actress performing in the film. She tells Time she was given an opportunity to bring her own history with the franchise into the new movie and help craft her character the way she thought Laurie Strode would be after 40 years.
Halloween is in theaters now.
