10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween (2007)

Jamie Lee Curtis' performance as Laurie Strode in the original Halloween isn't just great, it is iconic. In her debut role, Curtis was able to capture both the innocence and strength of the character, simultaneously, and it made her a movie star in the process.

This film replaces Curtis, with Scout Taylor-Compton taking over the Laurie Strode role, and the results are not good. To be fair, Taylor-Compton is at an immediate disadvantage in a number of ways. For starters, she's attempting to follow-up Curtis' stellar work and that's a tall order. More importantly, whereas Carpenter's original film introduced Laurie in the first act and allowed Curtis the time to grow and develop her character across the film, Zombie's film doesn't even introduce audiences to Laurie until midway through the film.

To top it all off, Zombie's writing of the character is atrocious. He doesn't understand what made Laurie an iconic character in the first place. Whereas Carpenter had the assistance of the eternally badass Debra Hill on the original film, to write convincing and naturalistic dialogue for Laurie and her friends, Zombie does not. His dialogue in these sequences is strained at best.

At the time of this film's release, Zombie was asked if he intentionally cut out Laurie's closet scene from the original film's climax and what role its exclusion played into the character's reading via feminist theory in this film, to which Zombie responded;

"Yeah, no. I never even thought about that."

This film's version of Laurie Strode isn't Laurie Strode. Scout Taylor-Compton could be playing any nameless final girl and it wouldn't have made a difference. But the blame cannot fall solely on Taylor-Compton's limp performance, as Zombie's writing never gave her much of a chance in the first place.