Jamie Lee Curtis hasn't watched any horror movies, despite starring in many
Jamie Lee Curtis is a bona fide scream queen — but fright flicks aren't her thing.
The actress has been in — and survived — a dozen horror movies, from being stalked by Michael Myers' bogeyman in the “Halloween” films to trying to live through “Prom Night” in the high school slasher.
The horror movie genre is in her blood, of course, thanks to her mother Janet Leigh's unforgettable role in Alfred Hitchcock's “Psycho.”
But Curtis — who stars in “Halloween Kills,” the latest installment of the franchise, which opened Friday — isn't into scary movies at all.
“I'm not an intellectual about horror films. I don't study them. I don't like them. I haven't watched any of them. I couldn't name any of them,” Curtis told the Daily News.
Yet the 62-year-old actress, whose father was Hollywood star Tony Curtis, is well-versed on the importance of her mother's role in the groundbreaking “Psycho,” widely considered to be the first Hollywood slasher movie.
Discussing Leigh's infamous shower scene in the 1960 movie, Curtis said, “When Janet Leigh was in a bra in 'Psycho,' it was shocking that she was seen in a bed, getting off a bed in a bra. We've come a long way, baby.
“That was shocking then. Her death, 20 minutes or 30 minutes, into the movie — shocking.”
Curtis says of “Psycho” director Hitchcock: “He knew what he was doing.”
In “Halloween Kills,” Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode — healing in the hospital from her fiery battle with Michael Myers in 2018's “Halloween.” When she and the town of Haddonfield learn that the masked bogeyman is still out there, they resolve to hunt down and finally kill Michael.
The original “Halloween,” directed by John Carpenter, shook audiences to their core in 1978.
“How do you make something terrifying? Take the most ubiquitous ... idealization of an innocent girl: A babysitter in a small Midwestern town on Halloween night and what do you collide her with? This enigmatic, evil inhuman form,” said Curtis.
Curtis can trace the line from the horror genre's treatment of Marion — a sexually liberated woman with a penchant for thievery who's made to die for her sins — to its approach to Laurie, who refuses to be a victim.
She pointed to a line in “Halloween Kills,” in which her character — trapped in a hospital bed for much of the film — notes that in order to defeat Michael, “'We fight. We always fight.'
“I think that's where we've come. Women fight,” said Curtis.
“We fight for everything. Women are fighters. And we are finally being able to be recognized as such. There's a feeling of strength and empowerment that women are showing all over the world. Not enough. But it's starting to come around. And I think this is a good example of it.”
