RETURN OF THE ORIGINAL SCREAM QUEEN

Four decades after her first movie role in classic horror flick Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis is back as its heroine Laurie Strode.

Then, Laurie was a teen babysitter, terrified for her life as she was chased by masked murderer Michael Myers. Now, in the new Halloween (in cinemas Oct. 18), she is a grandmother, but the scars from that day run deep. When Michael escapes custody, Laurie’s worst nightmare comes true.

“She was really unhinged from the whole experience. The woman we meet 40 years later is really a walking example of PTSD,” Jamie Lee told Entertainment Weekly.

Having already appeared in a few of the film’s other sequels over the years, why did Jamie Lee – who admits to Empire, “I scare easily” – come back for this one? It all came down to the script.

“From the first couple of scenes, I understood what they were trying to do. It was very clear, the integrity, the simplicity,” she says in the EW article.

Another factor was the involvement of the original film’s director, John Carpenter, who together with Jamie Lee is an executive producer of the reboot. Turns out, he’s a fan of hers, too.

“Jamie Lee is just fantastic in it. It’s just an amazing performance – I’m really happy,” John told SBS.

Not all are so pleased. There has been controversy over Jamie Lee’s appearance in the film as she is an advocate for gun control. In the new movie, which ignores all the storylines of the sequels released since the 1978 original, Laurie is seen with a whole arsenal of weapons.

Fox News called the 59-yearold “one of several Hollywood actors who use firearms in their films while preaching against them away from the set”.

In response to the story, one fan tweeted: “Movies are pretend. There is not really a masked madman stalking a small town in Illinois.”

Regardless of the controversy, Jamie Lee is proud of the film, telling Empire: “For me, there is something very powerful about telling a story about trauma and what trauma really does to a human being.”