MID-LIFE CRISIS

aS IF MIDDLE age isn’t difficult enough already – the greying hair, creaking joints and, of course, menopause – imagine having to worry about a homicidal maniac from your past lurking around every corner. That’s exactly the deranged sort of mid-life crisis in which Laurie Strode, the protagonist from the 1978 Halloween film and its many sequels, finds herself in the new slasher flick Halloween. A direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 original, Jamie Lee Curtis, who turns 60 in November, reprises her role as Strode, though 40 years later the former high schooler is now a granny with a gun, her trigger finger itching to blow the mask off the psycho who irreparably traumatized her. And as for the killer – Michael Myers – even his trademark mask has aged, including a hint of a receding hairline, though the years clearly haven’t dulled his murderous rage or penchant for popping up out of nowhere to scare the bejesus out of people. And while this horror tale is refreshingly unique in pitting an aging heroine against an equally aging monster, Curtis points to the film as a metaphor for current cultural shifts, telling Variety, “I think somehow that the way all of it lined up was this perfect moment coinciding with #MeToo, Time’s Up and all of this female empowerment where women are taking back their narratives and saying, ‘Enough is f***ing enough. It’s my turn to write the narrative.’ And that’s what Laurie Strode has been trying to do for 40 years.”

And for non-horror fans, the November release of the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, is infused with a classic rock soundtrack that’s sure to drown out the screams of terror from the Halloween screening in the theatre next door.