A final girl trades terror for tears
Jamie Lee Curtis and the promotion of Halloween Ends
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7154270 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David R Coon (0000-0002-0600-5684, University of Washington Tacoma, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1315-1320 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-04 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Media Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1468-0777 • E-ISSN: 1471-5902 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14680777.2024.2407034 |
| OpenAlex | W4403039887 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
Since the 1978 release of Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis has played the role of Laurie Strode, a woman who survives an attack by the masked serial killer Michael Myers, only to face him many more times over the course of numerous sequels and reboots. According to Curtis, the 2022 film Halloween Ends marks her final screen appearance as Laurie, and her emotional farewell became a vital component of the film’s promotional campaign, bringing an unusual dose of sentimentality to the marketing of a violent horror film. This short essay examines key pieces of that promotional campaign, including Curtis’s interviews and public appearances, alongside the film itself, to show how themes and emotions typically associated with melodramas aimed at women have been woven into this recent slasher film and its promotional paratexts. I argue that Halloween Ends and the promotional discourse surrounding it expand the boundaries of the slasher sub-genre to make space for more nuanced examinations of women’s experiences and feelings, while also representing an important step in the evolution of the Final Girl trope
Advertising · Art · Art history · Business · Developmental psychology · Economics · Girl · Management · Political science · Tears · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Surgery
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |