We Are All Laurie Strode

I love horror movies—especially slashers—partly because, through their depictions of terrifying boogeymen, they reflect back my own fears and anxieties. Cinematic horror makes these personal horrors seem a bit less scary, and sometimes even more manageable. It's as if seeing someone experience stress, trauma, grief, or loss reminds me that we all walk that path at certain points in our lives. I am not alone.

And that's important, because I feel alone. A lot. Always have. I'm an introvert/INFJ, an only child, and too easily susceptible to stress—three strikes against me in a world that prizes extroverted traits like confidence and competence.

So when life starts to pile the garbage high and deep, I have a tendency to retreat. Into myself. Away from others. But still I have this need to reach out, to connect with people who make me feel safe and loved and worthwhile. So I never fully retreat. I make an effort to connect with someone special to me, to help myself, to practice self-care. But until the stress levels off a bit, it's always work.

But then I get another stressful phone call or am expected to do something on someone else's deadline or am told, "Well, it'll all work out" as if that solves anything. And then I tense up and act like a jerk because I can't cope. The people who love me understand. They put up with me. But it still can't be easy for them. Then there are the others, the people who offer to listen and to help and then, miraculously, find a way to make my problems all about them. Before I know it's happening, I'm consoling them. It's absolutely fucked up. And I'm over it.

Laurie Strode is by most metrics both the most popular and best Final Girl in horror movie history. Much of this is owed to Jamie Lee Curtis's extraordinary performance—at just nineteen years old!—in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), and subsequent sequels in which she's appeared. I've identified with Laurie since I first saw Halloween—she's quiet, introverted, smart, sarcastic, thoughtful. In other words, too sensitive for this world. I can relate. All too well.

I watch Halloween every October, obviously, sometimes multiple times over, and every single time I see myself in Laurie and I feel my stress and anxiety settling to more manageable levels—even if only for the running time of the film. Living through Laurie's terror with her helps me to process my own fears and self-doubt. That recognition, seeing her fight for survival with her own boogeyman, provides a sort of comfort.

We're all Laurie Strode. That's what I keep telling myself when the stress of responsibilities I never wanted becomes unbearable and I feel like I can't possibly do it all. It helps. It's still hard, but it helps.

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Paul SOctober 26, 2018 at 1:50 PM
I empathise, I really do.
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