They say you never forget where you came from and a lot of actors came from the world of horror. Low-budget films are generally maligned in the eyes of critics and audiences alike, but low-budget horror films can turn into sleeper hits that make studios huge profits and put up-and-coming actors on the map. Horror fans are the type of folks who are happy to celebrate a random one-off performance in some 1980s slasher no one has ever heard of, which means there’s an extra boost of excitement when a high-profile performer is willing to play in the spooky sandbox. It’s even better when an actor is making a return to the genre after years of success elsewhere.
During the press tour for “Halloween Ends,” Jamie Lee Curtis reflected on her legacy of playing perennial final girl, Laurie Strode, and often joked that when she inevitably dies, her obituary will reference her career as a scream queen. Curtis is a generational talent with a career spanning over 45 years and is now an Oscar winner, but she’s right to recognize her connection to horror is the most powerful. Hell, during her Oscar acceptance speech, she took a moment to thank the people who have supported her genre films over the years, declaring, “We just won an Oscar together!”
Horror fans are used to being treated like the black sheep of the cinephile landscape, so if an Oscar winner wants to hang around our haunts, they’re going to be embraced like royalty. After all, there’s no “scream queen” equivalent for period-piece dramas.
