Meeting the OG
Scream Queen

Did you know that Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the original scream queens? Not the very first one, per se, but the concept really took off when she starred in the 1978 horror classic Halloween. Since then, women screaming in horror and slasher films have become a common trope.

That's just how iconic the first film was. Forget about its own successful franchise; Halloween was the blueprint for modern scary movies. Many of the horror flicks we see today came from this very movie. So anyone who considers themselves a true cinephile should have watched it at least once.

I've not only watched it multiple times, but I've even met the great people behind the success. The moment I turned 18, I moved to Los Angeles and became an autograph hound. And some of my first targets were the cast and crew of Halloween.

Eventually, I got a handful of them to sign my movie poster, and they were the ones who truly mattered. I met director John Carpenter, OG scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles, and Nancy Loomis. I also met other cast members, but unfortunately, I didn’t get their autographs.

Meeting John Carpenter was the most memorable because he was the very first celebrity I ever met. I saw him at Screamfest LA 2012, where he received a career achievement award and appeared on the 25th-anniversary panel for his 1987 cult classic, Prince of Darkness. To my surprise, the guy was much more ordinary than I thought. I expected him to be as intellectual as Scorsese or as imposing as Coppola, but no. He was just nice and laid-back.

A decade later, I finally met Jamie Lee Curtis, the OG scream queen herself, at the premiere of Everything Everywhere All at Once at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas. It was my first time at the festival and in the state, but Curtis made it memorable by being so nice. I was afraid she'd be annoyed about signing two posters, but she just smiled when I asked.

I thought it'd be tacky to just ask her to sign a Halloween movie poster that night, so I got an early copy of the Everything Everywhere All at Once poster, too. I had waited and worked so hard to finally meet her, and this was my first time seeing her in person. I wasn't gonna waste my chance to get her autograph.

A year later, at the Halloween: 45 Years of Terror convention in Pasadena, I saw the rest of the cast, and Carpenter even made a surprise appearance on stage. But as I mentioned earlier, I only managed to ask P.J. Soles and Nancy Loomis to sign the same poster. The fumble still eats at me because Nick Castle, John Michael Graham, Will Sandin, and Sandy Johnson were also there.

Anyone who considers themselves a horror movie fan should know about Halloween (1978). Not only that, I'll go so far as to say that they should’ve also seen it more than once. It's one of those must-see classics that defined an entire genre, and its lead star also defined a character trope.