Halloween H20 Deleted Scene Kept Jamie Lloyd Canon

Halloween H20 was the first Halloween movie to retcon prior entries, but the original script contained a scene which kept Jamie Lloyd canon. It’s well-known that Halloween creator John Carpenter intended 1981 sequel Halloween 2 to end the saga of Michael Myers, Laurie Strode, and Dr. Loomis. That’s why both Michael and Loomis were pretty definitively killed off in an explosion at the end of the film. Carpenter then planned to use the unrelated Halloween 3: Season of the Witch to spin Halloween off into an anthology franchise centered around the holiday.

Needless to say, moviegoers weren’t pleased about a Halloween sequel without Michael Myers, and Halloween 3 bombed. It’s gained a cult following in the decades since, but at the time, Halloween producer Moustapha Akkad wanted to bring Michael back and get fans back into the theater. Sure enough, that worked, as 1988’s Halloween 4 was a big success, even though Michael and Loomis surviving the hospital fire made no real sense.

With Jamie Lee Curtis not wanting to return, Halloween 4 wrote Laurie Strode out by having her die in a car crash, and had Michael target her daughter Jamie Lloyd, who had been adopted by another family. Having Michael go after a child was risky, but thanks to excellent performances by young actress Danielle Harris, the combination worked. Jamie would be at the center of Halloween 5 as well, before dying in Halloween 6, then being retconned out of existence by 1998’s Halloween H20. However, that wasn’t always the plan.

Halloween H20 Deleted Scene Kept Jamie Lloyd Canon

While reports vary on whether or not it was ever actually filmed – for his part, editor Patrick Lussier says he never saw it – it’s said that Scream scribe Kevin Williamson’s original script for Halloween H20 kept Jamie Lloyd and Halloweens 4-6 canon. In the scene, Laurie Strode – working as a headmistress at a California boarding school under the name Keri Tate – presides over a class whose teacher is out sick. It’s oral report day, and a student steps up to read hers. To Laurie’s horror, it’s about the “Haddonfield Murders,” and makes mention of how after Michael’s initial killing spree, Laurie survived, but was thought to have died in a car accident.

Where things get really bad for Laurie is when the student’s report mentions her daughter Jamie, who Laurie apparently gave up for adoption to try and protect her from her uncle Michael. Upon being told of Jamie’s death at Michael’s hands, Laurie leaves the classroom, heads into a bathroom stall and vomits. It’s important to note that Williamson is not a credited writer on Halloween H20, and there were many script rewrites before filming finally began. It’s unclear how Laurie’s son John (Josh Hartnett) would’ve fit into this version of the narrative. Of course, with Halloween (2018) erasing all the prior sequels from continuity, even if Jamie had been mentioned in Halloween H20, she would have still ended up retconned eventually.