While actress Jamie Lee Curtis independently became a âscream queenâ through her role as Laurie Strode in the Halloween franchise, she also comes by her title through heredity. In 1960, Curtisâ mother Janet Leigh delivered one of the most iconic onscreen shrieks of all time as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcockâs Psycho. On last nightâs Scream Queens, Curtis got to pay tribute.
In the original scene from Psycho, Marionâa thief on the runâgets into the shower in her room at the Bates Motel. After a few moments of joyful bathing, sheâs interrupted by a knife-wielding murderer. She screams, is stabbed to death, and viewers watch as her blood spirals down the drain.
Scream Queensâ version of events (originally aired in color and converted to black and white for the YouTube video) allows Jamie Lee Curtis to step into her momâs shoes (or out of her momâs robe), but her ending is decidedly different andâif youâre the victimâfor the better.
When the Red Devil killer pulls back the curtain, they find not a cowering victim, but an empty shower. Thatâs when Curtisâas the increasingly Sue Sylvester-like Dean Munschâjumps out of her hiding place and delivers several blows to the killerâs head.
âI saw that movie 50 times,â she sneers, punching the Red Devil in the face. What follows is an all-out ass-kicking thatâs far more worthy of Laurie Strode than it is Marion Crane. In a nice way, itâs giving Marion the ending she deservedânot hunched in the shower, terrified and screaming, but on her feet fightingâcompletely flatteningâany foe whoâs dumb enough to come at her.
Contact the author at madeleine@jezebel.com.