You only live once, and while Jamie Lee Curtis of Halloween Kills has somehow survived through 12 installments of the slasher franchise, the cast of the new horror flick decided to turn the red carpet into a costume party. After all, virtual Halloween took place entirely on celeb’s Instagrams last year, so the team took advantage of the chance to dress up in costumes — with Curtis paying homage to her mother’s most famous role.
For those unaware, Curtis is the daughter of actress Janet Leigh. While Leigh had a storied career, appearing in classics like The Manchurian Candidate and Bye Bye Birdie, her performance as Marion Crane — particularly the shower scene — in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is one of the most iconic moments in film history. Curtis dressed up as her later mother’s character, complete with the memorable shift dress and a blonde beehive, and accessorizing with a shower curtain covered in blood. It’s only proper.
Still, Curtis threw in a plot twist with her costume. “I am honoring my beautiful late mama, Janet Leigh,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “But it’s a little more meta than that. I am actually going as Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh in the movie Hitchcock. So it’s meta because we never knew what color Janet Leigh’s dress was because it was a black-and-white movie.”
Kyle Richards, who younger generations may best know as the one who dramatically fled the Dutch restaurant during a fight on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, also reprises her role as Lindsey Wallace in the new movie. Richards dressed up as a circus ringleader with a showgirl twist, while her current RHOBH castmates accompanied her on the carpet. Lisa Rinna wore a decidedly not sexy #BunnyGate costume, Dorit Kemsley dressed up as Paris Hilton while standing next to Paris’ mom, Kathy Hilton, who was dressed as a dentist (the name plate read: “Dr. Hunky Dory”). Teddi Mellencamp wore a Xena: Warrior Princess-type situation.
Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney, who play Halloween’s main boogeyman The Shape and Michael Myers, respectively, dressed up as their own characters on the red carpet. When your own role is scary enough, there’s no need to dress up as anything else.
Anthony Michael Hall seems to have missed the costume memo, or we’re missing the reference. Judy Greer was dressed up Annie Hall, and director David Gordon Green wore perhaps our favorite costume of all: Lloyd the bartender from Kubrick’s The Shining, who is easily of the most menacing side characters in the entire horror genre.
