HALLOWEEN Star Says Movie Left Her ‘Traumatized’
By Movieguide® Contributor
A new installment in the HALLOWEEN franchise recently hit theaters this month, but one star from the first movie reveals how the original HALLOWEEN in 1978 traumatized her for years.
Kyle Richards starred as Lindsay Wallace in the original movie, one of the children being babysat by Laurie Strode as she is terrorized by Michael Myers.
“I had no idea how scary it was going to be until I saw the actual movie with myself in it,” Richards explained. “And then I ended up having to sleep with my mom until I was 15 years old.”
She continued, “I was too young to grasp what was really going on [during filming]. I was just working and doing my thing. Then when we had the premiere, I guess my mom wasn’t getting it either because we invited a friend. I wanted to invite my best friend, so my mom called her mom and asked, ‘Can Lorraine join us for Kyle’s little movie premiere? It’s called Halloween and I think it’s another Disney movie.’”
“It was obviously not child appropriate, and we both were traumatized,” Richards shared. “I had no idea what I was in for. Seeing it for the first time all pieced together was a very, very different movie. It was just really scary, and I really did sleep with my mom until I was 15 years old after that. I was terrified.”
Richards’ terror was so great that she decided to never be in another horror movie. Though she briefly reprised her role in HALLOWEEN ENDS, fans complained that her appearances were too scarce.
“I think that’s what sealed the deal for me to get out of horror films,” the actress said. “After seeing myself in that, I was always thinking there was someone hiding behind the drapes or outside my windows or under my bed, so I would just sleep holding my mom’s arm the entire night.”
Richards’ intense fear of HALLOWEEN is just further proof that children should not be exposed to such scary and demonic content and violent images.
Movieguide® previously reported on why R-rated movies like HALLOWEEN frequently fail at the box office:
Moviegoers’ voices were more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic when studios and exhibitors struggled to show movies.
While there were some flops, the success of family-friendly movies early on in the pandemic gave theater chains and Hollywood a sliver of hope. From the start, it became clear that audiences would come in droves if the content met their standard.
Axios, an American news outlet, recently reported that in 2022, R-Rated movies brought in the lowest percentage of box office revenue in over 25 years.
The Numbers echoed Axios’ findings and noted that every movie to earn over $100 million in 2021 was movies rated PG-13 and below.
However, this connection between moral content and box office revenue is something Movieguide® has researched since 1993. Since then, Movieguide® has battled to help Hollywood studios and executives to see the truth about audiences and the box office.
“Since Movieguide®’s first annual Faith & Values Awards Gala & Report to the Entertainment Industry in 1993, the number of movies with morally uplifting, biblical and/or positive Christian content has more than quadrupled and the number of R-rated movies in the Top 25 Movies at the Box Office has declined from about 12 per year to only two to four each year,” Movieguide® wrote.
While Movieguide® approaches every piece of media from a Biblical worldview, even secular outlets and organizations are condemning Hollywood for turning a blind eye to their largest audience and insisting on producing excessive and immoral content each year.
In an Op-Ed published by the editorial board of Deseret News in 2010, the board found that families wanted clean movies.
“The entertainment industry is a business that, like any other, relies on profits to survive,” the board wrote in its op-ed. “Its leaders even have been fond of mouthing support for the free market, saying people should be free to watch what they want without government interference. And yet something other than a profit motive seems to be at work when it comes to the products they produce.”
“We’re not inclined to believe in nefarious conspiracy theories, but the least that can be said here is that Hollywood is out of touch with its audience,” the op-ed continued. “Perhaps this has to do with the personal tastes of industry officials and producers, many of whom live lives far different from that of the average American. By simply removing several unnecessary swear words (which hardly could be considered art), they could lower a film’s rating and earn 25 to 35 percent more in profits. That could translate into tens of millions of dollars.”
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