We’ve seen it numerous times; the horror flick protagonist and antagonist that {almost always} seem to make it out alive after every movie. This ain’t their first rodeo and they take what they continue to learn and put it to good use. They adapt over the years to ensure survival success, so they get to be in the next movie.
For this discussion we will be analyzing three movies with long standing characters that started from the bottom and now they’re still here:
Halloween; Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers
Scream; Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gail Weathers (Courtney Cox) and Dewey (David Arquette)
Hocus Pocus; the Sanderson Sisters
Hocus Pocus:
The legendary Sanderson sisters returned from the dead not once, but twice. To be fair, they did have magic on their side, but we’ll overlook that. Tricky Winifred and her trusty boooook had a spell to make a new black flame candle that was lit and created the sequel. Talk about resiliency to come back from the dead. A second time.
Their adaptations are second to none, having to first adjust to 300 years later and then 30 years later when they come back to life still witty and clever. We can see from their flying transportation alone (Sarah going from a mop to a Swiffer and Mary going from an upright vacuum to 2 Roombas) that they excel in adjusting their way of life in order to keep pushing through with their mission. We do not recommend eating children like they do, but you definitely don’t hear them making excuses for age.
Halloween: Laurie Strode, (actress is the famous Scream Queen) has survived her alleged brother, serial killer Michael Myers in two movies prior to the sequel that came out in 2020 (sidenote: yes there are way more than 3 Halloween movies with this killer but the 20/21/22 sequels were played out as if only Halloween I and II occurred). Clearly, a little bit of determination on her end to prepare for something that everyone else called her neurotic for. Forty years later and Lori has her own shooting range in her backyard (complete with various mannequin targets), floodlights on the roof, steel drop down traps on every door and a hidden basement bomb shelter (later discovered as a Michael trap, sorry, spoiler alert). My point is, this gal for 40 years constantly maintained necessary preparations even though she didn’t see any immediate benefits from it. Until he broke out of a mental hospital and killed everyone to get to her. Again. But she was READY because maintenance is important y’all.
Scream:
Sydney Prescott, a true GOAT in the horror industry. Surviving 5 movies, 4 of them having 2 ghostface killers in them. Along with her includes Gail Weathers, her once enemy and her old friend, Dewey (although one of them is not so lucky in the 22 Scream, sorry, spoiler alert). Some of her learned lessons were getting caller ID, gaining a gut instinct and listening to it (for the most part), learning to shoot a gun correctly and moving the heck away from where these murders are always happening. Ghostface is historically quicker than Michael Myers but notoriously more clumsy so Sydney has also improved her creativity when it comes to escape.
If you’re still with me, great because I am in fact going to relate this back to physical therapy 😊 We frequently see injuries/aches/pains whatever you want to call them, from a patient doing something they could once easily do, that maybe now, not so much. The former athlete that played a softball game at 42 and pulled a hammy, the former gymnast that dropped into the splits at 28 and pulled a groin, the desk jockey who tried to dunk a basketball at 39 and hurt the lower back. Before anyone says anything, age doesn’t have as much of the blame as we’d like to give it. As we’ve learned from some classic spooky characters, consistency, adaptation and persistence are key.
If your body hasn’t sprinted home, done the splits or dunked a ball in a minute, we cannot expect it to still have this skill if it hasn’t been a maintained priority. If you want to stay healthy from the OG to the sequel, our bodies will need to adapt to new conditions (more sitting at work, less time to get to the gym, poor sleep, etc.) while still prioritizing things that help us reach our goals. Winifred Sanderson didn’t come back from the dead and expect sucking the life from children to be easy. Laurie Strode and Sydney Prescott had to put in a creative variety of maintenance work on a regular basis to outsmart their killers. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Michael Myers stays active and walks everywhere in his movies??
Is this blog a stretch to connect PT to horror movies? Absolutely. I hope you enjoyed it, happy spooky season!
-Kenzie
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