Dimension Films
Over his multiple-decade-long career, Paul Rudd has carved out a space for himself as an endearing, goofy everyman who can grow muscles when he needs to while also looking like someone who found the secret serum against aging. Nearing 60, he has a handsome, boyish look that makes him seem like a man who just entered his fourth decade. He's the type of actor that comes up in conversation about comedy and maybe some light dramas, but what many might not know is that his first starring role actually came in a beloved horror franchise. Granted, the sixth installment of the "Halloween" series — 1995's "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" — isn't exactly the sequel that's worth much of a discussion.
Quite uncharacteristic of his most famous and beloved roles, Rudd played Tommy Doyle, a hermit living across the street from the Strode house. He's obsessed with Michael's motivations to kill since he was the little boy that Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode babysat in the 1978 original. Despite being as meek and fragile as he is, Tommy becomes the unlikely hero in a by-the-numbers sequel that involves cults, curses, and lots of bloody murders in typical Halloween fashion.
Paul Rudd's first leading role was also the most convoluted Halloween sequel
Dimension Films
In retrospect, likely the only notable thing in "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" is that it was Rudd's feature debut right out of acting school. Up until that point, he only appeared in a few television productions (like "Wild Oats" and "Rebel Highway") before his breakthrough in "Clueless" as Josh Lucas, which he technically shot after "Curse," even though "Clueless" was released first. As he recalled in a Today Show interview, "It was the very first movie I ever did. It was the sixth one [in the franchise], which if you hadn't seen the first five, you were probably lost in the storyline."
Although "Curse" was a critical bomb at the time (currently standing at a miserable 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes), it did triple its low-budget production cost, garnering a little over $15 million worldwide at the box office. What can you say? People still wanted more of Michael Myers (who was inspired by the villain of a classic sci-fi Western) and his off-putting mask in the '90s, regardless of how poor shape and form he was presented in at the time.
Funnily enough, Rudd never did another "pure" horror in the decades that followed. The closest he ever came was Alex Scharfman's dark fantasy-comedy horror, "Death of a Unicorn," in which he played alongside Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, and Tea Leoni. It may have been a good thing for everyone involved (on both sides of the camera) that he realized that horror wasn't exactly his strong suit.