Franchises: Halloween. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

I don't think I've ever been more puzzled by a plot summary than the one for Halloween III: Season of the Witch that was in our cable provider's programming guide for October of 1999. I can't remember exactly how it summed it up but it was something along the lines of, "An evil mask-maker plans to murder thousands on Halloween night." Since I had just seen quite a bit of both Halloween I and II, I thought to myself, "What does that have to do with Michael Myers?" I was even more perplexed when I saw that Halloween 4's subtitle was The Return of Michael Myers, and that every sequel afterward also dealt with Michael. It seemed so strange that, in the middle of a series centering on an unkillable, knife-wielding Boogeyman, there was an entry with a completely unrelated story. After getting over my initial bewilderment, and reading more about it on the Life and Times of Michael Myers website, I decided, "Well, that just sounds stupid. I'll never watch that one." And for over a decade, I stuck to my guns. Even after I'd learned the reasoning and intention behind Halloween III, and heard some of the, admittedly, intriguing details, I still wanted nothing to do with it and avoided it. I refused to listen to what any of its supporters had to say, and even when they played in on AMC, along with Halloween II, 4, and 5, during their annual Monsterfest marathon, I still wouldn't watch it (I did end up seeing a few clips, though). Looking back, I can't believe I acted so childishly. I was so shallow that I didn't want to watch it because I might end up liking it and thus, a copy of it would be amongst my collection of all the others. Obviously, I'm now well aware of how immature and stupid that attitude was but, hey, teenagers are stupid, so what can you do? In any case, my resolve lasted into my college years and mid-20's but, eventually, I started to really mellow out about it. I'd like to think it was because I got older and wiser, and as a result, I started to listen to fans and their reasons for enjoying it so much. It made me realize that I was missing out on a potential new favorite horror film and so, finally, in 2011, when I was 23 years old, I purchased the GoodTimes DVD at a horror convention and saw it for the first time later that week. 

It'd be really hilarious if, after all that buildup, I was to tell you I ended up not liking it and thought, "Damn it, I knew I should've stayed away from this movie!", wouldn't it? But, all you lifelong Halloween III fans reading this can take relax, a that's not the case; I actually now do enjoy this film quite a bit. I don't think it's an underrated masterpiece but, on the whole, I think it's a well-made, spooky little Halloween tale that perfectly fits with the season, even more so than any other movie in the series, and should most definitely be seen by as many people as possible.

Northern California, Saturday, October 23rd. After just barely escaping from several men in business suits who are out to kill him, a delirious and frightened man is taken to a hospital and put in the care of Dr. Dan Challis. Initially unconscious, the man awakens when he hears a commercial for the Silver Shamrock Novelties company's three new Halloween masks, one of which he's holding in his grip, on the television. He becomes frightened, telling Challis and the others, "They're going to kill us. All of us." He's sedated, but later that night, one of the suited men sneaks into the hospital, murders him, then goes back out to the parking lot and sets himself on fire in his car. The next day, Ellie Grimbridge arrives and identifies the murder victim as her father, Harry, a local shop owner. Disturbed by the incident, Challis asks Teddy, a friend of his at the coroner's office, to examine the killer's remains for a possible answer. That Friday, Challis meets Ellie formally, and the two of them decide to work together to uncover why someone would want to kill her father. The trail leads them to Santa Mira, the secluded home of the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory. Arriving in the mostly Irish-populated town, they find themselves being watched through the windows, and discover that Harry stayed at the local motel several days before he died. That night, Marge, a saleswoman who Ellie met earlier, is inexplicably taken to the factory by men in white coats, rather than the hospital, and all under Cochran's supervision. They next day, when they tour the factory, Ellie finds her father's car, while Challis notes that omnipresent suited men are similar to Harry's killer. They're both taken prisoner that night, and Cochran reveals to Challis his grisly plan to return Halloween to its sacrificial, Celtic roots, using a mysterious power derived from Stonehenge that will kill anyone wearing a Silver Shamrock mask when their commercial for a "Big Giveaway" plays on Halloween night. Now, Challis must stop Cochran's plan before thousands of people across the United States are caught up in what the madman refers to as, "The greatest joke of all."

Despite its very contentious development and production, Halloween II proved very successful, making $25 million on a budget of just $2.5 million. Thus, to no one's surprise, Dino de Laurentiis exercised his contractual right for a third film, much to John Carpenter and Debra Hill's chagrin. After how disinterested they were in the idea of Halloween II, they stipulated that they would only contribute to a third film if it was completely different from what had come before. Surprisingly, Universal and de Laurentiis agreed to this, which says a lot about the clout the two of

them had at this point; as Troy Howarth notes in his book, Assault on the System: The Nonconformist Cinema of John Carpenter, things might've been different had Halloween III's development began after The Thing flopped as badly as it did that summer. Both Irwin Yablans and Moustapha Akkad were opposed to this radical change, but the deal with de Laurentiis prevented them from doing anything about it. In his interview in the documentary, Stand Alone: The Making of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Yablans makes his feelings very clear: "I take no responsibility for Halloween III, or credit. I had nothing to do with it. They just sent me a nice fat check. The decision not to use the Michael Myers character was stupid. It was really ill-advised... Why they decided to leave that, I do not know." (Despite his decrying of the film, and though he would be involved in the initial development on Halloween 4, this would be the last Halloween film which Yablans had his name attached to in any capacity.) For the filmmakers, however, it was meant as the start of an anthology series where, every year or every other year, they would produce a new film that dealt with the concept of Halloween in some way. According to director Tommy Lee Wallace, their thinking was that any of these stories could, in turn, spawn their own sequels, and potentially become a regular cashcow. As much as I do enjoy many of the other films that would follow, I'm also curious as to what they might have come up with had Halloween III been a success, as the anthology angle sounds like a pretty cool concept, and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Going back to Yablans' statement about how dumb it was not to do another Michael Myers story, while it's easy to say that in hindsight because of what an icon the character is now, at the time, he'd only been the focus of two films, the second of which the creators felt was one too many. Also, none of the other killers in slasher movies around that time had become stars in their own right. The ski masked killer in Prom Night? No. Harry Warden in My Bloody Valentine? Nope. Cropsy in The Burning? Hell, no. Even Jason Voorhees was far from the icon he would eventually become at that point, since they were only up to Part 3 and he hadn't even been the series' initial antagonist, and Freddy Krueger wouldn't come about for another couple of years. Therefore, I think the people behind Halloween can be forgiven for not realizing what they had with Michael, something they learned the hard way when Halloween III was released. 

This time around, Carpenter and Hill intended to just be producers, and as luck would seemingly have it, one of Carpenter's heroes, Nigel Kneale, was at Universal, working on an ultimately unmade remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon. Eager to work with Kneale, as he loved Hammer's Quatermass movies as a kid, Carpenter approached him about writing the screenplay for Halloween III. While Kneale had no love for either of the previous films, he did agree to it and was given a lot of freedom, with the only stipulation from Hill being that it should be a story concerning witchcraft in the computer age. While both Carpenter and Wallace liked the first draft Kneale turned in, they both felt it needed some polishing... which he absolutely refused to do. When interviewed about it, Wallace said this attitude of Kneale's stemmed from his work having been extensively rewritten and, in his eyes, ruined by Hollywood. Carpenter has been more blunt about it, having told Vulture.com, as quoted in Taking Shape: Developing Halloween from Script to Screen, that Kneale was, "Pretty irascible and mean. He was a mean character... Nigel thought he was above us horror filmmakers." (He also says Kneale actually mocked original Creature from the Black Lagoon-director Jack Arnold for having lost a leg. If that's true, then frankly, fuck him.) According to another interview with Carpenter, this one quoted in Assault on the System: The Nonconformist Cinema of John Carpenter, he told Kneale, "The audience comes to these movies to have fun and be scared," to which Kneale retorted, "I don't care about the audience." In any case, Carpenter and Wallace rewrote the script themselves, much to Kneale's aggravation, who demanded his name be removed. (As a result of this and Carpenter's rewrite being purposefully downplayed, Wallace is the only who gets any screenwriting credit, which he's said is very misleading.) Up to his death in 2006, he never missed an opportunity to badmouth the movie.

Originally, Joe Dante was to direct Halloween III, but he left during the sluggish pre-production to direct a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, which would ultimately lead to him directing Gremlins. Carpenter and Hill then reached out to Tommy Lee Wallace, who was working on the screenplay for Amityville II: The Possession. Since he'd worried that his turning down the offer to direct Halloween II had ended his professional relationship with them, he jumped at the chance to do Halloween III, especially when Hill told him it was a clean slate and they could do whatever they wanted. And I personally think Wallace did a more than capable job for his directorial debut. Because he'd worked with Carpenter several times by this point, and had edited both the original Halloween and The Fog, he was very familiar with his style and ability to create atmosphere and thus, you'd be forgiven for actually thinking Carpenter himself was in the director's chair here. And unlike Rick Rosenthal on the previous film, Carpenter left the major creative decisions, including the movie's dark, ambiguous ending, up to Wallace. Since Halloween III, Wallace has directed other films but very sporadically. His other notable works in the horror genre include Fright Night Part 2 (which is okay but nowhere close to the original), the beloved 1990 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's It, and Vampires: Los Muertos, a "sequel" to John Carpenter's own 1998 film, Vampires.

As Dr. Dan Challis, Tom Atkins makes for a likable and charismatic, if flawed, leading man. Though a doctor at a fairly large hospital, he comes off as a very blue-collar kind of guy, one who likes a beer or some other liquor every now and then... which, unfortunately, seems to be a major reason why his personal life is a bit of a mess. While I wouldn't call him an out of control alcoholic, as you never see him sloppy drunk, he clearly hits it more than he should. He's also quite the womanizer, even playfully hitting on an older nurse named Agnes. All of this is likely what led to his marriage falling apart, and while he's on good terms with his two kids, his relationship with his ex-wife, Linda, is strained, to say the least. In any case, Challis is just doing his job one night, trying to take care of the apparently delusional and hysterical Harry Grimbridge, when some random man walks in, kills him, and then immolates himself in the parking lot. Clearly shaken by this, he implores his friend and old flame, Teddy, at the coroner's office to examine the killer's remains on her own and see what she can find. Upon meeting Grimbridge's distraught daughter, Ellie, he decides to accompany her to Santa Mira and help her find out why her father was killed. At least, that seems to be the reason why he shirks his promise to Linda about letting their kids spend the night with him and lies about attending a medical conference in order to go with Ellie. Despite how much what happened that night got to him, Challis really has no personal or professional stake in accompanying her, as he didn't know Grimbridge and isn't a detective. Given that he takes a six-pack of beer with him, it's possible he may have certain ulterior motives in mind. Regardless, though, when they arrive in Santa Mira, Challis does go out of his way to confirm that Ellie's father did stay there a few nights before his murder and becomes intent on figuring out what's going on.

One thing I really like about Challis is that, when they first arrive in Santa Mira, he's smart enough to not go charging right into the factory. Instead, he comes up with the idea to act like he and Ellie are just a couple visiting town on business. He even has to stop her from running straight to the factory when she learns her father was there, reminding her that they should both keep a cool head and take their time. That said, despite his suggesting they stay in separate rooms or he could sleep in the car,

he clearly has other things on his mind once they settle in, and later can't be bothered when Ellie thinks she hears something in the next room. But, as the story progresses and more strange things happen, such as Ellie discovering her father's car at the factory, Challis, realizing they're in over their heads, decides they'd best call the police, then get out. Unfortunately, he not only can't get a line outside of Santa Mira but then learns that Ellie has been kidnapped by Conal Cochran's men and taken to the factory. Regardless, he proves quite brave

and heroic, slipping inside the place himself and fighting one of Cochran's assassins, only to discover that the man is an android. He himself gets captured but, after learning the details and extent of Cochran's plan, he manages to escape, "rescue" Ellie, destroy the factory in a way that's a testament to his ability to think on his feet, and finally tries to stop the commercial from airing and killing hundreds of people, including his own children. Whether he succeeded or not, though, is up for debate.

I wouldn't call Stacey Nelkin's performance as Ellie Grimbridge Oscar-worthy by any means, but I think she's adequate. She's cute but also feisty and determined, refusing to go back home without learning why her father was murdered. She does her own offscreen detective work, tracing his activities in the days leading up to his death, and figures something must've happened when he went up to Santa Mira to pick up some Silver Shamrock masks. Though Challis is the one who suggests exactly how they go about thing when they get there, Ellie is the one who first decides they need a plan of attack, so to speak. But, like I said, when she learns her father was indeed there not long before he was killed, she almost rushes to the factory in a blind haste, with Challis having to reel her back in. One major qualm I have is, right after they decide to spend the night, they suddenly develop an intimate relationship and, by the time night falls, they're shagging. It comes out of nowhere and feels forced, for several reasons. One, they've only really known each other since that morning by that point. Two, it's weird that Ellie would have sex on the brain when she's supposed to be searching for answers about her murdered father. And three, Challis is old enough to be her father himself (despite Tom Atkins always thinking he was 30 when he bedded Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog, he was actually 44, meaning he was almost 50 here). It doesn't derail the movie and I still like both characters, but it is nothing more than a flimsy excuse for some sensuality. Anyway, when they visit the Silver Shamrock factory the next day, they find evidence that the company itself may be behind Harry's death, like when Ellie spots his car inside a warehouse. However, she's captured by Conal Cochran's androids that night and Challis is forced to break into the factory to save her.

Now, we come to an interesting conversation piece about Ellie. Challis apparently saves her and the two of them escape the factory and Santa Mira, but as they're driving away, she suddenly attacks him and causes them to crash into a tree. Challis stumbles out of the wreck and Ellie comes at him with one of her arms missing, revealing she's an android. This begs an interesting question: was she replaced or was she one the whole time? There are some line of dialogue during their love scene that

suggest the latter. At one point, when she starts kissing him to get him going again, Challis asks if she's even the least bit tired and she says no. They continue making out for a few more seconds, when Challis now suddenly thinks to ask how old she is, to which she answers, "Don't worry. I'm older than I look." That said, I'd think, or, at least, hope that Challis would know if he were having sex with a robot. Plus, think about how much more advanced she would have to be from Cochran's other robots,

who don't speak, show any emotion, or even move that quickly. Some may argue that, if Cochran was clever enough to make his androids as life-like as they already are, to where they actually sneeze, then he could've created one complete with a convincing array of emotions. Fair enough, but even if that is true, why would he have sent this android out to bring in an outsider who could possibly endanger his plan? In fact, before he met her, Challis had never even heard of Santa Mira

itself. Cochran says he loves a good "joke" but still, why would he have endangered his master plan just to play a joke on a guy who was totally ignorant? There could be more layers to it, since he did send one android to kill Linda and stop her from reporting that Harry Grimbridge's killer wasn't human, but as far as I'm concerned, Ellie was human for most of the movie, and the android that Challis picked up was either built as a sort of fail-safe in case he did manage to escape or was just something Cochran was tinkering with and hadn't quite finished, explaining why it took a little while to attack. Who knows, maybe the real Ellie was still alive in the factory somewhere.

Our villain, Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy), is actually akin to Michael Myers in how, though it's almost 45 minutes in before you actually meet him, his presence is overwhelming as soon as Challis and Ellie arrive in Santa Mira, with the factory looming over the town, the security cameras and androids keeping watch on the streets, and the 6:00 curfew, enforced by an announcement over the loudspeakers. When they first arrive at the motel, his limo drives past Ellie and the manager, but all you get is a POV shot from the backseat. Cochran's first scene comes when one of his devices misfires and kills Marge at the motel. As her body is removed, Cochran arrives to assure Challis and Ellie that she'll get the very best treatment... at the factory. He comes off as all smiles and very charming, as he does the next day, when he tells the two of them that Marge has been flown to a San Francisco hospital and gives them, along with the Kupfer family, a guided tour of his factory. He's even nice enough to give Little Buddy Kupfer a mask fresh off the assembly line. But, of course, you know perfectly well it's all just a facade, and it does slip a couple of times when no one notices. When Challis is captured by Cochran's androids, Cochran, at first, is more concerned about how Challis ruined one of his other creations, particularly since it consisted of something very rare and he must now find a replacement. But when he turns to the doctor, he puts his charming face back on, albeit now with a definite undercurrent of evil. And what's really unsettling is that he knows exactly who Challis is, despite the fake name he and Ellie used, suggesting Cochran has influence even miles away from Santa Mira.

Cochran proceeds to give Challis a tour of his facility and what he has planned, much like a Bond villain (in fact, how is that O'Herlihy never actually played one?). He comes across as very enthusiastic about it all, talking about how lifelike his androids are and proudly showing off the piece of Stonehenge housed there and saying it has a power within it. But Cochran doesn't explain everything, simply telling Challis it's all, "Advanced ancient technology," then adds, "A

good magician never explains," and that Challis has time to figure it out for himself. He even gets ahead of nitpicky viewers who would wonder how they managed to bring a piece of Stonehenge to the U.S. without anyone knowing, saying, "We had a time getting it here. You wouldn't believe how we did it," and leaves it at that. Then, Cochran gives Challis a horrific demonstration of his ultimate plan when he subjects Little Buddy to the commercial, the effects of which not only kill him 

but his parents as well. During it, Cochran continuously glances over at Challis, smiling evilly at his stunned reaction, and proud at how effective it is in general. Remember also that he personally gave Little Buddy the mask that ultimately killed him, knowing he was sealing his fate when he slipped it over his little head, adding another layer of undiluted evil to him. O'Herlihy's most intense and well-acted moment comes when Challis asks Cochran why he's doing this. At first, he asks if he even needs a motive, that he loves a good joke and

this will be the best one ever. But then, he proceeds to give a chilling explanation of what Halloween meant in his home country: "It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands and we'd be waiting, in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in, to sit by our fires of turf. Halloween, the festival of Samhain [which he says in its correct Gaelic pronunciation]. The last great one took place three thousand years ago when the hills ran red... with the blood of animals

and children... It was part of our world, our craft... To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now. It's time again. In the end, we don't decide these things, you know. The planets do. They're in alignment and it's time again." He also clearly has a disdain for what Halloween has become to modern times, telling Challis with obvious venom, "You thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy," and he intends to correct it.

One last thing I have to mention about Cochran is how eerily calm he always is. While he does get very intense in some scenes, he never raises his voice, even when Challis manages to escape. And when Challis manages to turn the commercial against him and his men, he is initially startled but, when he realizes how ingeniously Challis pulled it off, he can't help but smile up at him in the rafters and applaud. You could read that in several different ways. He could be smiling because he knows, even with his factory destroyed and everybody, including himself, dead, the commercial is still going to play everywhere and there's nothing Challis can do to stop it. In fact, due to the different time zones, the commercial has already played in other parts of the country and so, even if Challis manages to stop it in California, Cochran has still managed to kill a lot of people. His reaction could also be because he knows Challis has rescued an android and not the real Ellie, which will mostly likely kill him and prevent him from stopping the commercial.

Cochran's androids could be considered as stand-ins for Michael Myers, due to how similar they are to him: they don't talk or show any emotion, they move slowly and methodically (although they do move a bit faster than Michael), they often stalk their victims and lurk in the dark before going in for the kill, they tend to pop up when you least expect them, and they're faceless in that they're very nondescript in the way they look and dress. It is like Cochran has an entire army of Michael

Myers at his disposal (especially since one of them is played by Dick Warlock); in fact, if he wanted, he could've made copies of the mask and had them all wear it (that might've actually taken care of the complaints about Michael's absence). That said, they're infinitely stronger than Michael was at that point, able to crush a guy's skull or rip another's head off. And even before you learn they're androids, there's something off and uncanny about these guys, especially in how the one who kills

Harry Grimbridge then calmly pours gasoline over himself and sets himself on fire in the hospital parking lot. The scene where Challis learns what they are when he fights with one is rather freaky in how it doesn't react to his punches and, when he finally kills it, orange goo (which I guess is meant to be oil to keep its gears lubricated, but feels like blood) comes out of its mouth and is all over Challis' hand when he pulls it out of its gut.

Some other noteworthy characters include the Kupfer family: Buddy (Ralph Strait), his wife, Betty (Jadeen Barbor), and their son, Little Buddy (Bradley Schachter), who are fairly cartoonish and exaggerated. Buddy, a salesman for Silver Shamrock, is a very energetic, friendly guy who always seems to have a smile on his face and is ready with a handshake every time he meets someone. A real, "Hey, how are you?!" kind of person, he absolutely sings Cochran's praises,

telling anyone (mainly Challis) what a genius he is for coming up with the greatest practical jokes ever. Unfortunately, he's too naïve to realize Cochran is keeping something from him when he refuses to let him in on the "final processing" of the masks, and while he does wonder at one point why Cochran won't take any orders for next year, he merely goes along with it when Cochran says he wants his opinion on some commercials, which ends up being his and his family's downfall. Betty comes off as just a bit vain and air-headed, and doesn't seem to have much of a thought or opinion on anything. Really, she only aspires for them to be as rich as Cochran one day, saying, "Oh, God, there's hope for us yet," when she tells Ellie that he got rich selling, "Cheap gags and Halloween masks." And finally, there's Little Buddy, who you can tell is the typical hyper kid who becomes bored rather quickly and whines when his parents don't pay attention to him. Fortunately, we don't have to spend too much time with him, so he doesn't become unbearably annoying, but you get that type of vibe from him. Notably, he's the center of one of the film's most infamous scenes, when he and his parents become unwitting test subjects for Cochran's deadly commercial.

One person who's definitely not at all happy with Cochran and his factory, or about being stuck in Santa Mira for the time being, is Marge (Garn Stephens), a rather loud saleswoman who makes her displeasure about having to come to town because the factory screwed up her order very clear when we first see her, going as far as to call the place a dump and, later, "godforsaken." She talks to Ellie that evening and tells her that the quality of Cochran's products has apparently gone down, as

the trademark tag fell off of one of the masks she purchased (though, she then adds that her four-year old was throwing it against the wall). This tag ends up spelling doom for Marge when she later tinkers with the microchip on the back and it shoots out a beam of light that hideously disfigures her face and kills her. Two other noteworthy residents of Santa Mira are Rafferty (Michael Currie), the motel manager, and Starker (Jon Terry), a drunk whom Challis bumps into during his first night there.

Their opinions of Cochran are total polar opposites. Rafferty is a happy, smiling Irishman who has nothing but good things to say about Cochran, calling him a great man and a genius. Starker, on the other hand, is not only a drunk but very bitter, saying Cochran has turned the town into a shell of its former self, and that he applied for a job at the factory but was turned away because all the workers there are outsiders. He proceeds to point out Cochran's security cameras and actually curses the man right out in the open, even going so far as to threaten to burn the factory down. This, along with his apparently knowing something about what goes on in there, proves to be a fatal mistake, as Cochran sends his androids to take care of him, which they do in a very gruesome manner.

Other characters who are polar opposites are two of the women in Challis' life, his ex-wife, Linda (Nancy Kyes, formerly Nancy Loomis from the original Halloween), and Teddy (Wendy Wessberg), an assistant coroner. Teddy has some very definite feelings for Challis and it's strongly hinted that they were an item at one time. While not together at the moment, he trusts her enough to privately examine the the killer's remains. Later, he asks her to find anything she can on Cochran,

which she also agrees to, with their interactions continuing to come off as very warm and chummy. However, her devotion to Challis gets her killed when one of Cochran's androids sneaks into her lab and murders her before she can report her findings to the police. On the flip side, we have Linda, whose divorce from Challis was clearly a bitter one. In their one scene together, you can feel the venom she has for him, and she's also very strict with the kids themselves. Because he's never been that dependable anyway, Linda is continually frustrated when he has to put off doing stuff with their kids. Sometimes, her anger is justified, when he lies about going to a medical conference in order to take off with Ellie, whereas others, she doesn't realize what he's going through, like immediately after Harry Grimbridge is murdered. It culminates near the climax, when Challis calls to warn her about the Silver Shamrock masks she bought for their kids the week before. On top of her being angry about his not showing up to take them trick-or-treating like he promised, she accuses him of being jealous since they liked those masks more than the cheap ones he picked up for them. She then screams at him to go to hell and slams the phone down. While you can understand why Linda's so mad, this makes you feel really bad for Challis, as now that he's trying to save their kids' very lives, his constant lateness has caused Linda to virtually seal their fates.

One of Halloween III's biggest strengths is its atmosphere. As I said earlier, Tommy Lee Wallace proved he could really channel his good friend John Carpenter in his direction, as this does look and feel like a Carpenter film, with that vibe where the fear and uneasiness in the air is palpable. Even when nothing creepy is going on, you know something's not quite right and you're waiting for something to happen. A big reason for that is because, for a good chunk of the movie, you don't know what's going on. The minute it starts, you see

this terrified man being chased by some strange men in nice suits who come off as inhuman and, for some reason, want him dead. Even though he manages to escape and is taken to a hospital, you still don't feel completely safe, as the poor guy is delirious, raving, "They're going to kill us all." And sure enough, one of the attackers sneaks into the hospital, kills him in a mostly bloodless but disturbing way, then proceeds to calmly walk back out to the parking lot, douse himself in gasoline, and blow himself up. It's like the opening of The

Thing where the Norwegians are trying to shoot the dog and are so aggressive about it that they get killed for it; you're left wondering, "What in the hell was that all about?" Also like in that film, it makes you intrigued in the mystery that Challis and Ellie take it upon themselves to solve. The creepiness goes up a few more notches when we get to the eerie town of Santa Mira, and when we finally learn of Cochran's plan, it's beyond horrifying, as he plans to murder thousands of

children on Halloween night with his masks, turning a holiday that kids generally love into a deathtrap. Moreover, the instrument of death is an innocent and cheerful, if very annoying, commercial jingle that promises a big giveaway that night. And after seeing the test on the Kupfer family, you can only imagine the chaos that'll ensue if it happens on a mass scale. It actually kind of astounds me that Wallace turned down the offer to direct Halloween II because of the violence and gore in that script, and yet he directs this, which is not only pretty gruesome (though not very gory) in its own right but has a planned genocide of children at the center of its plot!

Various aspects of Halloween III remind me of specific entries in Carpenter's own filmography. First off, Dean Cundey is the cinematographer once again and, as a result, the film's look is very, very similar to that of the original Halloween, albeit with a bigger budget, right down to the smooth, elegant camera movements, the use of framing, and the blue lighting effect which, while not as overt as before, is much more prevalent here after being pared down for Halloween II. If it weren't for the moment where you see that, in this

film, the original is just a movie, you could believe that this takes place in the same continuity as its predecessors. As I noted up above, the opening makes me think of The Thing, as does the notion that Cochran's assassins aren't what they seem and the idea that Ellie was likely replicated as one of them. The movie being set in Northern California, up near the coast, makes me think of The Fog, right down to the nice, picturesque shots of the coastline and the surrounding countryside during Challis and

Ellie's drive up to Santa Mira. The shots of the town at dusk, when the curfew is enforced, also make me think of an eerie moment in The Fog where you see the countryside around Antonio Bay as night settles in. And like he did there for the radio station promos Stevie Wayne listens to, Wallace himself does the announcer for the Silver Shamrock commercials.

In addition to its visual style, Wallace pays tribute to the original Halloween in several ways. The most obvious one is the use of clips from it playing on TV. Another is the title sequence, which is a digital spin on the jack-o-lanterns used in the previous movies, with orange lines streaking across the screen, appearing in different lengths at different spots, before the whole thing comes together to reveal it's the commercial's "Magic Pumpkin" being put together. And during the climax, when Challis manages to escape, he tosses the mask Cochran placed on his head onto a security camera and you see some shots through the eye-holes, hearkening back to young Michael's POV during the original's opening.

While we're on the subject of stylistic references and such, Halloween III is, for me, the end of an era, as it's both the last one where all of the major creative players from the original film, from John Carpenter and Debra Hill to Irwin Yablans and Moustapha Akkad and the like, were involved in one way or another, and the last to have that feel and tone established in the original. The latter I equate to not only the departure of Carpenter, as a writer, producer, and composer, and Hill, but also Wallace and Cundey, who were quite instrumental to that original movie themselves and knew how to carry the feel of it forward. Thus, with Akkad ultimately the only one left afterward, the following entries had a noticeably different flavor to them.

It's interesting that one of the film's first major settings is a hospital, given that Wallace was originally meant to direct Halloween II. Different circumstances, yes, but still, it's someone who's also very Michael Myers-like sneaking into a hospital in order to murder a patient. From the outset, the hospital itself isn't as creepy-looking as the one in Halloween II, as the corridors are brightly lit and the rooms where the lights are off aren't as dim as a result, but it's still late at night, with very few people around, so the mood is quite

similar. And while it doesn't go into the location's natural creep factor, there's still that notion of a supposedly secure place being violated and you're not safe at all, even though you should be. Like with Laurie Strode, that sense of violation is made all the more palpable by what Harry Grimbridge had been through and how he was close to hysteria and catatonia when he arrived. And the killer randomly immolating himself in the parking lot after he's accomplished his task adds to that even more, as things like that definitely aren't supposed to happen there.

Besides the hospital, Halloween III manages to make other normally ordinary places come off as creepy or foreboding, such as a road and overpass late at night, and an auto junkyard, both of which are where the movie opens and Harry is attacked by the assassins. The same also goes for a combination store and gas station in the middle of nowhere, which, in this case, bookends the movie, as it's where Harry first finds help during a thunderstorm and where, at the very end, Challis attempts to stop the last commercial from airing.

By contrast, Harry's quaint little shop acts as a counterpoint to both Conal Cochran's big corporate factory and his evil intentions for children, as we learn from Ellie that Harry allowed kids to play with stuff in his store. And unlike the hospital, the coroner's office, even though you see just one room of it here, is a place where you'd expect something horrific, although that doesn't make Teddy's death there all the more shocking.

The main setting of Santa Mira is memorable not because it's very over-the-top or weird-looking but because, while it looks like a typical small town, when Challis and Ellie first arrive, you sense that there's something very ominous and eerie about it (according to the cast and crew, the actual location, Loleta, had that same ambience in reality). People watch them intensely from within their dwellings and businesses, security cameras keep a close eye on their car's every movement, and Cochran's androids are a constant presence, watching and

listening to everything. The town's centerpiece is the Silver Shamrock factory, the first immediate sign of the hold Cochran has over the place, which he's had ever since the end of World War II. There's a 6:00 curfew, with a pre-recorded female voice (Jamie Lee Curtis, by the way) telling everyone to return to their homes and remain there for the rest of the evening. The citizens take this so seriously that they even bring in their pets. And it's not long afterward that we see the penalty for any insolence or threats towards Cochran, when Starker gets his

head torn off after openly cursing him and threatening to burn the factory down. Moreover, when Marge is killed after she messes with one of the masks' trademark tags, Cochran's men promptly move in and take her to the factory instead of a hospital, where she's no doubt disposed of. The atmosphere becomes even more threatening when Challis and Ellie attempt to leave the following night. Challis tries to contact the police but can't get through, and it doesn't matter what number he tries, as he keeps getting a message saying his call can't be completed. Right after that, he realizes Cochran's androids are out in full force, have kidnapped Ellie, and are now out to get him.

As any horror and sci-fi aficionado knows, Santa Mira is the name of the town where the 1956 classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a favorite of Wallace's, was set. However, the correlation between the films goes beyond that, as Wallace has always described Halloween III as a "pod" movie instead of a "knife" movie. Cochran's control over the town is identical to how it felt in that film once the aliens had completely taken over, and the emotionless androids could most certainly be seen as stand-ins for the pod replications, especially 

given what becomes of Ellie. In turn, Rafferty and Buddy Kupfer, though for different individual reasons, come across like those who insisted everything's fine and dandy and there's no cause for alarm, while Marge and Starker are like those who knew something wasn't right. It also can't be a coincidence that the hero in both films is a doctor, and the montage of kids all across the country trick-or-treating and rushing home to watch Silver Shamrock's "Big Giveaway" has the same ominous feeling in Body Snatchers when you realize the

aliens are going to spread their pods all over the country and world. Intentional or not, there are also some similarities to the 1978 remake, like when Challis tries to call outside for help but finds he can't get through, similar to the moment when Matthew Bennell learns that even the phone operators have been taken over. Both films involve a factory containing the source of the menace, which is destroyed in a big explosion. And finally, Wallace has made no secret that Halloween III's abrupt and possibly bleak ending is an ode to Don Siegel's original intended ending for the '56 film, which was also rectified in the '78 version.

Cochran's factory, as imposing as it is on the outside, especially at night, seems fairly normal and benign when Challis, Ellie, and the Kupfers are given a tour of it. You see the rooms where they make the molds for the masks, where they store the completed ones, another room filled with toys and novelties, and so on. But when Ellie is captured and Challis sneaks inside to save her, you see its more sinister side, in particular the enormous control room housing the piece of Stonehenge whose power Cochran intends to use to murder

thousands of children. That's an especially ominous room because of how big and dark it is around its edges, all the computer monitors and equipment, technicians milling around to make it all work, and the centerpiece of the enormous chunk of Stonehenge. There are other creepy parts of the facility, like the testing room where the Kupfers meet their end through the commercial, which is built to seem like a typical American living room, only with metal grating for the walls and behind

the windows; a dark room, akin to a storage space, where Cochran leaves Challis to be killed by the commercial; a similar room where "Ellie" is strapped to a table; a large storeroom where Challis fights one of the androids; and a room housing a figure that at, first, looks like a woman who's sitting in the dark, knitting, only for Challis to discover it's an early robot model.

While most critics at the time, and some to this day, saw Halloween III as little more than a stupid, hackneyed horror film that didn't deserve to be connected to Carpenter's 1978 original, others not only saw it for what it was but, over time, some have even seen some significance in its plot. Many have viewed it as a commentary and criticism of large corporations and consumerism. As I talked about earlier, Cochran clearly hates what Halloween has become in recent years, having not only lost its ancient sacrificial origins and air of

true terror and magic, but also how it's been bastardized through extensive commercialization, with it now all about getting the spookiest masks and decorations, the best candy, etc. So, to that end, he turns this commercialism into a lethal weapon that will destroy itself. But this commentary works on his end as well, as we see how Santa Mira has been transformed from a farming community founded all the way back in the 1800's to a soulless factory town thanks to Silver Shamrock, with local

workers such as Starker now unemployed, as Cochran only brings in people from outside. Cochran's use of androids is also seen as promoting a more artificial future for commerce, and that they're like the ultimate corporate stooges in how Cochran uses them to kill anybody who threatens his company. Cochran himself has been viewed as an example of very successful businessman can be quite irrational, as his obsession with astrological signs skewers his business sense. Personally, I

think he just uses it all as a front for his schemes, as he's likely had this planned for a long time, knowing that the astrological signs pointing to a mass sacrifice were approaching.

The film's most pointed and relatable bit of commentary is about how kids are indoctrinated into consumerism from a very young age through media consumption, with the use of that damn Silver Shamrock jingle for their commercials leading up to the "Big Giveaway" on Halloween night. The commercial is seen and heard numerous times throughout the movie, both on TV and radio, telling kids across the country to get their hands on the "fun, frightening" Silver Shamrock masks and wear them the night of the Big Giveaway,

brainwashing them into unknowingly go to their deaths. You see the reach this already has at the beginning, when it's still a little over a week before Halloween, as Challis' kids have been given a couple of the masks, are singing the jingle while wearing them, and rock back and forth to it while watching the commercial. And when the day itself arrives, you see kids all over the country wearing and buying the masks, making the previous scene with the Kupfer family creepier, as it's an encapsulation of what Cochran intends to happen everywhere.

Ironically, the film where the series' icon is absent is, for me, the Halloween-iest of them all. While the other movies mostly use the holiday as little more than a backdrop for their stories, despite a fair amount of the iconography and traditions incorporated into them, this one is all about the holiday itself, both its Celtic origins and the way we think of it nowadays. Even though it puts a dark, cynical slant to it, you do see everything you associate with Halloween, especially when you were a kid, here: masks, trick-or-treating, watching

scary movies, etc. Fortunately, I grew up in an era where commercial jingles weren't as obnoxious as the Silver Shamrock one but I was, indeed, inundated with them when I was a kid and loved them, as I knew one of my favorite holidays was coming. I personally really like the masks, especially the jack-o-lantern, and could see myself buying one of those things as a kid. Some of my favorite imagery from the film comes during the montage of Halloween throughout the country, especially when night is coming and we see kids

out trick-or-treating, looking almost like silhouettes against the horizon with the setting sun. It just makes me so happy, and brings back great childhood memories! And I thought it was clever that they incorporated the original Halloween and Michael Myers into it by having that be the film at the end of the horror-thon before the deadly commercial plays; in other words, Michael and the series' legacy was going to be what led people to their deaths. Plus, you gotta love how, during an advertisement early on, the original movie is referred to by Tommy Lee Wallace's voice as, "The immortal classic." Way to pat yourselves on the back, guys.

While not as explicitly bloody as Halloween II, Halloween III does have more than its fair share of nasty and wince-inducing makeup effects and kills (most of the blood and guts that are here were insisted by Dino de Laurentiis). The first death, that of Harry Grimbridge, has no gore, save for a little blood after it's over, but it's still an, "Oh, shit," type of moment. The android that followed Harry sneaks into his hospital room, covers his mouth with one hand, then takes his other hand's thumb and index finger, jams them into the corners of

Harry's eyes and bridge of his nose, and violently jerks them back and forth, as Harry struggles. The android then gets a firmer grip and pulls a big section of the bridge out of place and breaks it, which really makes you wince. Once Harry's dead, the android removes his hand, revealing the nose has been moved around and snapped (you later learn from Teddy that his skull was literally pulled apart), and you can see some blood underneath his nose and across his mouth and chin. I think this was mostly created through the power of suggestion, with lighting and camera angles, while small appliances were used for the really violent parts, but however they did it, it's quite effective.

During Challis and Ellie's first night in Santa Mira, we get two horrific kills almost in succession. First, it's Starker's grisly punishment for cursing and threatening Cochran, which is, by far, the goriest kill in the entire film. Two androids corner him, as he falls to his knees and tries to take back what he said. Naturally, it doesn't go over. One android removes Starker's hat, then proceeds to grab his head and tear it clean off! You get a nasty close-up of the neck as the head is separated from the body, showing quite a bit of blood and gore (though, it's

slightly mitigated by the use of some gooey sound effects I've heard in a lot of cartoons), and in the following wide-shot, you briefly see the headless body in-between the androids, with a spray of blood spewing out of the neck's stump, before it collapses. Not long after that, Marge, noticing the microchip on the back of her mask's trademark button, fiddles with it, first with her fingernail and then with a hair-clip. She suddenly gets hit right in the face with a blast of the energy contained inside,

and the film quickly cuts to something else, then comes back, and the aftermath is really hideous. Both her lips and much of the flesh around her mouth looks like it's been burned off, with the edges sticking upwards. The rest of her face now has a dead, gray color to it, her eyeballs are sunken and filled up with blood, and before she dies, an insect, a weta, crawls out of her mouth. (I know from the special features on Halloween: 25 Years of Terror that it's not actually Garn Stephens wearing that makeup appliance, as she found it so disturbing.)

By far, the most well known sequence is the demonstration of what happens when someone wears one of the Silver Shamrock masks as the commercial plays. After Little Buddy Kupfer stares at the flashing Magic Pumpkin at the end of the commercial, he starts to writhe and grabs at the mask, trying to rip it off, as it seems to take on a more organic, fleshy tone. Unable to remove it, he collapses to the floor, dead, save for his hands twitching slightly. Then, inexplicably, a bunch of bugs and deadly snakes wriggle out of the mask

and the rotted remains of his head. The sight of this causes Betty to drop dead from a heart attack, while a rattlesnake that emerges bites and kills Buddy. It may not make any logical sense but it doesn't matter, as it's an awesomely disgusting zinger for the sequence. And like I said earlier, just imagine that happening all over the country on Halloween night. By contrast, the death of Teddy the following night, when an android pins her to the floor and kills her with a power drill, is done without showing anything, despite what you might think from that description.

As I touched on earlier, there are some creepy effects involving the androids. The moment where Challis fights one of them and discovers what it is involves him digging his hand into its gut and pulling out some gooey gears, while an orange liquid pools out of its mouth, a shot that's quite eerie thanks to the android's cold, dead eyes fixed straight ahead, and the dark lighting in the room where this takes place. Later on, when Challis discovers Ellie is an android, we get some prosthetics with her torn off arm and the gears you

see sticking out of the stump, which kind of come off like tendons. Another really good shot is when Challis decapitates her and, afterward, you can see her still functioning head sitting on the ground next to her body, which is also still moving. You can tell that the effect was done with Stacey Nelkin sticking her head up through a hole in the ground, while a fake body was laid next to her, but it still works for what it is. And, of course, you gotta have

one last jump scare, when the severed arm briefly attacks Challis before he's able to get control of it and throw it away, only for the headless body to come at him. Again, it's pretty obvious how these moments were done, but they still work well enough.

Conal Cochran's own death is rather confusing, as you're not really sure what happened. After he escapes and rescues "Ellie," Challis gets the commercial playing on all the monitors in the control room, grabs an entire box of the trademark tags, runs upstairs into the rafters, and dumps them all over the room. The ensuing chain reaction kills everyone else in the room, both androids and actual humans, but leaves Cochran himself momentarily unscathed. Then, the trademark tags, in conjunction with the piece of Stonehenge, fire

energy beams at him from either side and appear to turn him to stone, before he disappears completely. A cool enough effect, but I can't tell you what happened, and I've always wondered why the energy didn't have the same grisly effect on Cochran and the others in the room. Maybe Dan O'Herlihy didn't want to go through the makeup effects process required to create such a death, but I think it's a shame he doesn't get a gruesome comeuppance, considering what he had planned for

so many kids across the country. (According to makeup effects artist Tom Burman in an interview in the Scream Factory Halloween box-set, he suggested that Cochran's head turn into a pumpkin, but John Carpenter immediately shut him down, and kind of rightfully so, as that would've made even less sense and also would've been just plain dumb.) 

That leads me to very briefly touch on the visual effects, which make their first appearance in the franchise here (unless you count the optical used to create young Michael's POV through the clown mask during the original's opening). Said effects are fairly simple, consisting mostly of rotoscoped animation for moments like when Marge gets blasted in the face and when Challis causes that lethal chain reaction in the control room, particularly when Cochran meets his end, as well as a matte painting for the Silver Shamrock factory exploding in the background when Challis and Ellie make their escape, but they get the job done.

As is often the case with Carpenter's own films, Tommy Lee Wallace decided to end Halloween III on a less than happy note. After dispensing with the Ellie android, Challis manages to make it to the same gas station where Harry Grimbridge ended up at the beginning of the film. With only minutes left, he uses the phone inside to call the TV station, pleading with them to take the Silver Shamrock commercial off the air, as it begins to play on the station's TV; at the same time, a car pulls up outside and three kids wearing the masks come in.

It takes some desperate prodding but the commercials are yanked off two stations, as Challis sees when one of the kids goes to watch it. However, the kid turns over to a third channel and the commercial continues playing uninhibited. Challis, again, pleads with the station to take it off the air but, as it continues to run and the Magic Pumpkin begins to flash, he becomes hysterical and screams over the phone, "Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!" And then, we cut to black and the credits roll. Naturally, some people don't care for

this type of ending, calling it bleak and hopeless, and that was certainly the case with Universal who, as with The Thing earlier that year, wanted it changed to be definitively happy. But Carpenter left it to Wallace and, just as Carpenter did with his film, he stood by his guns. However, as downbeat as it may seem, it's actually more of a question mark, as you don't know for sure if that third station did run the commercial. Tom Atkins himself even said in an interview on the Blu-Ray

documentary that he thinks they caught it in time, admitting that he's an optimistic person. It's a Rorschach test that you can fill in yourself: if you're like Atkins, you can say they did get that third commercial and it just took a little longer, or if you want to be a pessimist, you can say it did play and thousands of kids died.

Like its predecessors, Halloween III owes a lot of its effectiveness to the score, once again the work of John Carpenter and Alan Howarth. This time, they went for a completely electronic score, performed on a synthesizer (which has served Carpenter well on a number of his scores), and it's another very creepy and atmospheric piece of work that adds to the movie's dark feel and tone. The main title sequence sets the mood perfectly, with electronic pings and zings that alternate between being high- or low-pitched, and play against a threatening drone, which makes me think of some of the music that Howard Shore would compose for David Cronenberg's Videodrome the following year. All of the score's tracks are layered in a similar manner. Some other notable themes include the music for the opening chase, which also plays over the ending credits. Here, the electronic pings are going at a very fast rhythm and, in addition, to the drone, you have some instrumental sounds and very fast "pew, pew" noises, which enhance the energy and excitement. The music you hear when Challis and Ellie drive up to Santa Mira sounds like it's being played on a synthesizer church organ and, while not exactly creepy, it has an odd feeling about it and fits with the notion that they're leaving the normal world and heading into the one ruled by Conal Cochran. Another really good piece comes during the montage of the countryside as the sun sets and we hear the curfew message. It's the underlying electronic drone again but, this time, the ping sounds are lower in pitch and have a rhythm of, "Doot do, doot do, doot do." The deaths of Starker and Marge are accompanied by this horrific theme that starts with a more threatening drone than what we've heard so far, and is overtaken by this freakish electronic screeching that can make your skin crawl. The moment when the Ellie android reveals its true nature and attacks Challis is similar, with these frantic electronic pings and shock moment zings, which occur every time the seemingly dealt with android attacks him again (they're similar to the stinger chords Carpenter and Howarth would come up with for their score to Christine). And finally, there are some pieces that are somewhat relaxing, like one with a high-pitched drone in the background and some soft notes that just go "doot, doot" and "poom, poom," although that lower drone sneaks back in a few times, and even the high pitched one here has a sort of ugly quality to it, as if saying, "Don't get too relaxed." Another is this one that plays when Cochran says it'll soon be Halloween morning, with very soft pings that sort of pick up in pitch.

Of course, we can't talk about the soundtrack without mentioning the Silver Shamrock commercial's jingle... oh, that jingle: "Happy, happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. Happy, happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock." You know, part of me thinks that damn commercial is the real reason why so many people, then and now, dislike this film, given how it gets stuck in your head and how often it plays. (Whoever designed that Scream Factory Blu-Ray is a jackass, as the song plays over the main menu and the ending credits of the documentary.) It's so overly upbeat, loud, and constant that it's maddening, starting with this weird opening, electronic bit, which is fairly irritating in and of itself, before the actual song, with lyrics set to London Bridge is Falling Down and sung by Tommy Lee Wallace in a sped up voice, kicks in. However, I do appreciate that, in the film itself, they acknowledge how obnoxious it is. When Challis is sitting in a bar, watching TV, and the bartender turns it to a channel playing the commercial, he goes, "Come on! Come on! Come on!" The bartender asks, "What's the matter? Don't you have any Halloween spirit?" to which he grouchily answers, "No!" And later on, while he and Ellie are having sex, the radio in their motel room starts playing it and he groans, "I don't believe this commercial. It never stops," before turning it of. I'm sure it's all part of the joke. If you watch a lot of TV, you've seen plenty of commercials that are so annoying, and played so constantly, that you just want to shoot yourself the next time you come across them. Well, here's an annoying commercial that actually will kill you if you watch it! It's a clever, morbid way of sticking it to marketing and the obnoxious lengths people will go in order to sell their products. And in addition to the jingle, you've got to love Wallace's cheesy announcer voice, as sort of the piece de resistance of this annoyingly lethal advert.

In retrospect, while Halloween III: Season of the Witch does stick out like a sore thumb in a series devoted solely to Michael Myers, it's still a very respectable little horror film in its own right. It's atmospheric, with an eerie tone throughout, has some good acting and memorable characters, some truly horrific moments, an unsettling electronic score, nice social commentary, and a nicely ambiguous ending. I don't think it's an underrated masterpiece that everyone should fawn over, but I do think it's an enjoyable 80's horror flick that actually fits with the Halloween season better than any of the others and should be given more credit than it gets. While the film has been slightly vindicated in recent years, especially with Scream Factory's Blu-Ray in 2012, there are still plenty of people who don't like it or, perhaps, just won't watch it due to the absence of Michael Myers. If you were unaware of the film's story when you went into it and felt ripped off, I get it. But if you know that it has nothing to with the rest of the series and still haven't seen it, then you should just put the Halloween title aside and view it as an attempt to take the series into another direction that didn't pan out. Trust me, I was where you are for a long time, and when I finally stopped being stubborn and watched the flick, I really enjoyed it. So, this Halloween, if you've never seen it before, give it a chance before you write it off completely. You might be surprised at how good it truly is and a treat to watch this time of year.