Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

July 8, 2018

Let's just come right out and say it, Michael Myers is not in this film. There are almost a dozen Halloween films and all of them feature Michael Myers, except this one. I heard that if you go into this movie, thinking of it as a stand-alone and not a Halloween movie, than it is actually a pretty good movie. It was critically panned when it first came out but has built a solid cult following over the years. Unfortunately, aside from a couple of cool scenes, I could not get into this movie at all. It is slow, the plot is silly, and the protagonist just gave me the creeps. It's weird to think this movie even exists within the Halloween franchise.

John Carpenter had originally envisioned Halloween is a single stand alone film with the ambiguous ending of the villain getting away. However its enormous success led producers to call Carpenter to work on a sequel which he begrudgingly did (a new director was hired with Carpenter only writing the script and directing a couple scenes). The sequel was wildly successful too. Afterwards, Carpenter came up with the idea that the following Halloween movies would come out once a year, be stand-alone films with no relation to the previous Michael Myers movies, but be in some way related to the holiday of Halloween. The films would capitalize on the Halloween and John Carpenter brands. The first, and last of this format, was Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Although the movie did well at the box office, it was almost universally hated and so for the fourth film, filmmakers would bring back Michael Myers.

The movie is about a corporation called Silver Shamrock that is using masks and a stone from Stonehenge to bring about Samhaim and turn all the world's children into snakes and bugs or something... When one of his patients is killed in his hospital by one of Silver Shamrock's corporate goons, Dr. Challis tries to find out what happened. This leads him into meeting his dead patient's daughter Ellie and the two go to the Silver Shamrock corporate headquarters. The corporate boss reveals his plan (why doesn't he just kill them?) and its a race against the clock to stop him. They stop the stations from airing the hidden trigger except for one city...

The main character, Dr. Challis, played by Tom Atkins, is odd and very creepy. He is a doctor who just gets up and leaves his job at the hospital to play detective for a few days. Who is taking care of his patients? Who knows! Also, he seems to be struggling with alcoholism and loneliness. The beginning of the movie is full of him sitting alone in a bar drinking. Another character even finds there in the middle of the day because a coworker told him that he would probably be at the bar. Later on when he meets Ellie, who keep in mind her father was murdered just days before, played by Stacey Nelkin, the two bang at a hotel. I'm not sure how much older the character is than her, but the actor is twenty six years older. There is a very creepy daddy issues romance between the two that is hard to ignore.

Also, for a movie called Season of the Witch, it had very little do with witchcraft. Sure, there is the stone from Stonehenge that is being inserted into the masks (stupid) and the word Samhain is explained, but really this movie was more of an attack on corporate America. It is the poor man's The Stuff. Attacks on consumerism were popular themes in 1980s popular culture. A refute on Reaganite America. This can be seen in the movies and in a lot of the songs (listen to any punk song written between 1980 and 1988!). I personally, love these themes, but I just feel that Season of the Witch did not do it justice.

There were a couple of cool scenes. Particularly when you get to see the masks in action. There are two scenes where the masks do their business and the heads of the people wearing them are torn apart as snakes, spiders and other creepy crawlies burst out. Also, there is a cool twist at the end where Ellie turns on Dr. Challis because she is apparently an android created by the Silver Shamrock corporation. Finally, I like the ambiguity of the ending where Dr. Challis is unable to get the trigger commercial pulled from every city. There were definitely things about the film that I liked, unfortunately together, it just didn't work for me as a film.

Perhaps I am mistaken and there is something great about the movie that I missed? Or maybe watching it for the first time in 2018 is different than experiencing it in 1982? Either way, I was bored and found myself looking at my phone more than watching the film.

Do you agree? Disagree? Leave a comment.