Ah, Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), the bastard stepchild of the Halloween franchise. Unfairly maligned upon release it has thankfully gone through a reappraisal from fans with many recognising it as the cult classic it so clearly is.
Fans' upset at the time was understandable. Many at the time assumed they would be seeing a further addition in the ongoing saga of Michael Myers only to find out that Halloween III was a standalone horror, with no connection whatsoever to the previous two movies that came before.
The reasoning behind the change was sound. producers/writers John Carpenter and Debra Hill thought they had taken the Michael Myers story to its natural conclusion, with his fiery demise at the end of Halloween II (1981) being pretty finite. Their idea behind continuing the franchise was that it would become an anthology, with each new entry focusing on a new plot based around horror's favourite holiday.
Of course not everyone was on board with this bold decision, with its failure at the box office clearly showing people’s disappointment. Executive Producer Irwin Yablans thought it was a terrible idea to move away from using Michael Myers as he thought that it would be better to just shovel the same old shit to audiences.
As much as I disagree with Yablans reasoning, as it was clearly from a monetary point of view, he was clearly onto something as the audiences at the time turned their noses up at something new and original. Clearly their preference at the time was to be treat like fuckin idiots and be fed on the same diet as before.
With Michael Myers out of the picture, Halloween III focused on a new villain, that of evil toy maker Conal Cochran (Dan O Herlihy) who really hates people it seems. In many respects he makes Myers look like a quire boy. At least he was only killing one at a time. Wee Conal is trying to commit mass genocide.
His plan comes to the attention of Dr Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins) who starts investigating after one of his patients is murdered and the suspect decides to immolate himself. This arouses his suspicions. His suspicions aren’t the only things aroused, as he later meets his patient's hot daughter Ellie (Stacey Nelkin), who tells him of the suspicious events around her fathers death.
During the opening events of the film we saw her father clutching a jack-o-lantern mask. This mask brings Dan and Ellie to the Silver Shamrock Company in Santa Mira where the mask was produced. Right from the get go the town seems strange. Personally I would have packed my shit and left, but I think big Tom had other ideas. With a six pack at the ready and a beautiful woman by his side it is easy to understand how he could get side-tracked.
Meeting other inhabitants of the town they learn that the town’s good fortune is down to the Silver Shamrock company. After visiting the factory and witnessing some very strange goings on Daniel decides to escape and contact the police. Being 1982 he has to rely on payphones and shit service, so he is unable to contact anyone outside the town. Or its probably down to Mr Cochran blocking his calls to stop him from telling anyone of the crazy shit he’s up to.
While trying to phone Ellie goes and gets herself kidnapped and taken to the factory. Daniel follows but gets captured by Cochran and his men. Like a great Bond Villain, Cochran proceeds to tell Daniel his entire plan because that's never going to bite him in the arse.
It turns out that the masks Cochran and his factory have been producing come with microchips that include a fragment of Stonehenge. Once activated these microchips kill the wearer, causing brain damage as well as a shit ton of snakes and insects to flow from their body and kill anyone nearby. Told you Mr Cochran wasn’t a nice guy. Now it's up to Daniel to rescue Ellie and stop Cochran from carrying out his plan.
With John Carpenter and Debra Hill only working on the film as producers, they looked to one of their old collaborators to take the helm. After turning down the opportunity to direct Halloween II, Tommy Lee Wallace took the helm. He has stated that he much preferred the idea that this entry would be stand alone rather than just copying Carpenter’s original.
He makes quite the assured directorial debut, with Halloween III being filled with ample scares, gore and satisfying performances. It helps that the technical aspects are top notch, with ace cinematographer Dean Dundey once again bringing his slick expertise to the production. John Carpenter also provides another memorable score that has that distinct synth sound of the franchise but is far enough removed from the instantly recognisable Halloween themes to stand out.
The initial failure of Halloween III clearly didn’t do Wallace’s career as a director any favours, with him never hitting the big leagues like Carpenter. To be honest, this is mostly true of most of the directors of the Halloween franchise, with only Rob Zombie and David Gordon Green’s careers not noticeably suffering. Although in regards to Zombie’s efforts I don’t know how not, with his complete shit shows making the likes of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002) look complete masterpieces in comparison.
However, even though Wallace’s career didn’t hit the big league, he still went on to direct a handful of notable works such as Fright Night Part 2 (1988) and the mini series IT (1990). Much later he would work again with Carpenter on DTV sequel Vampires: Los Muertos (2002), although it wasn’t exactly either of their finest hours..
Wallace wasn’t the only previous Carpenter collaborator to work on Halloween III. In front of the camera was legendary shagger Tom Atkins, who had already starred in Carpenters The Fog (1980) and Escape from New York (1981). Atkins gets the tone of the film just right, turning a character who is essentially an asshole into a likeable hero. Even when brushing off his kids because he has the chance of a shag, you never really judge him, mainly because he’s Tom Atkins.
Atkins is capably matched by the lovely Stacey Nelkin, who perhaps does seem a bit young for our beefcake hero, but to be honest this didn’t really bother me. She certainly didn’t seem to mind. The only question I had regarding her role was at what point in proceedings is she exchanged for an android, or was she a machine the entire time. And if Atkins, would it have stopped him from doing the “dirty deed”. Personally I know what I would have done.
Nelkin actually got some good notice’s for her role at the time, with supposed film critic Roger Ebert saying she was the best thing in what he thought was an otherwise poor film. Honestly, if I had written something as awful as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) I wouldn’t be so quick to judge the quality of people's work.
While many fans were disappointed by the lack of Michael Myers, Halloween III has its own memorable villain in Gavin O Herlihy’s Conal Cochran. One thing he has going for him over Myers is that he can actually engage in a conversation. Clearly insane, O Herlihy brings a sense of gravitas to proceedings. O Herlihy later stated he wasn’t exactly a fan of the film but you can’t tell from his performance.
One interesting area of Halloween III was that it was originally written by sci-fi legend Nigel Kneale, most famous for creating the Quatermass series. He would ultimately remove his name from the completed film after producer Dino De Laurentis ordered changes to his script to inject more violence. With him leaving the production Wallace himself reworked the script although retained much of the structure of Kneale’s original draft.
In comparison to the rest of the Halloween series, Halloween III is a standout, and not just because of how it moved away from the Michael Myers storyline. In terms of quality it is heads above some of the later entries, which would go on to simply regurgitate what had come before with differing levels of success.
The only real issue with Halloween III is its title. It caused too much confusion and disappointment, If released simply as Season of the Witch it would have maybe not have been judged so harshly. So do yourself a favour and give Halloween III another chance. You won’t regret it.
Rating: 4.5/5
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