I’ve decided to subject myself to 31 days of horror films for the month of October. It will be a mix of rewatching stuff I haven’t seen in a while and brand new things. Day 30:

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)  dir. Tommy Lee Wallace

HALLOWEEN III is one of the those movies you see pop-up on a lot of “worst sequel ever” lists but I don’t think that is deserved at all. I think more people got mad that they didn’t get a Michael Meyers’ movie and just took it out on the film. Originally, when the studio reached out to John Carpenter and Debra Hill about making a new HALLOWEEN film, they only agreed if the film was not a sequel to HALLOWEEN II. Their dream was to start making a yearly anthology film out of the series. Which a new film coming out each year with the only prerequisite that the movie had to take place on the holiday of Halloween. I for one, think that’s a dynamite idea and we would have got much better films than the next 5 HALLOWEEN sequels that brought Michael Meyers back to life.

Anyways back to III, the film focuses on Dr. Challis (horror all-star Tom Atkins) as a man investigating the mystery of the Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy), the CEO of Silver Shamrock Novelties company, after a murder involving one of the companies very popular Halloween masks. Silver Shamrock seems to be the most popular company in the world as their commercial (the song in it WILL GET STUCK IN YOUR HEAD) seems to air so many times during the day. Children all over the world own their masks as well. Challis’ search leads him to a small costal Northern California town where Silver Shamrock seems to be involved with every aspect of the town. It is patrolled by Cochran’s all similar looking suited goons who never speak.

The movie actually does have a scary feeling and the gore is so well done. The ultimate end game of Cochran while strange, is straight up nasty and scary. It’s unique and it stands on it’s on as a horror movie and I wish Carpenter and company could have kept making new HALLOWEEN films. It definitely has flaws but something about it and the message of consumerism has aged pretty well. I definitely think it’s better than any of the following films in the franchise. I recommend the film and think you’ll have fun.