Thursday, October 28, 2021

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

 With 'Halloween III', produced but not directed by John Carpenter, we return to the mans original vision for the franchise, which was anthology, 'Twilight Zone' like. There is no Mike Meyers here, this film is completely independent of the first two, and in fact the first film shows up on TV within the movie. 

The plot has to do with doctor Tom Atkins, who teams with Stacy Nelkin, who despite being like half his age becomes his love interest, to investigate the strange death of her father, briefly a patient of Atkins. They end up in a small Northern California town investigating a company that makes Halloween masks, and it's (to put it mildly) ideocentric owner played by Dan O'Herlihy. Both pagan magic and  mechanical men turn out to be involved with an odd scheme, which were it to succeed really would end Halloween as we know it. 

I liked the pulpiness of this, I liked how weird it was, it's committed to its strange premise which really is horrifying, even while much of it's support structure is silly. I saw part of this as a kid and the audacity of a certain sequence stuck with me, glad to finally have full context.**1/2 

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