Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace
Once in a while a movie franchise tries to shake things up a bit, they try something new and usually it is generally hated. This is the case with Halloween III. When it came out, hoards of fans went to see Michael Myers and the Halloween franchise continue on. When they realized that Michael Myers was nowhere to be found, they instantly hated it. It was ridiculous to think Michael Myers would return, I mean he was burnt, extra crispy at the end of Halloween II. The writers had planned for Halloween to be an anthology series, where each movie is a different scary story. In hindsight, I think it’s an awesome idea. The crowd wanted Michael Myers though and refused to see this movie for the original and genuinely frightening tale that it really is. I think the more interesting fact is that the movie does not have a witch involved in it, whatsoever. Though the fans originally panned this movie, it has a cult following now, where people consider it one of the better installments of the franchise.
The movie starts with a man running from a car. Two dudes in suits pursue the running guy. One of the suit guys tackles the man, and begins choking him. The guy pulls a block out from under a car, and it smashes the suit guy, allowing the man to escape. He runs off and collapses at a gas station holding a Silver Shamrock jack-o-lantern mask and is driven to the hospital by the attendant, Walter Jones whom has a bigger jaw than Sargent Slaughter. The man keeps saying, “they’re going to kill us, they’re going to kill us all”. The guy is placed in the care of Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins). Another suited man walks into the hospital and breaks the guy’s skull with his bare hands, complete with OJ gloves. The suited man exits the hospital, gets into his car, and sets himself ablaze.
Dr. Challis, whom I will just call Tom Atkins from now on, witnesses the whole incident of the man setting himself on fire. He finds the whole thing rather suspicious, the cops write it off as the guy being higher than giraffe balls, but Tom mentions that he’s seen people that were high before and that guy was totally with it. Now along with the man’s daughter Ellie, they investigate the incident, leading them to a small town of Santa Mira. Tom had a check out some of the wreckage to see what she can find, which is basically just ashes and gears. Ellie and Tom make it to the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory. Realizing that the whole town is watching them, they go to a Hotel to formulate a plan. The hotel manager tells them that the town basically exists because of the Irish owner Conal Cochran (played by Dan O’Herlihy, the chairman of OCP in Robocop) and his Silver Shamrock factory. Tom finds out from the sign in book that Ellie’s dad stayed there before. An annoying family arrives at the hotel, they are shop owners Buddy and Betty Kupfer. The Kupfer’s son little Buddy is also around for the trip. Little Buddy takes off on his bike and gives his mother the finger, which is hilarious. Another saleswoman is there, Marge Guttman whom is staying in the room next to Tom and Ellie. That night Tom offers to sleep outside, and Ellie asks him to stay, and they bang. They’ve only known each other for a day basically, and on camera have only exchanged a couple of words. Ellie must not be too broken up over the death of her father, because she’s super willing to take a ride on the Atkins express. I mean with that pornstar mustache, who wouldn’t be?
That night they hear some bizarre noise next door. The noise was made by Marge, getting blasted in the face from a laser shot from the Silver Shamrock tag on the mask. It is rather graphic and disturbing. Her lips are basically ripped apart, and a bee or something crawls out of her mouth. Tom Atkins tells Ellie to ignore the noise so they can do more plowing. Tom later sees an old man that is probably drunk, he says that Cochran has cameras all over town and knows everything that goes on.
The next day the police show up after finding Marge in her room. Cochran claims that she will be taken to the factory and taken care of. They make their way to the factory for a tour, the annoying family and Tom and Ellie. They notice the whole factory is filled with suited men, much like the murderer that set himself on fire at the hospital. Cochran shows them all of his great inventions and toys. They reach a room in the factory with a bunch of masks partially finished, when Cochran claims that they haven’t reached the final step yet and aren’t ready to go. Tom tells Ellie that it is time for them to leave, and they begin walking out. Ellie notices that her father’s car is stored in one building, and when she tries to walk towards it the suited men block her path.
Later in the day, the suited men kidnap Ellie and Tom comes to the rescue. He gets attacked by two men and punches one in the stomach only to find that they are androids. He is captured and taken to the factory. It is when he’s here that we find out the reason Cochran does what he does. He wants to return Halloween to its sacrificial roots. He has stolen a stone from Stonehenge, somehow haha. I don’t know how you can steal a stone from Stonehenge and have it shipped to a small town in California, but whatever it is awesome. He takes part of the stone, and puts it in the Silver Shamrock badge on the masks. Then he has Tom look on for a demonstration. A mocked up living room with the annoying family is shown on a screen. The Silver Shamrock commercial comes on the TV with the awesome song (YouTube that shit), and a flashing pumpkin comes on the screen and little Buddy puts his mask on and stares at the pumpkin. Suddenly little Buddy grabs his head and collapses to the ground, with the mask appearing to rot. The mother and father ask him if he’s alright. Next a bunch of crickets, beetles, and snakes start coming out of little Buddy’s head as the parents scream like crazy. A rattlesnake bites Buddy and the whole family dies. This scene is scary and hilarious at the same time. I love the fact that they weren’t afraid to kill a kid in a movie, especially an annoying little dick like little Buddy.
Cochran tells Tom that after the original Halloween movie goes off, that Silver Shamrock commercial will air, and kids across the country will have the same fate as little Buddy. Tom gets tied up and put into a room with a skull mask on. He sits trying to escape facing a TV. He then kicks the screen out of the TV, and frees his hands with the broken glass. Tom then grabs the mask and throws it over the security camera, million to one shot doc! A million to one shot! Funny thing is when they were making the movie Tom Atkins actually threw the mask onto the camera on his first try, but they weren’t taping, they tried to do it again and couldn’t. He exits the room and calls his ex wife, telling her to not let their kids watch the Silver Shamrock commercial. Tom sneaks up to the enormous 80s computer and turns the flashing pumpkin commercial on the TVs in the factory. He runs up to the catwalk and grabs a box of Silver Shamrock badges and throws them down into the circle of TVs, killing all the androids with the lasers from the badges. Cochran stares at him in anger, while the building gets set ablaze. Tom runs off and rescues Ellie from the restraining table and they leave together. While he’s driving down the road, Ellie tries to kill Tom, and he crashes into a tree. Ellie’s robot arm is severed and Tom bitch slaps her head off, which is super badass. It makes you wonder if Ellie has been an android the whole time or if Cochran used her skin to make her an android after being captured. Either way you wonder if Tom banged a robot, which is…awesome? Or awkward?
Tom then runs to the gas station and uses the phone. I am not sure whom he calls but he begs them to take the Silver Shamrock special off the air, saying that it is necessary that they do not show that commercial. During his call they remove the commercial off from three stations, but the fourth station continues to show the pumpkin. Tom screams and begs them to take it off the air, but the commercial remains. Tom continues to scream when the screen goes black. The ending isn’t a happy one, we only assume Cochran’s plan went off anyway, killing millions of kids. It is awesome, I love this ending, the first time I saw it, it gave me chills because of how frantic Tom is.
This movie is awesome and I don’t care what people say. It has the perfect amount of corny shit happening to keep it fun, but the scares are real. The fact that the sole purpose to create the killer masks was the kill kids is frightening and original. You never see children die in horror movies, but Halloween III had the balls to do it, and I appreciate that. Cochran is a maniacal genius. The acting is solid and a bit over the top, which adds to the charm of the movie. I love Tom Atkins; he is a badass in this movie and in Night of the Creeps. The androids are completely ridiculous, they really don’t need to be part of the movie but it is hilarious so I let it go. Every time I watch this movie, I seem to like it more and more. I tend to notice new things with each viewing and I always laugh when Tom slaps Ellie’s head off, it is so amazing that I have to watch it multiple times. Little known fact, that Jamie Lee Curtis is the curfew announcer and the telephone operator. I saw on Amazon that you can buy the masks from Silver Shamrock, they’re $39.99 but I think I’ll pass for that price. I would give this movie an A, its awesome! I watch this every year and love the corniness of it. Give it a watch, forget about the other Halloween movies and enjoy this as a standalone. The poster below is pretty awesome too, if you love this movie go to rottenrentals.com to get this sweet poster and VHS pack. Also fright-rags.com makes some pretty sweet horror shirts, they just released a whole bunch of Halloween III shirts, check them out!
