Halloween III: The Season of the Witch (1982)

Plot Outline: An evil toymaker plans to kill all of the kids who go out on Halloween using deadly masks in order to complete an ancient Pagan ritual. It's up to a doctor who is exploring the death of one of his patients to find out what is going on and convince everyone of the danger.

The Review: With absolutely nothing to do with the two previous movies, Halloween III: Season of the Witch has been criticised and bashed for many years. Audiences expected to see the return of Michael Myers and they went into this film with wrong ideas. When they didn't get what they wanted, they were naturally unhappy and vented their anger out on this innocent movie. John Carpenter said that instead of doing more Michael Myers related films, he wanted to do a series of stand-alone horror films that weren't really connected to each other, only by the theme of Halloween. This was supposed to be the catalyst for that idea, but since it bombed, then that was scrapped and Michael Myers returned in the next film. Perhaps if they hadn't included the Halloween part of the title and just stuck with Season of the Witch then maybe people wouldn't have been so disappointed. The film isn't as bad as people have claimed, however it does have plenty of plot holes and stupid moments. For instance, we don't get any background on Atkins' character at all. Why does he suddenly decide to turn himself into a detective and go investigating mysterious goings on? It must have been a spur of the moment thing. And how did the evil toymaker manage to steal a piece of Stonehenge! The same can't be said for some gruesome gore effects though. There are heads ripped off, eyeballs gouged out, skulls turned into bugs and snakes and robots smashed apart. Standard Carpenter stuff though. Speaking of standard Carpenter stuff, we get Tom Atkins in the lead role. Atkins (a Carpenter stalwart from The Fog and Escape from New York) looks to be have been paid his salary in beer. If there was ever an anti-hero of the movies, then Atkins would fit the bill. He drinks a lot of beer, looks extremely unfit and on the verge of a heart attack when running but gets to bed a teenage woman and he's married with kids in the film too! I can see that being one of Carpenter's golden boys had its advantages! But he does an OK job in this film, as well as Dan O'Herlihy as Conan Cochran, the evil toymaker. To top it off, we get another one of Carpenter's eerie electronic keyboard music scores which sets the mood just about right.

Final Verdict: I would have liked to have seen Carpenter's idea for a new series of different themed Halloween movies to have come about. If only the American public had a little more imagination and patience and given it time, then it would have been more widely acclaimed, instead of the terrible stalk 'n' slash outings that would soon follow. This one may not have been that good, but at least it gets marks for trying. Oh, and I almost forgot. Ever wondered what the most annoying theme tune of all time is? Watch this film and find out.

Rating: