Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Tonight’s the perfect night for the right horror movie. Like the planets aligning, it’s a movie night that also is a Halloween night! Well, I already did a bunch of those movies, so it makes it a bit hard to line it up right - but I found a fix. Is it a trick or a treat? Regardless of your costume, tonight we are learning to hate commercials with Halloween 3.
Yeah bud, that one that’s not really related to any of the other movies, reboots, or requels. Here, after ending off their villain they decided they really needed to go a different direction, and so they did. Unfortunate or not for them - it really didn’t go over well. Anyways, this brand new approach brought season-adjacent stories, almost like an anthology movie except breaking out all the stories into their own movie. This movie asks one question - what the heck is going on. It even pretends to answer it at some point! Anyways again, we follow a man running from some mysterious well dressed men trying to kill him until we meet up with the doctor that’s going to be our main character. We follow him as his paths cross with the man, who ends up getting killed in the hospital and his assailant lights himself on fire and explodes in a car in the parking lot. When the daughter of the dead man arrives, her and the doctor engage in trying to discover just what the heck happened and why someone would want to kill her dad.
This thing is a total mixed bag. Acting isn’t always great here. I don’t think it’s always a case of people phoning it in, although at times it certainly feels that way. I think perhaps a lot of the actors involved maybe just weren’t on the same page as what it was going for really. A great example of this is the actor for the main villain just giong absolutely ham with stealing the scene as he’s elaborating on his scheme - a scheme that feels as preposterous as it sounds as he explains it. Our lead feels like perhaps one of the weakest in the acting department - but there’s totally movies out there where the guy can do a great job, so I don’t know if that’s how he was directed to go for or he just didn’t really want to put a ton into it. Heck, perhaps I’m misreading it and it’s intentionally done so that we dislike him more - i mean, the fact he comes off as a total womanizer and a bit of a deadbeat doesn’t really help us like him more, Most the villains being very unemotional and straight-to-it makes sense by the end, and given the kids are only in it for a bit and generally being little crap heads there isn’t much that really stands out for the acting department in this one.
Characters similarly are there. Like I alluded to, the main character is kinda unlikable. I’m sure back in the day it was probably looked at more as him being this suave ladies man, but with the modern angle (or just a more adult mind set) he really comes off as a pants-chaser for sure. By the end he does have a little bit of a journey where it at least feels like he’s genuinely worried about what happens to the world in that doctor kind of way, but I’m not convinced that if some new hot dame walks on by he wouldn’t get a bit distracted. Most the characters don’t really have much in far as development go. The villain’s plan suffers just about as much - and really ends up just being a bit down to just faith, I guess? Look, it taps into the whole spirituality of the season, but it also doesn’t really necessarily speak of the end game in a straight forward fashion as much as “it’s what the planets want” - which to the common person doesn’t necessarily tell one much - much like our characters might have some good questions left on their minds by the end of the movie - whoever’s left anyways.
By the end of the movie you’ll look like this from watching the commercials too.
So our plot isn’t the greatest thing, and our acting isn’t the best of things either. What does it have going for it? Well, there is something to say about the enjoyability of the Carpenter soundtrack. The opening theme almost sounds like a Carpenter take on Terminator, which is fun. Beyond that, the costumes are pretty good - although in all honesty it’s one of those “modern attire immersion” kind of things, so maybe that’s a bit overblown as far as statements go. That said, the masks - which are technically part of the costumes - do look wonderful, so that statement still stands in my book. Effects work holds up a bit more mixed - some great looking explosoins, and some gnarly body damage. Some of it isn’t nearly as convincing though, so it’s a little mixed bag there as well. Given it’s age, it’s probably not a surprise, but most of it is all practical - so fans of seeing things in a more tangible effects type will at least be able to enjoy that side of even the less convincing effects - which still I might add aren’t the worst I’ve ever seen.
Audio is fine as far as balance goes, but it does sound it’s age a bit. It isn’t the worst audio quality I’ve heard - certainly not as headache enducing as the one “song” replayed constantly in the original (I think what I watched was the original) Nosferatu. I won’t say that it’s all the best deliveries, although some of them are pretty darn good. Probably the one thing that would drive people to hate it the most in this movie is that dang commercial that keeps playing for the masks. Sure, it makes sense and is relevant to the story and everything, but that jingle is going to haunt your every waking moment so be prepared for that. As is, with the overall presentation and quality, I’d say most enjoyment would be more as a group watch than anything like an actual serious horror guru watching it alone. That said - it has elements that aren’t bad and it can be fun to see what people were thinking or going for regardeless.
In that vein, it feels like perhaps it really could have used a few changes here and there. Perhaps no fault on any one particular person or place. The core idea - taking Halloween and turning it into a franchise of movies and concepts tied together more by the holiday itself than the murderous shatner-face wearing “shape” from it’s earlier movies is a solid idea. One can only wonder what cool ideas it could have given us (in comparison to the stuff we got when it went back to the Shape running about. Although I can appreciate leaving some things up to mystery, it does feel a bit like maybe the audience could have used a little bit more at times. There’s some stuff in here that seem real crazy for the time - although perhaps in a more modern year it’s really not all that far off. The semi-religious pitch of it gives it enough of a “whats going on” - but it still feels like it’s really missing the major why of it even though it kind of says why. Big sacrifices usually happen for a reason, and perhaps some of it is just the being so used to everything spelling it out now with “to get power” or whatever, but leaving that little bit in the air - as well as the ending that leaves a potential lot up in the air - could rub some the wrong way.
But things do sure still look good.
A thinking person could probably get a lot out of this if they really wanted to - digging around for ideas like if kids deserve it or something about cultures absorbing other cultures and stuff. Really though, it’s not a horrible movie but there’s far better out there that you would most likely prefer to watch. The fact i keeps using some scenes from the original Halloween on the televisions doesn’t help. It’s a fun concept that feels like it could do with a few more energetic actors and perhaps some character changes to really liven it up and make it something nicer than it is. It also probably wouldn’t have hurt it any to not have been under the Halloween name, where people would automatically dislike it on the principal of it not having Meyers in it regardless. Still, as it isn’t the best or the worst, I would wager most would be perfectly fine with having not seen it.