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philosoraptor42
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
I was going to say that this movie has the most boring poster ever, but then looking for an image of the movie poster I came across these other rather cool images:
Clearly at least some of these are fan made. The main one seems to be the dull one right at the top of this review, which I think is pretty unappealing. Perhaps laser beams from the eyes is kind of overselling it, but this movie really is a lot more creepy and a lot more fun than its reputation and the most common DVD cover would lead you to expect...
Admittedly it looks like they cranked this one out pretty quickly. It was released just one year after the previous film and clearly with a lower budget than the previous instalments. This movie gets a lot of hate and part of the reason for that is that it doesn't actually feature Michael Myers who is very much the main focus of the Halloween series. That being said, it would be ridiculous if they brought Myers back after the last film. Dr. Loomis was blown up and Michael Myers was destroyed by fire. It felt to me like there wouldn't be enough of Myers left to return anyway.
I must admit there is a sense that perhaps Halloween III might actually be related to the previous two films when we start off seemingly with multiple Michael Myers figures. By that I mean that we start with several calm figures who seem to have nothing on their mind but cold blooded murder. They aren't wearing masks, they are wearing suits. In the initial scene, a man is running away from these homicidal, super-strong, calm and unemotional psycho-killers and it turns out he is carrying a halloween mask...
As a result we now realise that the constant adverts for Silver Shamrock halloween masks have some kind of malign intent behind them, but we still do not know what it is. Meanwhile a tv report claims that one of the stones from stonehenge has mysteriously disappeared.
When another of the unstoppable killers turns up at the hospital and finishes off the job on the man who was running away before, the doctor at the hospital decides to help the bereaved daughter to work out what happened.
There's a definite John Carpenter feel to this movie. Even if he didn't personally direct it, his fingerprints are all over this thing. The acting isn't quite up to scratch, but the atmosphere is thick and there are some seriously creepy moments here. And when the background of the unstoppable killers is revealed and their connection to the widely marketed masks, things really start to become fun.
I know this is going to have people side-eyeing me, but I have to say that this is my favourite of the Halloween movies so far. I don't even think it's because I've seen the central slasher-killer genre played out and done to death in my Friday the 13th retrospective. I saw "Halloween" before I saw any "Friday the 13th" movies and I still preferred "Halloween II". I think it is simply that this feels more like the John Carpenter movies that I love. Sure, it's utterly crazy but it's also one hell of a lot of fun. Also Dan O'Herlihy is absolutely fantastic as the head of the Silver Shamrock company. (Most will recognise Dan O'Herlihy as the boss of OCP in the Robocop movies.)
I'm not going to hate on slasher movies. I watched through the Friday the 13th movies and really liked some of those. But this was a real horror movie. It brought together a bunch of creepy elements, it had some neat effects and it had an awesome central villain with a real personality. It's not perfect: the acting isn't great, the 'romance' element seems forced, the direction is unpolished, but this is still a better sequel than "Halloween" ever deserved and arguably the best sequel it ever got.
B+
