Movie Review: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

96 min.



What Am I Doing With This Movie
I’m convinced some pretty cool, nerdy people work in programming at HD movie channels such as HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc., because every once in a while they sneak in horror gems such as this— and in the past, The Gate, Night of the Creeps, From Beyond— movies that studios will probably never see the use in releasing on Blu-Ray. Thank you, nerds. I know you’re out there, and I thank you for using your power for good.

What Dude I Heard This Movie Is God Awful
This is the movie nobody asked for— a Halloween sequel with no Michael Myers in it, or connection to him whatsoever. You see, after Halloween II, John Carpenter and Debra Hill decided fuck Michael Myers, he’s not that great a character in the first place, let’s just produce a movie a year in an ongoing Halloween series, where each year we’ll have another unique serial killer do something fucked up on Halloween night. It was a clever concept, but the cards were stacked against them from the start.

Since the movie-going public craved Michael Myers, this movie had to be better than or equal to the first Halloween movie for them to accept it. Such a feat would be near impossible without Carpenter or a similar established talent writing or directing. Their choice of Tommy Lee Wallace, who’s previous film experience was only in writing a mediocre sequel to The Amityville Horror, was pretty dumb.

As to be expected, this film was not better than Halloween. The mere fact that there was no Michael Myers made the movie seem all the worse to movie-goers, when in actuality, this is a pretty good, sparingly flawed horror movie that would probably have been received well if it wasn’t released as a Halloween sequel.

What’s Good
- The opening titles are phenomenal, and one of my favorites of all time:

(Youtube does not do them justice at all, they are incredibly vibrant and eerie in HD. The colors are a hell of a lot brighter, and the flashing at the end is intense. I’d suck a dick to see this in a movie theater.)

- Tom Atkins. I could watch this guy in anything. If you loved him in Night of the Creeps, here he is in a starring role (albeit a less over-the-top performance) but he kicks ass.

- The commercials in the movie for halloween masks are fantastic. The jingle is infectious. If they sound familiar, Richard Kelly used them in Donnie Darko.

- Good pace. Though this is a cheesy, stupid horror movie, I did find myself getting interested in the story, which is an impressive feat given how ludicrous the events in this movie are.

- The female lead is hot. She's like if you fused together that tough chick that was on a few seasons of Saved By The Bell and Shelley Duvall. She's not a good actress, but she's fun to look at.

- Unusual and, quite memorable gore. There aren't a lot of gory moments, but they're all pretty great.

What's Bad
Preposterous third act that took me out of the movie completely. While the actually ending is pretty good, the climax is atrocious. I mean, it's enjoyably bad in parts, but fuck, I'm talking plot holes galore, and absolutely no suspense to the climax. That's really the only thing that hurts this movie, which would probably be a 4 1/2 if it weren't for it. That other 1/2 unaccounted for would be how badly it starts after the pristine opening credits.

What I Learned Watching This Movie
- Just because a movie has 'witch' in the title doesn't mean there has to be a witch in it.

- Doctors don't really have to go to work per se. They can leave the hospital whenever they want, and for days at a time even.

- Robots bleed orange.