Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

1982

Starring: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Michael Currie, Ralph Strait, Dan O'Herlihy

Directed By: Tommy Lee Wallace

From what I've looked up and read about on the lovely Internet about Halloween 3, it appears that producer John Carpenter wanted to steer the Halloween series away from slasher Michael Myers and onto more of a Twilight Zone themed film franchise. Yes after Halloween 3, Carpenter went to rehab for crack because he knew then that it wasn't fuel for his creative fire.

Halloween 3 is basically about a psychotic toymaker who plans to kill millions of innocent children worldwide on Halloween night through the use of scary masks. No this isn't an original version of Scream, it's Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. This has absolutely nothing to do with the first two Halloween movies, nor does it have anything to do with Michael Myers or anything else sensible. After setting out to figure out what's going on with these masks, Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins) traces all evidence to a Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy), who owns a toy company and uses some kind of retarded black magic in conjunciton with a transmitter embedded within the masks. Yes, he's got a transmitter in the masks and using black magic that will kill a bunch of children.

Now, I'm all for the mass slaughter of children in horror movies, but only if it's justified. You know, like Village of the Damned or something. Here it seems pointless and stupid. The simple titling of this movie with a Halloween moniker suggests that it will be good and right up there with the first two films. However, with the subtitle Season of the Witch, we get the feeling that someone is on crack and trying to make a quick buck at the sake of a worthy franchise. Why? To buy more crack. Had this simply been called Season of the Witch and didn't have the Halloween 3 title, it might be somewhat better of a movie. Wait, did I just say that? Ok, it wouldn't have made it better, but it at least wouldn't have besmirched the good name of the Halloween franchise.

Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and produced by John Carpenter, Halloween 3 lacks in every aspect that made the first two movies good. In fact, I can't say anything good about this movie. The plot device in using Halloween masks to kill a bunch of kids is basically ripped from a lost episode of Scooby Doo. I was just waiting at the end for "Old Man Smithers" to blame something on some meddling kids somewhere. This movie is just bad and I can't believe that Carpenter actually put his name on it. I'm thinking it was done at gunpoint or he owed someone a favor.

Director Tommy Lee Wallace has had a career of near hits but mostly misses. Almost all but two films have been made for TV movies or shows. Let's evaluate his directing resume for a moment: The New Adventures of Flipper, Baywatch, Max Headroom, Born Free, and Stephen King's IT. Ok, besides IT, he also directed the not-so-good-but-seemingly-OK Fright Night part 2. He had two decent flicks, one of which was made for TV, out of his entire career. Needless to say, he's been sort of the Chicago Cubs of directing. You know, he's came close twice, but his career is filled with disappointment after disappointment.

With that said about the directing in this film, the acting is actually worse. The casting director on this film must have had a personal vendetta to resolve with Tommy Lee Wallace and John Carpenter, because the actors in this film absolutely suck. I'd go into more detail, but no one from the cast has ever done anything worth a shit, so I'm not going to even bother. Let's just say that I've seen better acting from ABC AfterSchool Specials.

As far as the rest of the movie: ie- special fx, editing, writing, etc... it's all CRAP. Yes, that's right... crap. No redeeming quality here would make you want to watch this movie once let alone, more than once. However, I watched it once more just to do this review. Being drunk or under the influence of some mind altering substance may have helped, but I'm sure 90 percent of the audience in 1982 was sober, so that's how I viewed this monstrocity car wreck of a film. Looking back, I should have got a complimentary bottle of Tequila with my rental to help numb the pain.

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