For those hording toilet paper

I just want to say that Carpenter and Howarth's soundtrack to this film and Cundy's cinematography remain clear highlights of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) for me. That and O'Herlihy as the gleefully sinister Cochran. Riddled with logic problems like why Cochran would still be manufacturing masks on the day of Halloween or need to even kill the forensic pathologist friend of Challis' considering the truth about Silver Shamrock being responsible for killing the children would be known rent this movie apart. Just the same Cochran chills the bones with his reasoning for killing the children:

It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in to sit by our fires of turf.

Halloween... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red with the blood of animals and children.

Daniel Challis: Sacrifices.

Conal Cochran: It was part of our world... our craft.

Daniel Challis: Witchcraft.

Conal Cochran: To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now... it's time again. In the end, we don't decide these things, you know; the planets do. They're in alignment, and it's time again. The world's going to change tonight, Doctor, I'm glad you'll be able to watch it. And... Happy Halloween.

I wrote this in July of 2008:

An old, harried store owner, clutching a specific Halloween mask, stumbles into a Northern California hospital claiming that a toy factory is "going to kill us all." This declaration remains buried in the mind of doc on call that night, Dr. Dan Challis(Tom Atkins, in his first starring role)who is certainly bothered when a mysterious man, in a business suit, enters the hospital killing the old patient by snapping his cranium before dousing himself with gasoline setting his body on fire, exploding the car in the parking lot. The dead old man's daughter, Ellie(..the sexy small-framed Stacey Nelkin)wishes to know why her father was killed in such a vicious..and suspicious..manner and convinces Challis to pursue the truth behind his claims of malicious intent regarding the mask in his possession. Tracing his previous steps indicate the old man was in Santa Mira, hometown to the Silver Shamrock toy factory whose chairman, Conal Cochran(Dan O'Herlihy, in a chilling performance, portraying him in a sly, all-smiles manner, unveiling his sinister side as the movie continues)is the major name in the Halloween mask business. Challis and Ellie find that Santa Mira is quite a silent, guarded place, where the citizens keep to themselves and the streets remain mostly quiet. Cameras are everywhere and a curfew keeps the townsfolk in doors at a certain part at night. They will soon find that Cochran is running a corrupt operation where the manufactured children masks being shipped to stores all across American contain a gadget(..carrying the Silver Shamrock logo)holding tiny particles from a stolen statue of Stonehenge which unleash bugs and snakes killing those kids who watch a specific commercial which houses a signal while wearing them over their heads. Will Challis and Ellie stop Cochran's plan or will all the children who tune in be wiped out as a part of an ancient Celtic form of sacrifice? 

I'll be the first to admit that this film had me biting my nails to the quick. That pulse-pounding score from Carpenter & Howarth really does the trick, the electronic beat moves the viewer along with a sense of urgency and builds dread for those who face potential danger. Writer-director Tommy Wallace benefits from his association with Carpenter and Debra Hill because Dean Cundy provides fabulous cinematography which gives this rather okay effort a stunning visual polish masking certain problems. Also, having Atkins as a very capable leading man doesn't hurt as well. This film was a real chance for Wallace and Atkins to show what they were made of. The flaws of the story are enormous, but the film's initial premise is indeed terrifying..the idea that a mask can cause insects and snakes to destroy your child while wearing it really gives you a reason to root for Atkins. Atkins gives you the kind of reactions anyone might have when facing such a bizarre crisis as the truths he uncovers. The whole Stonehenge part, how such creatures can come from a gadget on a mask, how these gadgets can wipe out Cochran's multitude of mandroids yet a certain one somehow survives(..this (wo)mandriod must've been a better model), why Cochran wouldn't just kill Challis right away instead of toying with him like a villain would James Bond, the logistical time-frame problems of kids in different time-zones..all these screenplay problems open up crater-size flaws which aggrevate. Yet, the spooky Santa Mira town really is quite an interesting backdrop which echoes Carpenter's "Escape from New York" as mandroids stationed throughout appear on the far side of the screen or from the shadows. This film has an unpleasant tone of menace regarding how the mandroids kill innocents who might so happen to compromise Cochran's operation(..such as how a forensics scientist is drilled through the skull, how one hobo's head is pulled from his neck). The climax, which does allow Challis a chance to strike back against his captors, has a rather grim end which might leave you sad or horrified. The mandroids, when damaged, resemble the android who is destroyed in "Alien".