"They're Going to Kill Us. All of Us." - Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

There is just a different appreciation for the horror of the past than when films of time first came out in theaters. Carpenter and many of his peers didn’t have immediate hits on release. Kids like me when entering our teens, happening across recordings off of cable, in the late 80s and early 90s, who couldn’t see R-rated horror upon release got to pop a VHS tape in our cheap VCRs, borrowing copies from friends or relatives (in my case, the oft-brought up uncle, my horror and sci-fi influence), late nights and summer days when the parents were busy worrying about bills and work (as many of us are now) spent watching them for the first time, then jazzing to repeat viewings, multiple times because this was opening our eyes to the genre’s many myriad subs. 

I remember the very first time I watched Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). It was a Saturday night in the mid 90s. It was on a videotape alongside Night of the Living Dead (1968) (the colored version my uncle must have copied off of some cable channel, I wish I could remember off the top…). I wasn’t anticipating “killer masks” doing in a kid and his family with bugs and snakes, a novelty saleswoman fooling around with the special metal label (and its Stonehenge “properties”) and having her face “distorted” by some “magical current”, and a particular character turned into a robot trying to execute the lead played by Tom Atkins (who really never had the lead in a film like this afterward, returning to scene-stealing supporting parts in B-movie classics like “Maniac Cop” and “Night of the Creeps”), not stopping despite losing mechanical limbs tailored by prosthetic human-like skin. It was a lot to take in as a teen of 13 or so. But it was awesome. As an adult, my mind sort of kicked in and I started perhaps questioning the plot a bit too much. I was like, “Wait, how did they get the Stonehenge stone into the factory? Or, “Wait, why would Conal Cochran dare allow Atkins’ Challis to live, put his operations at risk when the goal of killing children with his masks during Samhain was such a priority, put up such effort to make a robot dupe of Ellie when he was expecting Challis to die in the locked room with the mask on, and how does the signal still feed to all the television sets if Challis is able to destroy the center of operations, its leader, and staff?” Those questions started to nag. And they don’t just go away.

Challis is the film’s hero despite being a bit of a lush and absent father, abandoning everything to go on an investigation with Ellie because her dad was killed in hospital…why was this so important to him? Yes, the film is more of a means to an end…it wants to build to the unthinkable conclusion, present this diabolical monster in the friendly guise of O’Herlihy (who can also give you a mean snarl and turn on a dime from seemingly cheery and warm to cold and heartless…he was masterful casting and one of the main reasons I keep watching this film) who seems to be unstoppable because his capitalist operations remains on its face innocuous and not at all sinister (despite the creepy town that seems quite Pod People), and then give us hope in the most unlikeliest of heroes (already mentioned flawed Challis). 

Warlock gets to show his face after being Michael Myers in the previous Halloween installment, punched by Challis in the stomach, his inner mechanics freaking the doc out as yellow goo “blood” blobs from the mouth. I think a lot of the appeal to me is the ear and eye candy. Carpenter and Howarth give you a seductively sinister and adrenaline-pumping synth score and Cundy’s widescreen space captures a lot…the night has its threat, many try to run away from, talk themselves out of, or attempt futilely to fight off Cochrane’s mechanized henchmen in their business suits who pop up behind alleys, circle around doors, emerge or eerily stand in silence in the corners of the screen, and creep down halls all designed and given orders to kill anyone that dares to foil Halloween nights “big giveaway”.

I’m sure I have written before how I felt about how the henchmen reminded me of Myers. How they walk in frame, arms and darkened silhouettes intimidating in their walks, total intentions to eliminate those marked for death (primarily Silver Shamrock’s best selling novelties salespeople or anyone who might ruin Cochran’s plans), with Carpenter and Howarth’s jarring score intimating that at any moment they might surface in the space of Cundy’s camera. There is just something about the night when Cundy frames scenes as opposed to anyone else. Add that score, and all of it pops off the screen. I can remember that being my key takeaway even when I was younger. I could recall just being absorbed into the quality of the look and sound, I was pulled right into it. Those nagging logistical problems aside, I understood totally why I could easily watch the film again despite its flaws. Cundy or Carpenter didn’t write this but they certainly contributed to what makes it work. Yes, there is the phrase that even if you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig. If that is the case with “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” then it is quite a prize pig.