Halloween Day

 

I put off watching Season of the Witch until the 31st while many of the others remained in rotation throughout the month. I just wanted this for my Halloween afternoon movie. And I did just that. In the past Season of the Witch wasn't always really a preferable Halloween Day film. But I like it as that now. But after it ended today, I thought to myself: this was always a great July Saturday afternoon film when I watched it before my "blog beginnings". I might have mentioned this in the past on the blog, but my very first Halloween franchise film was actually Season of the Witch! Yep, I borrowed a VHS tape from my uncle that had "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) on it, and I wanted to watch that out of curiosity. And to add to this history of my life: my very first viewing of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) was in color! That was the version my uncle had. So Season of the Witch just happened to be on the videotape. So I didn't have that disappointment in the film not featuring Michael Myers, because I watched this before any of the other films. Maybe that was a good thing, too!

I was out walking in the park when my daughter asked me what I would be watching Sunday afternoon. She was really interested in if I would be getting in a viewing of Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) today. I told her that I think I'll skip that this year. I noticed a lot of the horror YouTubers I follow are (or have already done during the last ten or so hours) doing watchalongs of some of the Halloween series. To be honest, after watching the "Color Corrected" version of Halloween (1978) from the recently released 4K Blu-Ray set from Shout! Factory early Sunday morning, I am just absolutely burned out. I hate being burned out, but I have listened to so many views on top of views of Halloween films that I need to just think of anything but Michael Myers or Laurie Strode or Dr. Loomis. Once again, though, Loomis' speech about Michael Myers to Sheriff Bracket left my eyes locked onto Pleasence as every time before. My interest was on how the quality of the film looked, to be honest. I can be honest: it is as beautiful to look at as ever before, but whatever "color corrections" were made, I'm just not the obsessive that really noticed the intricacies of what the color was before anything else was done to this print. I actually purchased this particular three-disc set for the extended version and TV opening presented back when television premieres were a big deal. Even though not recognized as canon, having the added scenes for television (I just love that they were done near when Halloween II (1981) was in production) was always a fascinating byproduct of capitulation for films to be released for families on regular television as opposed to mostly adult cable television where they didn't need "filler content" to replace what either isn't allowed or time availability to fill two hours. I just like having an alternative version in my collection. I did feel green in the lawns and trees popped off screen but California is very lush and lovely in this part where Halloween was shot, but that could always be the case. Still, it looks fantastic on a big screen, that Panavision stretched wide.

I picked up the special edition of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) on the Shout! Factory a few months ago. It was a release from a few years ago, going for a price I couldn't pass up since it was getting a big 4K treatment from the same company this October. One big problem I have with the release is no captions/subtitles since I always watch films with the on screen. Dialogue is important to me, even if I'm not listening to the film necessarily. I was watching the film play out on my old widescreen DVD, the Universal release I picked up from Circuit City (yes, that long ago) because it does have the subtitles.

Seeing Dr. Challis' life fall apart while trying to get Ellie to safety (though, she is no longer the Ellie he once knew her to be...Cochran made sure to provide him a close duplicate, very realistic but without the personality) and unable to convince his wife to get rid of the Silver Shamrock masks...his priorities are questionable. Yes, he got laid and avoided time with his kids, but even if he discovered Cochran's plans -- laid out to him by Cochran as every Bond villain or comic book villain does -- and got out of the factory alive (despite all the androids at Cochran's disposal), he's probably lost his job and may even lose his kids to the "signal" that unleashes the killer creepy crawlies from the device on the masks. I remain bewildered at the plotting at the end, where the Ellie android waits to try to kill Challis after they leave the factory and not stop him from dropping the mask devices with the Stonehenge properties all over Cochran and the machinery and tech used to monitor Santa Mira, the rooms of the building and surrounding on the outside and send the signal out across the country. It was part of the plan, of course. Challis kills Cochran, destroys their machinery, gets out of the factory, and avoids Ellie's android from killing him. But all of that could have been halted if the Ellie android kills Challis when he first locates her in the room containing her. And why would Cochran even bother having an Ellie duplicate android in the first place? If Challis is to die in the cell containing him, why would Cochran even need to bother with creating an Ellie android? Yeah, I should just turn my brain off. Even my DVD print looks great, though. I think I'll get to the Blu-Ray eventually. I might return to the old way of watching these movies: not just scheduling them for October by the end when I'm wore out.