| Halloween III: Season of the Witch Released: 1982 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Witch/Warlock/Cultist Nuts and Bolts: Every child in America can’t wait to get their hands on a genuine Silver Shamrock Halloween mask. But are these masks all that they’re cracked up to be? They couldn’t possibly be a demonic tool used by a greedy industrialist in an effort to offer a sacrifice to an ancient Celtic God could they? Dan Challis only has six days until Halloween to expose the macabre plan. Summary: Halloween III represents the third installment of what was originally intended to be an anthology series focusing on spooky events that occur on Halloween. An evil industrialist named Conal Cochran steals one of the stone slabs of Stonehenge of Salibusry Plain England and uses mineral deposits from the slab towards his own dastardly ends. (Spooky huh?) Cochran is also the president and CEO of Silver Shamrock Novelties, the largest toy manufacturer in the world specializing in Halloween masks and based in the fictitious town of Santa Mira in Northern California. Cochran uses his knowledge of Druidic lore and the Stonehenge minerals to craft masks that turn people into squirming piles of bugs and snakes. It is his intention to have all the trick or treaters across the globe don his special masks at a pre-planned time and place. According to Cochran, it represents not only his life's work but the greatest prank of all time to boot. Enforcing Cochran's goals is an army of human looking robots that looks suspiciously a lot like the Smith agents from the Matrix. However, one of Cochran's buyers begins to get wind of the nefarious plot and tries to warn others. Shop owner Harry Grimbridge finds his way into a couny hospital where he meets Doctor Dan Challis (Tom Atkins). Before passing out on a hospital table, Harry utters a chilling warning. "They'll kill us all!" But before he can clarify his prophecy he is murdered by a well dressed man (robot) who crushes Harry's skull. Not only is the robot agent a cold blooded murderer but on TOP of that, he wipes his blood-stained gloves on the nice hospital room curtains! What a dick! The agent winds up dousing himself in gasoline and setting himself on fire. The only evidence left at the crime scene...a Silver Shamrock Halloween mask. Harry Grimbridge's daughter Ellie comes to the hospital to identify her father's body. She meets Doctor Challis and Dan tries to console Ellie over her loss. Dan and Ellie begin to suspect a connection between Harry's death and Silver Shamrock Novelties. The two decide to investigate and they travel to the company town of Santa Mira. The entire city is under the authoritative thumb of Conal Cochran and just about everyone works for Silver Shamrock in some capacity. Dan and Ellie operate under the clever guise of a married couple and rent a hotel room. They meet Conal Cochran who invites them on a tour of the Silver Shamrock Facility. At this point, the movie becomes more like an episode of Scooby Doo than a Horror flick. Ellie is kidnapped and Dan discovers the villain's nefarious plot. He is captured and tied to a wooden chair at a special office in the facility. In classic villain-like fashion, Cochran explains how he plans on using subliminal messaging via his crappy masks to make all little kids tune in to a special give-away being aired at 9:00 pm October 31st on all local television channels. At which point they will transform into the afore mentioned bugs and snakes. It is Cochran's design to use the death of such a massive amount of children as a sacrifice to the old Celtic god Samhain. Dan manages to escape but unfortunately Ellie is killed (off screen) and replaced with a robot duplicate. Challis succeeds in destroying many of Cochran's laboratory systems but it proves to be too little too late. The Silver Shamrock give-away commercial airs promptly at 9:00 pm Halloween night. It is assumed that all children wearing Silver Shamrock masks who are watching the commercial at the time die. Acting/Dialogue: Nothing much to say here. The acting is decent enough I suppose but the dialogue is rahter uninspired. Tom Atkins does a fair enough job as Dan Challis, but due to the flawed nature of the person in question, he fails to endear you to the character. Dan is a womanizer and an alcoholic. Not exactly a character you find yourself routing for. The satellite characters in this turkey really make your stomach churn however. Not the least of which includes an overy helpful and verbose gas station attendant, a gregarious motel owner with a haughty Irish brogue and the insanely annoying Kupfer family who looks like something that fell straight out of the Tom Arnold Show. The only characters that I found to be interesting in any way were Conal Cocrhan, Teddy the forensics specialist and an angry drunk who gets his head ripped off by the robot agents. Gore: The gore in this is minimal but nonetheless quite captivating. We get to see an old man get his eyes gouged out and his skull crushed. I've already mentioned the excruciating head-pulling incident with the bum. We also have the suggestive pleasure of not-quite seeing a power drill going into somebody's skull. Very nice indeed. And of course there's that whole 'bug' thing. Guilty Pleasures: Sorry guys, no boobies in this one. However, seeing that little batstard Buddy Kupfer turning into a wriggling mass of beetles and worms was pretty fucking cool! The Good: There's a pretty solid film score by John Carpenter, typical of most of his 80s movie projects. There's also a neat little scene where Dan Challis is watching a clip from the first Halloween on television. That's pretty much all of the GOOD that came from this. And I think I'm being pretty fucking generous even with that. The Bad: I can't even BEGIN to go into the lengths and breadths of how bad this piece of shit is. First question that crests our mind is: Where the fuck is Michael Myers?!? Sorry folks, no Michael. This film is the only sequel in the franchise that exists outside of the established Michael Myers continuity. Next on the list...that annoying fucking JINGLE! Argghh! They play that stupid Silver Shamrock jingle about 900 times throughout the course of this shit-fest! Sung to the tune of London Bridges, it croons out the following wrist-slitting lyrics. Six more days till Halloween Halloween Halloween. Six more days till Halloween, Sil-ver Shamrock Carpenter should pimp-slap his wife Debra Hill for ever conceptualizing this piece of rancid puke. The motive of the villain is one of the all-time worst I've ever seen. This old guy dedicates his entire life and corporate resources towards the goal of a global prank. Cochran also goes into detail about how he is a witch and he needs to sacrifice the children in order to "...better control the environment." That excuse is just as lame as his "...joke on the children" plot. Then there's the matter of the robot army. How dumb is that? I'm sorry but as far as I'm concerned keep the bloody robots in the Sci-Fi flicks where they belong. From start to finish, this entire project seems rushed and disjointed. If given the choice between watching a re-airing of Halloween III: Season of the Witch or undergoing reverse circumcision, guess which one I'm choosing? Great Lines: "Where do you want to sleep Doctor Challis?" "That's a dumb question Mrs. Grimbridge." --Ellie speaking to Doctor Dan inside a motel room in Santa Mira. Overall Rating: 2 out of 10 severed heads. The only saving grace in this chunk of shit is the Carpenter score. Otherwise I would have given it a rating of a 1. Unfortunately, I know for a fact that there really ARE bigger shit-fests adorning the Horror aisle at the local Blockbuster Video. |
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