Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

To say that the Halloween film franchise has been a very mixed bag with very debatable highs and lows would be putting it mildly.  Probably the blackest sheep of the family is Halloween III: Season of the Witch.  After burning Michael Myers alive in the second film, John Carpenter decided to take the franchise into an anthology format.  Each new entry would be generally unrelated to one another except for sharing a Halloween theme.  It failed, dismally.  Does that mean the film is particularly bad?  Well, that’s complicated.  The non-sequel was panned by critics and fans alike, and there is true reason to that.  However, before I go further, let’s layout the plot first.

Dr. Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins) is a physician at a northern California hospital.  One October night, a man named Harry Cambridge is carted into the emergency room in hysterics.  Grasping a Silver Shamrock Halloween mask and screaming “They’re going to kill us all”.  Naturally, he seems to have lost his sanity, but when Harry is murdered in his hospital bed later that night by a mysterious man (Dick Warlock) who shortly thereafter enters into a car & blows himself sky high, Dr. Challis becomes very curious as to Harry’s claims.  His interest is furthered when Harry’s daughter, Ellie, tells Challis what drove her father into hysterics.  Harry Cambridge was investigating the origins of the Silver Shamrock masks, and to why no orders were being taken for the following year.  Daniel & Ellie trek to Santa Mira (the home of the Silver Shamrock Company) to find the answers they seek.  They are horrified when they discover that the company owner, Conal Cochrane (Dan O’Herlihy), has implanted microchips, partially made from mysterious Stonehenge rocks, into the masks, and when the Silver Shamrock commercial plays with its special jingle, it will kill countless numbers of children across the country in a horrific manner.  As the night goes on, time draws short, and Daniel Challis must attempt to thwart Cochrane’s evil, sinister, dreadful plan.  Through relentless android assassins (who all look like Dick Warlock), a treacherous factory, and more, Dr. Challis desperately races against time to stop this living nightmare from happening.

This film is good, but not great.  It has a tense and suspenseful story that plays out with some shocking visuals and lots of android gore (they ooze yellow fluid).  On the other hand, the score by Carpenter & Alan Howarth isn’t one to remember, and the endless and prominent usage of the Silver Shamrock jingle is more annoying than any commercial you may ever encounter.  Director Tommy Lee Wallace doesn’t have much personal style, and certainly makes the visuals feel very dull.  Also, several of the sets and props seem budget-starved. and the $2.5 million budget re-enforces that statement.  The low grade production values really damage the film’s potential for being taken seriously.  If the film had double that budget, perhaps such things would’ve looked better, but it wouldn’t have saved the film.  There are simply far more fundamental problems with Halloween III that could’ve been salvaged with the right person at the helm.

Now, Tom Atkins puts in a strong, well-rounded performance here.  He shows the desperation of Challis well, and even more so, the intense fear at the film’s finale.  It’s a good performance, but at times, you may feel as though he’s out-of-place here.  Atkins is a big, tall guy, and having him play a less than physically capable man comes off as awkward on screen.  And while he does well with what he’s given, there’s not much of a character on the page for him to inhabit.  Challis doesn’t have a particularly distinctive personality to really distinguish him in the story.  This is pretty common with every character.

For instance, Dan O’Herlihy does a decent job as the insidious and sadistic Cochrane, but it’s not a great performance.  Granted, he’s convincingly evil, but barely more than that.  We are given a preview of Cochrane’s intended fate for the youth of the country, and it is truly shocking and horrifying.  Unfortunately, that alone doesn’t amplify the character of Cochrane.  He needed to be more devilish, more demonic, more purely evil, but O’Herlihy’s performance does not reflect that.  His motives are horrific, but the man himself acts exceptionally casual.  He doesn’t exude any emotion at all – no anger, no contempt, no vindictiveness.  It’s a rather dry performance.  Considering his motives, one would expect a more driven, more passionately evil character to come through on screen.  A casual evil can entirely work, but it needs more under the surface to make it truly disturbing.  One part of it is the script, but the other is the direction.  O’Herlihy might’ve been capable of more, but Wallace does nothing to motivate a stronger performance.  Basically, there’s no true depth to the performances.  You can look back at the wonderfully subtle work of Donald Pleasance in John Carpenter’s 1978 film to see what dramatic depth truly is, and how a great actor can inhabit a role well with the aid of a talented director.

I personally feel that this movie had potential, and if someone were to be bold enough to revamp it into a modern day production, I think it could meet that potential.  These days, one never knows what Hollywood will want to pillage next.  The premise mixing mystical forces with a science fiction tinge sounds great to me, but wouldn’t be an entirely new.  I simply believe that, with a proper budget in the hands of a talented director and an updated script, Season of the Witch could be an exponentially better film.  As it is, we’ve got a low budget B grade horror film with a stain of spite.

So, in the end, we are left with an intensely fearful cliffhanger as Challis screams at the television station over the phone to shut off the final commercial.  Thrilling and suspenseful finale, and it should stick with you for sometime.  As I said at the start, we have a mixed bag.  The story worked, and the film had it’s frightening & thrilling moments.  However, the production faltered.  Tommy Lee Wallace isn’t a real visionary director, and the score was truly sub par for both Carpenter & Howarth (who would do great scores for the next three Halloween films).  There are a couple of films I like just based on their potential despite the film not realizing that potential.  I believe this is one of them.  I can enjoy certain elements of it, but Halloween III: Season of the Witch is not even a cult classic.  In the least, I suggest checking it out just so you can make your opinion of it instead of blindly buying into the scorn of decades past.

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Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 4 is probably the one sequel which most closely matches the original.  I would attribute this to a few factors.  The most significant, maybe, is that it was before each new film tried to introduce some new twist to the story.  Some new element to either explain The Shape, or just utilize a gimmick to sell the film as something supposedly worth seeing.  It stays closer to the spirit of John Carpenter’s original film, focusing on a simple stalk-and-slash idea coupled with relatable characters.

The film picks up ten years after the events of the first and second film.  Despite developments in later, contradictory sequels, Jamie Lee Curtis’ character of Laurie Strode died in a car accident, leaving behind a daughter – Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris).  She is taken in by another family, and raised alongside their older daughter Rachel Caruthers (Ellie Cornell).  Meanwhile, Michael Myers (George P. Wilbur) has been in a comatose state, and Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) remains persistent in his belief that Myers is indeed evil incarnate.  As Halloween approaches, The Shape stays dormant no longer, and Loomis must take chase of him before he claims new victims.  It is clear to the obsessed doctor that Jamie is to be his ultimate target, but it will be a Halloween night caked in blood before the horror is over.

After the fallout from the unsuccessful Halloween III, Moustapha Akkad wanted to bring back Michael Myers to revitalize the franchise.  After all, it was essentially his only meal ticket.  Akkad only produced five other (unsuccessful) films outside of this franchise in his 75 year life.  Thankfully, this was a solid sequel.  Nothing that tried to shake up the idea of the franchise, just inject new life into it, and be as faithful to the style and vibe of the original.  Dwight H. Little directs, and does a fine job at it.  It’s very difficult to rival Carpenter’s film, but Halloween 4 doesn’t try to be superior.  It only tries to be a respectful continuation, and it does succeed.  Little focuses more on atmosphere and suspense than gore.  While there is a decent amount of it, it’s not obscene.  It’s enough to give the film the needed deadly horror aspect, but stays away from being a splatter fest.  There’s a constant tension through the main meat of the film with little tinges here and there to keep the momentum going.  This allows the film to flow at a decent pace; not allowing it to grind to a halt anywhere, or get wound up too soon.  Dwight Little’s name has regularly appeared as a director on television series like Bones, Castle, Prison Break, and Dollhouse.  I’m always glad to see that his talent has taken him far with a steady career.

Alan Howarth’s score also helps to keep a strong connection with the first film.  The themes are slightly rearranged, but are more similar to those of the first film than the overly-synthesizer themes of Halloween II.  For me, that is a welcomed return to form.

The cast and acting of The Return of Michael Myers is indeed solid.  Everyone holds their own weight, and convey a realistic array of emotions.  The young Danielle Harris really stands out.  Where a lot of young actors tend to come off as annoying or phony, she showcases such wonderful innocence and vulnerability.  An audience can’t help but truly feel for her all the way through.  Danielle has gained a long, successful, and seasoned career birthed from this performance.  She’s helped along quite a bit by Ellie Cornell who is very likeable as the loving big sister, but also proves to have a lot of strength.  As Rachel, she doesn’t take anything lying down when she discovers her supposed boyfriend messing around with another girl.  As the film progresses, she’s put right into the thick of the harrowing danger with Jamie.  She maintains better courage under fire than Laurie did in the first two films, and certainly wins over the heart of the audience being Jamie’s sisterly protector.

Donald Pleasance, as always, is excellent.  He continued to bring a real credibility and dramatic weight to the series.  Some actors, if delivering a lot of the dialogue he had to, might come off as inauthentic or laughable.  With Pleasance, he had the talent to make you believe every word.  He gave it all the urgency and consequence of the grave.  The emotion in his eyes, the fear and the pain, transcend through the screen, and hit you deep within.  Where in the first film it was a weary doctor uncertain what Myers was entirely capable of, Loomis is now a man afraid of reliving the nightmare.  He has seen the carnage before, and is intensely adamant about preventing it this time.  With this in mind, Pleasance delivers a much less reserved Loomis.  He hasn’t time for reason or diplomatic talk.  Evil incarnate is loose in Haddonfield, and he needs people to take immediate action.

Beau Starr takes up the mantle of Sheriff of Haddonfield as Ben Meeker, and has a much more assertive and take charge personality than Leigh Brackett did.  Starr makes Sheriff Meeker a fine counterbalance to Loomis’ almost unhinged psychology.  He shows authority and urgency while remaining focused and calm.  And while I stand firm in that Nick Castle was the best Myers, George Wilbur does an admirable job, but he doesn’t get much chance to show his movement.  He tends to more just appear out of nowhere, figuratively, than stalk people over long distances.  However, he does seem less stiff than Dick Warlock’s interpretation (which I’m not very fond of as I prefer a more fluid Shape).  The rest of the cast, as I said, hold their own very well.  They create a solid and realistic community of characters that you don’t second guess their authenticity.  This is also due to Alan McElroy’s solid screenplay – writing intelligent characters with depth who don’t fall into the slasher film formula.  They make the choices that any one of us would in those situations.  When you would run away, they run away.  They don’t make stupid decisions or take foolish courses of action.  They may act, sometimes, out of desperation making not the best choices, but there is a realistic motive behind them.  Amazingly, McElroy wrote this script in eleven days, just before the writer’s strike of 1987 began.  Take it from me, a screenwriter myself, that’s not easy to do.

Again, I feel this is a very worthwhile sequel.  It does more to honor John Carpenter’s original film than any other sequel (or remake) in the franchise.  It retains a similar look and cinematography, despite the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and really stays true to Carpenter’s story and form of suspense.  It cannot rival that 1978 masterpiece, but Halloween 4 respectably holds its own.  While John might not agree considering his feelings on the franchise, from a fan’s point of view, I feel it is respectful.  After this, the films began to become either more bizarre, watered down, or just plain cheesy.  Overall, I believe this entry in the series is about as appropriate and proper as you could get.  I’ve never cared for Halloween II, feeling it suffered from seemingly lower production values, a badly reworked score, thinner characters, and less-than-inspiring direction.  So, with that mindset, Halloween 4 comes off as the better sequel, and the one I would’ve bettered expected to follow the 1978 film.  It’s not as intensely haunting or fascinating as John Carpenter’s Halloween, and quite as brilliantly shot (a 2.35:1 aspect ratio for this movie may have changed that sentiment more), but I believe it was more of a step in the right direction than anything before or after it.

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Happy Halloween!!

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October 31, 2011Happy Halloween!!By Canadian Bald Guy

Share this:TwitterFacebookDiggStumbleUponRedditLinkedInLike this:Like3 bloggers like this post.This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 8:00 am and tagged with Halloween and posted in Halloween.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.« Bald Guyz for bald guysSo much to talk about…so little time. »One Response to “Happy Halloween!!”trainsnherons
October 31st, 2011 at 6:58 pm

trainsnherons reblogged this on Deep Within and commented: Oh…but I’ve been goofing around all day…wish I had time to catch up on this blog. One of my favorites! Love the photo

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Google team hand carves the Google Logo for Halloween

  Posted on October 31, 2011 by Glenn Thomas in Featured, Tech & Gadgets

From Google’s Blog:

“To celebrate Halloween this year, the doodle team wanted to capture that fascinating transformation that takes place when carving a pumpkin. Instead of picking up a few pumpkins from the grocery store, however, we decided to work on six giant pumpkins, specially delivered from nearby Half Moon Bay (some weighing well over 1,000 pounds). What you see is a timelapse video of the approximately eight hours we spent carving in the middle of our Mountain View, Calif. campus.”

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