Franchise Review, Part Eleven: Halloween III - Season of the Witch (1982)

Writer's Note: Warning- the following section contains flashing images- as does the movie, for that matter- which have been known to cause seizures- view at your own risk! 🎃💀👽

No more days till Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...
No more days till Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...
Silver Shamrock! 

It's time! Time for the big finale. Halloween has come. All you lucky kids with Silver Shamrock masks, gather 'round your TV set, put on your masks and watch! All witches, all skeletons, all Jack-O'-Lanterns, gather 'round and watch! 

Watch the magic pumpkin! Watch!

With Halloween II having finally put Michael Myers out of the picture- for the time being, at least- John Carpenter and Debra Hill set their sights on another type of Halloween-inspired movie franchise. The idea was a solid one: an ongoing anthology series, with a new story each year, all set on or around the holiday of Halloween. 

Carpenter and Hill were able to convince financiers and producers Moustapha Akkad, Irwin Yablans and Dino De Laurentiis to participate, in spite of their reluctance to do a Michael Myers-less Halloween film. However, at the time, their fear of doing one without the core team behind the original two movies outweighed such hesitance, so the idea was green-lit, nonetheless.

Carpenter recruited a writer he'd always admired, Nigel Kneale, author of the famed Quatermass series, to do the screenplay. His intent was to do a more psychological-based sci-fi/horror film, with an emphasis on inducing dread and fear, not gory shocks. However, De Laurentiis was not a fan of the result and ordered more in the way of a horror element, complete with graphic violence and the like. 

As a direct result, though the final script used a lot of Kneale's ideas, he requested his name be removed from the script altogether after seeing what it eventually became over the course of several rewrites. Stepping in to take up the slack and do the directing honors, as well as re-write the script, was Tommy Lee Wallace, a long-time associate of Carpenter and Hill's, who had worked on most of their projects to date.

Wallace had been originally offered Halloween II, but passed, not particularly interested in rehashing the whole Michael Myers thing. With this film, having free reign to do something new and basically do what he wanted, he chomped at the bit and signed on immediately. 

Though he would come to regret the choice somewhat, given the initial reaction to the movie, the film did give him a directing career that later culminated in the much better-received TV mini-series IT, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, and the moderately successful sequel to Fright Night. He also wrote the screenplay for the excellent Amityville II: The Possession, which many horror fans regard as the best in the series. 

Much of the same crew that worked on the first two Halloween movies and various other Carpenter films were involved in this film as well, notably cinematographer Dean Cundey, whose rich work here is amongst his best, IMHO.

His use of the widescreen format and the way he frames things, particularly in regards to revealing certain visual information in the film (i.e. the way the phones are bugged and the presence of cameras everywhere), is very impressive and went on to inspire many filmmakers in the years to come, just like his other efforts with Carpenter before this. 

The plot-line to the film is admittedly bonkers. We open on an old man, running for his life from a gang of well-dressed men in suits- shades of the infamous Men in Black, of UFO lore. After successfully evading them in the short-term, he collapses in a nearby gas station and the attendant takes him to the local hospital, where he is sedated and treated.

Cue another man in a suit, who comes into the hospital, kills the old man in a decidedly unorthodox fashion and promptly goes to his car, pours gasoline on himself and strikes a match, blowing up himself and the car in one fell swoop. 

Stunned, the hospital staff calls it in, with no one sure quite what they just witnessed. Incidentally, one of the men in the suits is none other than stuntman Dick Warlock, who met with a similarly fiery fate in the previous Halloween, where he played Michael Myers. 

The next day, the old man's daughter, Ellie (cutie Stacey Nelkin) arrives and immediately starts looking into her father's death, with help from Dr. Daniel Challis (horror stalwart Tom Atkins), a functioning alcoholic, who seemingly hits on every woman he sees, to sometimes amusing effects. (His un-amused ex-wife is played by Wallace's then-real-life wife, Nancy Kyes, aka Nancy Loomis, who played Annie in the first two Halloween films.)

Going by a clue to where he was last before his untimely death, the pair head to the scenic, isolated small town Santa Mira, the name of which is a nod to the setting of the classic sci-fi/horror book/film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, from which this film nabs certain plot elements from as well.

The town is the home to Silver Shamrock Novelties, who make a line of popular masks that are all the rage at the moment, thanks to the incessant advertising on TV. (That's director Wallace as the announcer on all the commercials, BTW.)  

The two check into a local motel and immediately start nosing around, which does not go unnoticed by the denizens  of the town, some of whom wear those trademark grey suits the men who chased Ellie's father wore and are prone to driving away anyone who gets a little too adventurous. There are also cameras all over the place, and grumpy townspeople, who lament the fact that the owner of the factory out-sources all his employees. 

In no time, things start going sideways, with one woman in town to pick up a misplaced mask order ending up dead when she pokes around a chip that was implanted in the logo that is on the back of every one of the signature masks. It literally zaps her face with a laser and melts it off, as bugs and various critters swarm out of her mouth- or what's left of it. 

Dr. Challis and Ellie eventually make their way to the factory, where they piggy-back onto a tour given by Silver Shamrock's founder, Conal Cochran (a game Dan O'Herlihy, hamming it up to wonderful effect), along with a family, whose patriarch sold the most masks in the area. 

Lucky him, as later on, he gets a special preview of that Halloween's main event that they've advertising throughout the movie, which causes his son to convulse and the mask to melt into his face, as, once again, bugs, and this time, snakes, pour out onto the floor and kill everyone concerned. Now that's one way to reward your best customer! 😱 

While on the tour, Ellie spots her father's missing station wagon and makes a run for it, but the men in suits drive her away, and later on, kidnap her, just as she and the not-so-good doctor are about to get the F out of Dodge.

He naturally goes after her, and ends up captured himself, but only after, in true James Bond villain fashion, Cochran tells him his nefarious plan to try and wipe out as many kids as he can on Halloween night, courtesy of that insane flashing pumpkin display we saw earlier. Real nice, CC! 

The doctor manages to escape and turns on the pumpkin display, then dumps a bunch of those SS logos onto the floor, which causes everyone to be shot with 80's CGI lasers and have seizures, which was probably the case for a lot of people who watched this movie in general, whether they had epilepsy or not. 

CC gives the doctor his best golf clap before he himself is capped by a laser straight from a massive piece of Stonehenge that he somehow had shipped there from Ireland. He then turns to ash (?) and disappears on the spot, because of course he does. The doctor then escapes, with Ellie- or what he thinks is Ellie- in tow, as the factory goes down in rear projector flames.  

Along the way back home, Ellie gives the doctor a look, and not the good kind that says: "I think I'd like to have sex with a middle-aged alkie deadbeat dad." Instead, she tries to throttle the doc, and he ends up crashing the car and battling her to the "death," or whatever you call dismembering a android/cyborg/whatever she is. 

Finally, Challis stumbles into the very same gas station Ellie's dad ran into way back when at the start of this crazy movie, and asks to use the phone. He manages to somehow convince the local TV stations to shut down the whole flashing pumpkin thing on one, two... but not all three stations. As we fade to black, Dr. Challis yells "Stop it!" over and over, to no avail. Credits.

Yep, you read that right. In this film, evil does indeed prevail, which means that a whole lot of kids are going down, along with a healthy dose of their parents and friends and what have you, presumably kick-starting a mass slaughter the likes America has never seen. Happy Halloween, everyone! 

Okay, all kidding aside, I really do kind of love this movie. It's completely nuts, plot-wise; it's got some excellent gore effects that are admittedly very 80's and kind of fake, but still pretty effective; the cast is highly entertaining, especially Atkins and O'Herlihy; the score (by Carpenter and Alan Howarth) is one of the best in the series- if not THE best; and I love that it has such a downer of an ending. Every now and then, it's nice to see evil end up on top, you know? Okay, maybe not in the current political climate, but you know what I mean, lol. 

Here are some fun facts about the movie:

Just like in the movie, director Wallace casually tossed the skeleton mask onto the camera like Atkins does in the movie on the first try. However, when they went to shoot it, it ended up taking over forty tries to get the shot. The resulting shot through the eye-holes of the mask was intentionally meant as a homage to the opening of Halloween, where we see through young Michael's eyes.

Though not set in the same "universe" as the other Halloween films, it does feature several cameos from the first film, which is the night's main feature presentation, to be followed by the "Big Giveaway" afterwards. 

Interestingly, this has led to some great fan theories, including the one that Silver Shamrock made the Michael Myers mask, and that he was the first "test subject" for their nefarious ends, but that it went sideways and he went crazy and started killing people and became generally unstoppable.

This would be a cool theory if it weren't for the fact that a young Michael wore a clown mask first, and killed his sister, long before he donned the famous mask we all know and love. Even if you go by the idea that SS picked him for that very reason, how would they know that he would steal that particular mask from the general store that day? I like the creative thinking on this theory, though. 

That's none other than Jamie Lee Curtis on the phone lines when Dr. Challis tries to call out of Santa Mira from various phone lines in town. That's also her voice telling the town that curfew is in effect. So, the film technically features two Halloween vets, including Nancy Kyes.

The names on the registry at the hotel are all crew members, and the gas station is the same one used in Carpenter's The Fog. That's Tom Atkins' then-wife Garn Stephens as Marge, the ill-fated woman who gets zapped with the logo laser. 

Both Carpenter and Wallace re-wrote the screenplay, though only Wallace got screen credit, after Kneale sued to have his removed, even though a good 60% of his ideas were retained. Joe Dante (Piranha, Gremlins) was also a front-runner to direct, but dropped out to do another film. John Landis (who gets a shout-out in the film, via a store name) was also considered, but his directing fee was too high.

The infamous commercial jingle is played 14 times in the film, much to a lot of people's chagrin. The film was originally supposed to end with the screams of millions of dying children (!) as Dr. Challis continued to yell "stop it!", but cooler heads prevailed and the score music was played instead. Just when you though the film couldn't get any darker! 

Needless to say, the film leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and has plot holes big enough to drive a Silver Shamrock tractor trailer through. What about the whole time zone thing? Was the attack just on Americans? What's up with the men in grey suits exactly? Are they androids? Cyborgs? Living mannequins?

And at what point did Cochran find the time to fashion one for Ellie to dupe Dr. Challis? What happened to the real Ellie? What exactly was Cochran's intended end-game? How exactly do the mask logo chips work, and how can they conjure up spiders, snakes and other assorted critters out of thin air? What in God's name is the "dead dwarf gag" and why does the TV version replace "sticky toilet paper" with "sticky dwarf toys"? What does someone have against dwarves exactly?

And, perhaps most importantly, how does Dr. Challis have so much game for one man? Okay- I know the answer to that one- because he's Tom Atkins, bitch! 😜

Halloween III was not a box-office success, grossing a mere $14 million on a $2.5 million-dollar budget. Not terrible, but certainly not typical Halloween franchise numbers, that's for sure. It didn't help that critics and fans alike hated the movie at the time, and bad word-of-mouth spread like wildfire. 

To be sure, the film was badly mis-marketed, and not enough people knew going in that Michael Myers wasn't going to be involved, really, save the aforementioned "cameo." To this day, I still see people bitching about this fact, when you'd think by now, people would know better. I don't know what to tell those people. If you're that determined to see Myers, there's ten other movies with him in the franchise, so you're set. Why bitch about the lone wolf of the series? 

Regardless, the producers were not pleased, and fan reaction meant that it was back to the drawing board for Akkad and crew. Not wanting anything to do with another Michael Myers-themed film, Carpenter and Hill promptly sold off the rights to Akkad, and he went on making them until the day he died, with son Malek taking over after his death, with a little help from his brother. 

It's too bad, as the anthology idea had promise. It was an approach that would eventually reap dividends with the modern-day cult classic Trick 'R Treat and to a slightly lesser extent with Tales of Halloween. But unfortunately for all concerned, the idea was just a little too ahead of its time, and had the misfortune to be too tied into the Halloween franchise as it then existed. 

As it stands, I really dig the film, and I'm not alone in that, as the film was eventually re-assessed by fans and critics alike, who ultimately decided that it was a worthy entry in the franchise that might have led to some cool movies, had Carpenter and Hill been given the benefit of the doubt at the time. I guess we'll never know, but be that as it may, we'll always have Halloween III: Season of the Witch and that's good enough for me. 

Well, that about does it for my Halloween franchise review. I'll be back tomorrow with a short wrap-up and to let you know what my next plans are for the immediate future. Until then, sing it with me now:

Happy, happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween
Happy, happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...
Silver Shamrock! 🎃


 

Franchise Review, Part Ten: Halloween - Resurrection (2002)

After the enormous critical and commercial success of Halloween: H2O, a sequel was perhaps unavoidable, and indeed, Jamie Lee Curtis was contractually obligated to reprise her role as Laurie for at least one last movie, though she would later call the film a "joke," which is putting it mildly. 

Not wanting to do another after this one, she specifically asked that her character be killed- a decision that would not go over well with fans, and indeed, one she herself would come to regret. (Hence her opting to come back for another one after all this time for this year's Halloween.)

However, producer Moustapha Akkad also had a clause in his own contract that said that Michael Myers could not be definitively killed. This was what led to the much-ballyhooed twist at the beginning of this film, in which it turned out that Michael had switched clothes with a paramedic, as well as putting his mask on the poor guy and crushing his larynx so he couldn't speak to alert people of the situation.

Curtis, contrary to popular belief, knew all about this twist, which was concocted by Kevin Williamson as a way of appeasing both Curtis and Akkad. Per Curtis' request, no one could know about the twist until the inevitable sequel came out, at which point, she wanted her character to be put to bed once and for all, so no one else could play her and she would be given a definitive ending herself. 

Of course, this would prove not to technically be the case, as her role would eventually be recast in Rob Zombie's reboot, but no one knew that would be the case at the time. In fact, the idea was for Josh Hartnett to reprise his role as John in the follow-up, coming back to avenge his mother's death in the next installment, perhaps with help from Dr. Loomis' daughter, a character originally planned for H2O, but which was ultimately scrapped in favor of bringing back Nurse Marion Chambers instead. 

For this film, initially dubbed Halloween: Homecoming, it was decided to partially adopt a sort of "found footage" vibe, emulating the wildly successful Blair Witch Project. Various directors were considered, including H4 director Dwight H. Little, but in the end, the production went with Rick Rosenthal, who had previously helmed the reasonably well-received Halloween II, and who, incidentally, is married to Nancy Stephens, aka Nurse Marion, so he missed out on the chance to kill his wife in the previous installment, lol.  

Rosenthal saw it as a chance to somewhat redeem himself, after the unpleasant experience of having that film re-edited to include additional gory footage he didn't approve of producer Carpenter shooting and adding. Unfortunately, it would be a decision he would later come to regret, as, once again, the film was taken out of his hands and re-edited  multiple times without his approval. 

Among the scenes that were scrapped, many of which can be seen on the original work-print versions, typically labeled under the original title, Homecoming, were some alternate deaths for various characters- including an on-screen one for star Tyra Banks, whose death would ultimately take place off-screen in the theatrical version (once you see the footage, you'll understand why- check it out here).

There was also a different intro to the film, featuring home video of a young Michael as a child, brooding evilly into the camera before the credits rolled (check it out here), and the death of the second guard was slightly different. There was also a hilariously bad deleted scene in which Michael steals a car from a couple screwing around in a tent in the woods- but doesn't kill them for some reason- and skids off, bumping rapper DMX on the stereo as he goes! 

Also, Laurie's death was much more definitive, with her falling from the roof onto concrete pavement, instead of bushes, as in the theatrical version, which, contrary to Curtis' wishes, left the door open just a crack for her return, should she later change her mind. 

Finally, a variety of different endings were shot. In one, Deckard, aka Myles (Ryan Merriman, later in Final Destination 3 and Ian on Pretty Little Liars), comes to save the day, rescuing leading lady Sara (Bianca Kajlich, who would later enjoy success on the long-running, much-syndicated TV sitcom Rules of Engagement) from the fire at the end, instead of Freddie (rapper Busta Rhymes).

Afterwards, he confesses his real name and identity, and apologizes for leading her to believe he was older- a high school student, instead of the grad student he claimed to be. Myles congratulates her on "killing the boogeyman," but she scoffs, saying: "You can't kill the boogeyman." Cut to a couple of CSI agents investigating the wreckage of the fire. When one looks into a pit, Michael leaps out for one last scare and the credits roll. 

While the bit with the CSI agents is silly, I do like that the film gives the "relationship" between Sara and Deckard/Myles closure, and allows him to be the hero instead of lurking on the sidelines for the entire movie, watching from afar. I also prefer him being the hero over Freddie, who, lest we forget got everyone into all this in the first place. 

In another ending, after Freddie rescues Sara, as in the theatrical cut, he apologizes for getting her into all this and for the death of her friends. She hugs and forgives him. Then Michael is rolled out on a gurney and he requests to see him, saying the lines he says in the theatrical cut, only this time, Michael leaps up to choke Freddie out, and Sara grabs a handy nearby axe, which she promptly buries right in Michael's head. Freddie thanks her for paying back the favor of saving his life and the credits roll.   

This is also probably better than the one used in the final cut, but it's also a bit ridiculous, given that Sara not only reacts so quickly, but just so happens to find an axe at the ready. It also makes Michael's death a bit harder to come back from, not that such things really matter in a franchise like this. Either way, the producers opted to scrap both of these endings, regardless, much to Rosenthal's chagrin, who once again saw the final cut of his Halloween film taken out of his hands, not to mention extra gore added (i.e. the head in the washing machine), just as before. 

The end result, re-dubbed Resurrection (to hammer home the return of Michael, in case anyone had any doubts), pleased no one, much less the director. A true product of its times, more than any other film in the franchise- though The Curse of Michael Myers (aka Halloween 6) comes close- this one screams of the time period in which it was made.

We're talking, in addition to the whole "found footage" angle, live streaming, primitive internet and email, whatever that notebook-type thing Sara uses to communicate with Deckard is, allusions to Reality TV, inclusion of rap and R&B tracks, and a lot of Grad School-style psychobabble, all of which help make this film near-unbearably pretentious and cringe-inducing. 

On the plus side, after the oddly orchestral score from John Ottoman in the last one, this one marks a welcome return to the synth-drenched version of the original scores, courtesy of Danny Lux. Indeed, it may be one of the only saving graces of the film, along with the two likable main leads, Merriman and Kajlich. Boy, is it ever all downhill from there, though.

Then-future Battlestar Galactica stars Katee Sackhoff and Lorena Gale both appear in the film, but rest assured, they don't get much of a showcase here, though it is kind amusing to see Sackhoff play an alternative "tough" chick type. She was originally supposed to play Donna, the Goth chick, which would have been cooler. Her character is hella annoying, though. 

Speaking of Donna- in a weird "art imitates life" kind of twist, the sexy actress who ended up playing her, Daisy McCrackin, was kidnapped by three lunatics that terrorized and tortured her and her boyfriend, fellow actor Joseph Capone, extorting money from her in the process. You can read more about that here. Maybe this film is the one that should have been called The Curse of Michael Myers.

Reportedly, both Danielle Harris and actual Reality TV star-turned-actress Jacinda Barrett (who would have played Sara) were almost in the film, but pulled out- probably after reading the script. Dodged a bullet there, ladies.

Don't even get me started on the antics of rapped-turned-"actor" Busta "Trick or treat, motherfucka" Rhymes, which are just the worst. LL Cool J he is not. The scene in which he yells at Michael Myers while actually dressed as Michael Myers and Michael simply stands there looking perplexed, may well be the low point of the entire series, and that is indeed including Rob Zombie's more self-indulgent stuff. (Looking at you, white horse and ghost mom!) 

To be fair, the whole "two Michael Myers" thing could have actually been cool, and milked for some cool scares/fake-outs, but the whole thing is so confusingly edited and shot that it's often hard to tell what the hell is going on, once the camera footage and the live streaming thing enter the narrative. Having seen the work-print version as well as the theatrical one, I can say that the original version is only slightly better in this regard, so don't go looking to that to help, either. 

Honestly, as with H6, I don't blame the director, Rosenthal, so much as I do the interference of the producers, who once again, are their own worst enemies. By messing with the final cut of this so much, they took what could have been a so-so film and made it infinitely worse.

Indeed, the reputation of this one is so bad, that many fans often not only skip it during marathons, but many pretend it doesn't exist altogether, thus preserving the original narrative that has Laurie ultimately defeating Michael, instead of her ignoble end here. 

In spite of the near-universal negative critical and fan reaction- to this day, the film only scores an 11% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes- it still managed to eke out slightly over $37 million on a $13 million-dollar budget. A decent take, to be sure, but nowhere near the highs of H2O and the first film.

To that end, the originally-planned direct follow-up plans were scrapped and the producers even considered re-adopting the whole "anthology" approach they had abandoned with Halloween III- such was the negative reaction to this film, that they actually considered rebooting a "bomb" instead of continuing onward with the then-current plot-line, which says a lot about this film.

In the end, the decision was made to completely reboot the franchise from the ground up with Rob Zombie's film instead, for better or worse. IMHO, as divisive as Zombie's initial film was, it is at least a step up from this, which is just the bottom-of-the-barrel, and, quite frankly an embarrassment to the franchise, which is saying something, given some of the other entries.

I'll leave it to you to decide which is worse, this or Zombie's Halloween II, though. Actually, I'd have to say this one, for "killing" Laurie and the whole Busta Rhymes thing- at least Zombie's H2 had solid cinematography, music and a better musician-turned-actor in "Weird" Al Yankovic. Both are pretty wretched, though. 

Well, we're in the homestretch now, people- only one last movie to go! Join me tomorrow for a look at the much-maligned red-headed stepchild of the franchise, Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Say it with me now: one more day to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween... 🎃