Despite seeing all the other movies in the franchise multiple times, I had never seen the Friday the 13th: A New Beginning of the Halloween series, Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Sure, I could deny that is because Michael Myers is absent in this installment but that would not be exactly accurate. Yet, over the years I have heard time and time again that this film would have a much better reputation if it did not have Halloween in the title. That may in fact be true. But it is still a shitty movie.
I cannot fault the filmmakers for jettisoning the lone silent, stalking killer after Halloween II. For starters, that was not really a great film to begin with and the Michael Myers story had come to a pretty conclusive ending. Even taking the Halloween title and shifting it to other stories of the season would have been a neat idea if the first attempt did not turn out as poor as this one did. Perhaps producer John Carpenter was trying his hand at crafting lackluster films that he would perfect a decade or so later. Or maybe Carpenter just slapped his name onto this as a quick money grab. Either way, the real culprit here is not Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy), a man who wants to destroy the wholesome fun of Halloween but writer and director Tommy Lee Wallace.
The start of the story is actually decent beginning with Harry Grimbridge desperately running from silent and well-dressed killers while clutching a pumpkin mask. After a close call or two, Grimbridge escapes and winds up in a hospital under the care of Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins). One of the well-dressed men enters the hospital and kills Grimbridge before fleeing from Challis and setting himself ablaze in his car. Challis is approached by Grimbridge’s daughter Ellie (Stacey Nelkin) who has suspicions about her father’s murder (you think?) and the two head off to Santa Mira, home of the Silver Shamrock novelty company headed by Cochran. The fantastical plot elements start withering away at my enjoyment as Challis and Ellie poke around the town, encounter some colorful locals, even more colorful visitors and the Old Man himself before he made his way up at OCP.
As I said, I had hopes for this towards the beginning in spite of the distinct lack of a notable modern monster. There were enough chase scenes and creepy encounters and music stings as the suited men dramatically enter the frame to keep me engaged for a bit. Yet, I can fully appreciate and agree with the #halloween3sucks hashtag that PBF used while watching this last year. I trust you all know of the magical way that we buy into movies, even ridiculous movies through our “suspension of disbelief.” I’m not sure what the opposite of that would be called but whatever it is, this movie has it in spades.
I could not get over just how ridiculous everything after the half-hour point or so was. Challis (a doctor, not a cop) has a strange encounter with a dead patient and a “flamer,” meets up with some chick and all of the sudden they are on the road to investigate. And then they’re shagging in the hotel room. And then they’re just staying in the hotel room instead of … well, investigating. And they don’t really seem to question the strange and almost abandoned town, the curfew, or the fact that a woman with her face blasted off is taken to a toy factory, not a hospital or even a damn veterinarian. Even though Atkins has more charisma than I do in my entire existence, these dumb-as-rocks characters only exist to provide me something to do while watching this film such as shaking my head in disbelief or gawking at the absurdity of it all.
Even worse though is the character of Cochran. He gives a fairly detailed explanation to a restrained and masked Atkins why he wishes to turn the heads of little trick-r-treaters into worms and snakes but … to be honest I wasn’t really paying attention. But what kind of business model does this man have? He spends his entire life amassing great wealth through novelty items like sticky toilet paper (someone get on this!) or wind-up whatevers for this sole purpose? Or was he really trying to just steal a piece of Stonehenge and that just happened to come about thereafter? His business practices aside, Cochran is worse than every Bond villain combined as he guides a leisurely stroll through the bowels of his factory to Challis saying things like “You’ll figure it out soon enough” before explaining every damn thing?
I really cannot imagine the purpose of this film. Is it a form of social commentary on evil businessmen and how they will do anything to get a buck? Or is it to speak on the silliness of kids dressing up and getting candy on a day traditionally tied to the slaughter of livestock for winter survival? Or is it simply to churn out something, anything, with the Halloween name on it to cash in on unsuspecting theater patrons? I don’t know and I really could care less. Even with PBF’s disdain for this film, I was hoping it would at least continue the series’ result of entertaining me. While admittedly this film did, it was assuredly for the wrong reasons.
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