Why you should give Halloween III: Season of the Witch another chance

I love movies a lot of people love to hate. Are they actually bad movies, though? Well, yeah, some of them are so bad they're good—looking at you Troll 2—and that is part of their charm. But some of them get more hatred than I believe they deserve. Each month, I'm going to defend a movie I think fits that bill. I will start this month with a personal favorite to defend and on theme for the spooky season: Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch has slowly but surely gained a cult following since its 1982 release, but it's still a movie people love to hate, and it frequently appears on "worst" sequel lists. Comparisons to the first two installments were brutal, and it fell short of its predecessors in the eyes of many viewers.

If you've read the novelization by Curtis Richards, it's right there in the text that the voice Michael hears telling him to kill is the voice of Enda, a 15-year-old from the Celtic ages, who, after being humiliated by Dierdre, the daughter of King Gwynwyll, with whom he was in love, or obsessed, brutally murders her and her lover at a ritual event on Samhain, aka Halloween. The villagers kill Enda in retribution, and his soul becomes cursed, doomed to walk the earth forevermore, re-creating the events of that fateful night so long ago.

Halloween III delves into Celtic rites and evolves from being a slasher to a supernatural horror movie with elements of sci-fi, focusing on the origins of evil, witchcraft, and Celtic folklore surrounding the holiday itself, along with dealing with the ancient evils of Samhain, that is heavily implied to possess Michael Myers.

This is because neither John Carpenter nor Debra Hill wanted to sign on for Halloween III, initially choosing to do so only if this would not be a direct sequel to the second installment. They wanted the Halloween series to be an anthology with all the tales relating to the holiday. This never came to fruition, of course, after the disastrous reception this movie was met with.

Is Halloween III the best movie in the franchise? No. And I don't think anyone would ever argue that it's better in story or tone than the original which is a classic masterpiece, but it's definitely one of the most entertaining in the franchise for a bunch of reasons.

For one, it's original and it isn't afraid to do what a lot of other movies still skirt around: make kids the victims. This one mercilessly targets both children and the commercialization of Halloween by infusing Halloween masks with black magic that will annihilate them once they're on their faces via their televisions.

All of this is the master plan of the evil Conal Cochran, played wonderfully by Dan O'Herlihy, via an advertising campaign for his company, Silver Shamrock which distributes the cursed masks all over the country.

The practical effects courtesy of Don Post, are extreme and unforgettable, chief among them a scene where a woman who is unknowingly selling the cursed masks; tampers with one, and a laser shoots out, beaming in her in face, which makes her head explode. And, of course, the scene toward the end when a child puts on one of the pumpkin-themed masks and is abruptly zapped, his face dissolving inside the mask he has stuck to his face.

It stars Tom Atkins as Dr. Dan Challis, and he really puts everything he's got into the role. The final scene where he's left captured and screaming into the phone is pretty unforgettable, and if all of the above wasn't enough to convince you of how fun this movie really is, another selling point is its earworm of a catchy jingle that is utilized for the Silver Shamrock company's commercials. Just Google "Silver Shamrock Jingle". You're welcome.

Is the hate this movie gets deserved?

Not in my opinion or that of many others. True, it deviates from the established pattern in the first two Halloween movies; there is no Michael Myers stalking around at night killing anybody, which disappointed a lot of people. Still, that doesn't mean it isn't a very fun Halloween movie that is creative and not afraid to be bold in its choices, which helped to make it the cult classic it is today.

So, if you can get past Michael Myers' absence, you definitely might find something to enjoy in this one.

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