Halloween III : Le Sang du sorcier

'Season Of The Witch' is the swiftly-ignored footnote in the 'Halloween' franchise - quickly forgotten evidence that 'Halloween' was meant to be more 'Creepshow' than 'Friday The 13th' in style. In retrospect, bringing back Michael Myers for 'Halloween II' was a possible mistake if the intention was for 'Halloween' to become an anthology series with a different tale in each installment. The sequel's success only cemented expectations in the viewer's minds that homicide in Haddonfield by a mask-covered psychopath was what they would see unfold each time on screen. And so by 1983, audiences clearly weren't prepared for 'Season Of The Witch' and made this fact abundantly clear at the box office, which is a great shame, because deeply-flawed as it is, 'Halloween III' is a lot of fun and does not deserve to be overlooked the way it often is.

The storyline, centred around a toy factory manufacturing murderous masks designed to bring nationwide doom at 9pm on October 31st, is built up very intriguingly. We have a 'Simon Van Gelder'-like madman trying to warn the world of the impending slaughter, chillingly-ruthless killers in business suits silencing anyone who tries to get the word out, and strikingly memorable death scenes - one of which might be described as 'facial origami', and that's only the first 15 minutes. Soon, our story's heroes are embroiled in the factory's strange machinations, where nothing and no-one is exactly what they seem. The script builds up a tense atmosphere, leading to a truly compelling end that will keep viewers guessing long after.

Yet 'Season Of The Witch' (a title not to be taken too literally) comes across as an intriguing second draft - full of good ideas, but lacking the kind of logic and key exposition that would have really brought the audience on board. Writer Tommy Lee Wallace's America, for example, seems to occupy one single time zone, in which it's possible to have the nation's children watching their televisions at the appointed hour. Likewise, we are expected to believe that the illegal appropriation of one of the world's largest and heaviest artificial landmarks - a key plot point at the climax - seems to be no more difficult than stealing a mattress from a bedding store and spiriting it away on a car's roof. Dr Challis, the lead character, is an obvious graduate of 'Action Hero Medical College', stitching up wounds one day and tackling the undead like Indiana Jones the next. The film's other two leads are also something of a puzzle, with their identities and ultimate fate never being satisfactorily explored. All of which leaves 'Halloween III' as a series of entertaining sequences that anyone attempting the most basic of critical analysis will be punished instantly with crushing bafflement. The lack of audience enthusiasm cannot be solely attributed to the absence of Michael Myers (who ironically, does enjoy a few seconds of screen time).

Nonetheless, it would have been interesting if 'Halloween' had become an anthology series of horror, and with 'Halloween III' not short on ideas, it's only a shame more care and attention wasn't put into the effort. All involved clearly failed to understand what they had set in motion with the first two outings, unable to see that any change in direction for the franchise would have to be very well-executed to win the fans over. However, it wasn't and Michael Myers would go on to make a respectable return five years later. For what it offers, I think 'Season Of The Witch' is definitely worth a look - arguably more creative than most of the 'Halloween' sequels, but seriously lacking polish.

For those of you who turn to 'Halloween' movies to get your Michael Myers on, you probably already know to avoid this movie like the plague. But, here is the truth. John Carpenter never wanted Michael Myers to become a series - he hated writing the second 'Halloween' - thought it was a totally useless concept that Michael turns out to be Laurie's uncle. That's why he blew him up at the end - so he didn't have to do the storyline anymore. Instead, he wanted to use the 'Halloween' title to come out with Halloween-themed movies - a new movie with a new them every year. I guess enough people didn't read that or understand what he wanted to do with it. Too bad. You're missing a decent show.

Film-makers can't seem to be able to do anything right. Instead of churning out the same old tired sequels, which they get criticised for, they have tried to be creative here and get abused for that.

Most comments I have read have said that this is a bad film because it doesn't include the old 'favourites', but then they call the rest of the series for being very similar to each other.

I will concede that this film, with the exception of the first ten minutes, is NOT scary; but it's still an ok film. It's different than any other film I can recall seeing, and does have a few surprises and a good ending.

I would say that if you were going to watch with an open mind you may well enjoy this

Despite all the flak that this movie catches, I think that it's a great horror movie. I don't think that it fits in well with the rest of the Halloween series, but as a stand alone film I think it gets the job done. There are two things that I mainly look for in a horror movie. One being creative death sequences, and two being a decent ending. This one delivers with both. I hate it when a horror movie is gritty and tough all the way through and follows up with a happy ending (Scream, Scream 2, should I continue?). Put your prejudices aside and I think you can enjoy this one.

I've read almost all of the reviews here and honestly, I cannot argue with many of the negative points that are raised here. The movie DOES use the "Halloween" name while having only one tiny thread of connection to the Michael Myers movies that came before it and would come later (and that thread, involving a lab technician, can be charitably described as really lame). It is boring in stretches, the idea of Tom Atkins hooking up with Stacey Nelkin is pretty ridiculous, and the plot makes no sense if you think about it for more than 5 seconds.

But I don't hate this film. Why? That's very simple. The first rule of a horror film is to scare the viewer and HALLOWEEN III has scared the hell out of me every time I've seen it! It's hard to pinpoint why, exactly, but the atmosphere of the movie is a huge factor. This film is jammed with ominous synthesized music (very 80's touch), cold and sharp-looking camera work, and a feeling of overwhelming dread and fear. It's very hard to establish atmosphere in any movie or TV show; I was talking about this movie with my brother--who said that he didn't think it was scary at all--and I compared it to THE X-FILES. Both that show and this movie were able to quickly drag me into their bizarre and frightening worlds.

I don't think I could flat-out recommend a movie with this many huge problems, but I'd say it might scare the viewer, and that's not so bad considering how many abysmal horror movies do nothing else right and cannot get that deceptively simple task completed, either.