Halloween III: A Noite das Bruxas

Let's get some things straight...

The only real reason people seem to hate this film is because Michael Myers was absent.

For those who don't know, John Carpenter and crew decided since Michael Myers was dead at the end of HalloweeN II, there was no reason to continue on with his story. The decision was to go ahead with the series making each new installment a different story revolving around the Halloween season. Personally, I think this was a wise decision. But after everyone saw it they were screaming 'That wasn't a Halloween movie! Where was Michael?'. Obviously the majority of the audience would rather more Michael Myers rampages than creepy stories set around Halloween time.

Oh well, this movie gives a taste of where the series could have and should have went, before the disappointing HalloweeN 4.

Overall, the acting is top notch. Tom Atkins is a great actor. The soundtrack is one of my favorite John Carpenter scores ever. It has themes, but it's more about synthesized mood and pulsating rhythms. The cinematography by the great Dean Cundey is fabulous. And the entire feel of the film is very unsettling. The film literally freaks me out.

I recommend all of you that diss the film, to check it out once more. Keep an open mind. If this hadn't been a part of the HalloweeN series you would probably like it.

As for myself, I'm glad that this carries the HalloweeN title. Th rest of the films didn't pick up until HalloweeN H2O which is a very worthy entry.

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

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.

Saw this film again recently after watching it as a kid in the 80s. Nobody else seems to like this film but personally i thought it was great. Maybe its because I'm a sucker for nostalgia and 80's B Movie 'shockers' and sci-fi generally, but also because I love Carpenter's work, especially from this period (and even though he didn't direct this he did produce it and it has many of his hallmarks) - The score is excellent and the whole film has the mood of a period of film-making that is forever imprinted upon my psyche. The story is typically ludicrous and fanciful to the extreme, (the theft of parts of Stonehenge and transportation to Western US for example, and the formation of snakes and insects out of thin air, but then we are talking witchcraft here so fair enough...)

A very bizarrely positioned film in a series that was both preceded and succeeded by psycho-killer Micheal Myers' character, this is in my opinion a little b-movie gem.