Doctor Dan Challis (Tom Atkins), suspicious after a man is murdered in the hospital, runs off with the victim’s daughter (Stacey Nelkin) to investigate a Halloween mask company that may hold clues to the killing. The company’s CEO, Mr. Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy), is in charge of an army of androids, and has evil plans involving masks and Celtic witchcraft.
A very British story, produced in a very American way, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is interesting, but the various aspects don’t fit together. Original writer, Nigel Kneale (The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2, Quatermass and the Pit, and The Quatermass Conclusion.) had his named removed when he learned what a violent flick it was going to be, and I can’t say he was wrong. His story, very reminiscent of the last two Quatermass chapters, mixes technology with magic, and would be best suited for a smart adventure film. I could see it as an episode of the old The Avengers series. The horror and gore fit into another type of film. If the filmmakers wanted a scary picture, than the robots should have been dumped and the movie made more intimate.
There’s a lot of plot in this ninety minute flick. Perhaps enough for a season of a TV show. Certainly more than can be covered in the feature format. In some cases, it’s amusing to have huge parts of the story left unknown, but this only works occasionally. Far too much is left open.
Dan Challis, a hard drinking divorced father of two who never has time for his family, investigates all of the weird happenings, and I kept asking myself: Why? There’s an odd murder in the hospital, but that’s not enough motivation to compel him to follow improbable leads and then toss himself into dangerous situations. There are plenty of police around. Why did he need to personally get involved. If there is some underlying cause for his behavior, I never saw it. By the film’s end, I still had no idea who this guy was. His romance with the dead man’s daughter comes out of the blue, as do most of his actions, and left me feeling that I was watching the rough draft for a film. Stacey Nelkin is a beauty, but I learned less about her character than I did about Challis.
Halloween III is a wasted opportunity. There are a lot of clever ideas, but few go anywhere. The Slasher-style killings (fingers through the eye sockets, a head is torn off, a drill, etc.) are as gratuitous as the romance (which, by the way, lacks the expected gratuitous flesh), and with the characters left undeveloped, the tension is low.
Most discussions about this film have to do with the title. For anyone unaware, this isn’t a Michael Myers film. There’s no one walking around in a William Shatner mask stabbing people and getting up again every time he’s killed. You see, Myers died in at the end of the second film, permanently. John Carpenter (writer/director/producer of Halloween and writer/producer of Halloween 2) knew that everything that could or should be done with Michael Myers had been done, and decided to make an anthology of films, each one revolving around October 31st. It was a great idea, and I’d have loved to see what he could have done with it. But Halloween III: Season of the Witch failed at the box office, and that was the end of the anthology idea. Fans of Slashers, who apparently wanted the same movie made over and over, were outraged that they were being require to think. Exit Carpenter. In his place came a string of low-talent directors and writers, kicking out lowest-common-denominator, retread sequels: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, and Halloween: Resurrection.