Produced by: Debra Hill & John Carpenter
Cinematography: Dean Cundey
Soundtrack by: John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
Starring: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy
There are precisely two (2) good movies in the Halloween franchise. The first is Halloween (1978). The other is Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
It surprises me a bit that people find this take controversial. Halloween III gets a lot of flack for a bit of an oddball plot and the complete lack of Michael Myers. On the contrary, I find his absence to be one of Halloween III's strengths: I've never understood Halloween fans' emotional attachment to this emotionless creature (actually I could just say I've never understood Halloween fans, fullstop). Maybe fans prefer the specific genre of a slasher (Debra Hill said the third one is more of a pod movie, less of a knife movie), but it seems most people like this character who's intentionally devoid of personality. The story of the first movie seems to me so much stronger if he disappears and never returns; just as the movie used fleeting silhouettes and shadows caught out of the corner of your eye, knowing he's out there but never seeing him again is scarier than bringing him back in Halloween II (a bad movie).
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| Well, movies. Plural. |
Halloween III was created under a different philosophy: there should be a different Halloween movie every year or so with different characters and plots, a sort of long-running anthology. John Carpenter never really wanted to do sequels anyway, and one could hardly blame him. Sadly, he never accounted for the slope-browed horror fans who want to watch the same story over and over and over again. I've actually heard people declare this the worst entry in the franchise. The implication that people prefer the Rob Zombie movies, two of the worst movies I'd ever seen, is a saddening one indeed.
It's a real shame; I guess I'm one of the few who likes variety; I also like the imaginative storyline here. The narrative is about the intersection of ancient magic and technology (credit goes to Debra Hill for that idea), structured like a detective story. At the center is Tom Snyder and his giant Easter Island head; I like that he's a fairly flawed individual, not enough to be a louse but enough that we know he's not some gilded hero—he's just curious and wants to do the right thing. I especially love the scene where he's on a payphone with his ex-wife, calling to let her know he's ditching the kids (again), hangs up on her and grabs a six-pack of beer to spend the weekend at a motel with a girl half his age. I like that scene almost as much as the one where his huge face is buried in Stacey Nelkin's cleavage, she hears their next-door neighbor being violently killed, she gasps "What was that?!" and he mumbles "who cares?"
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| Anyone else's heart stop? No? Just me? |
A word—no, several words—about Nelkin: she is one of the most gorgeous women to ever walk the earth. Her voice is one you'll never tire of hearing. The character is one of my favorites in the franchise (an extraordinarily low bar to clear), strong, spunky, intrepid, flirtatious, and inquisitive. And just look at her hair! Look at her eyes! Look at those...uh...nose! There are plenty of grisly, horrific visuals in this movie, but she's not one of them. I understand attraction is a deeply personal thing, but I'll never understand all those people who love Mia Goth and have nothing to say about Nelkin.
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| Ms. Nelkin, if you're reading this: anything. |
I'll extend an olive branch to the haters: I guess the plot doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. Some old Irish businessman takes a block from Stonehenge, transfers it from UK, Europe to Northern California, uses the ancient leprechaun magic in the stone in concert with technology to create Halloween masks, which turn the wearers' innards into bugs and snakes, all to replace the populace with robots? It sorta undercuts the anti-corporatist mindset of the movie. This CEO wants to replace all the children he sacrifices all the children to the Celtic gods with cyborgs, who'll then...make up his new consumer base? Why not just...sell robots to people? Or program them to steal money for you? And kill kids in some sort of way that pleases the Celtic gods, I dunno. Halloween III's not perfect; it doesn't have everything going for it. You know what it does have? Stacey Nelkin. Intrigue. A kickass soundtrack by Carpenter and Alan Howarth. Stacey Nelkin. Haunting visuals. An idea that's at the very least somewhat surprising. Did I mention Stacey Nelkin? If it helps, don't even think of it as an entry in the Halloween franchise. Just think of it as Season of the Witch, a standalone movie. Not being connected to Michael Myers is as nice a compliment as I've ever heard.
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| Still better than Halloween V |
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