Dir: Tommy Lee Wallace
1982
****
Halloween II wasn’t quite the critical success as
the original film was but it still made money. However, when approached about
creating a third Halloween film, original Halloween writers John
Carpenter and Debra Hill were reluctant to pledge commitment. When
initially asked, Carpenter flatly answered, "No, ‘The Shape’ (Michael
Myers) is dead. Pleasence's character is dead, too, unfortunately.” And that
seemed to be that. However, after some thought from all parties (and after
Halloween producers Irwin Yablans and Moustapha Akkad stated they
were prepared to put down a $2.5 million budget) they had an idea. Tommy Lee
Wallace, the art director of Halloween and whom was asked to direct
Halloween II (but eventually directed Halloween III), stated, "It is
our intention to create an anthology out of the series, sort of along the lines
of Night Gallery, or The Twilight Zone, only on a much
larger scale, of course." All of the original characters, including
Michael Myers, were dropped. Halloween III also departs from the slasher genre,
instead featuring a "witchcraft" theme with science fiction aspects
and parallels to old Celtic fairy tales. Carpenter and Hill believed
that the Halloween series had the potential to branch into an
anthology series of horror films that centered around the night of
Halloween, with each film containing its own characters, setting, and story line. Director Wallace stated that there were many ideas for
Halloween-themed films, some of which could have potentially created any number
of their own sequels, and that Season of the Witch was meant
to be the first of the anthology series. Carpenter would later admit that he
wanted to release a Halloween film every year for the rest of his career. I
personally think it was a great idea and maybe something they should have stuck
with. Halloween III wasn’t popular but the mistake was only ever in the name –
people expected a film linked with the first two films – and were disappointed when
Michael Myers was nowhere to be seen. The film actually references the
original, suggesting that the original is fiction and Halloween III is reality.
While Halloween III isn’t as scary as the first two film I would argue that it
is far more creepy and unbearably eerie at times. I’m one of the few people
that actually really loved it. I hunted for a copy for years in the late 90s,
the film was VHS gold-dust and I have to say it didn’t disappoint. In all
honesty, if I had to watch just one film from the series on 31st October, it would probably be Halloween III because it is just so eerie. Once
again though, one of the films key elements is about the ‘mask’. Special
effects artist Don Post of Post Studios designed the latex masks
in the film which included a glow-in-the-dark skull, a lime-green
witch and an orange Day-Glo jack-o'-lantern. The skull and witch
masks were adaptations of standard Post Studios masks, but the jack-o'-lantern
was created specifically for Halloween III. Post linked the masks
of the film to the popularity of masks in the real world: “Every society in
every time has had its masks that suited the mood of the society, from the
masked ball to clowns to makeup. People want to act out a feeling inside
themselves - angry, sad, happy, old. It may be a sad commentary on present-day
America that horror masks are the best sellers. The producers recruited
British science fiction writer Nigel Kneale to write the
original screenplay, mostly because Carpenter admired his Quatermass series.
Kneale said his script did not include "horror for horror's sake". He
added, "The main story had to do with deception, psychological shocks
rather than physical ones." Kneale asserts that movie mogul Dino De
Laurentiis, owner of the film's distribution rights, did not care for it and
ordered more graphic violence and gore. While much of the plot remained the
same, the alterations displeased Kneale, and he requested that his name be
removed from the credits. Director Tommy Lee Wallace was then assigned to
revise the script. The story begins on October 23, 1982, shop owner Harry
Grimbridge runs along a barren road in Northern California, chased by
mysterious figures in business suits. He makes it to a gas station,
clutching a jack-o'-lantern mask. He is driven to the hospital by
station attendant Walter Jones. At the hospital, Grimbridge is placed in the
care of Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins). That night, another mysterious man in a
suit enters Grimbridge's hospital room, kills him, then goes to his car
and immolates himself. The next morning, Grimbridge's daughter, Ellie (Stacey
Nelkin), arrives to identify her father's remains. Ellie and Challis agree to
investigate his murder, leading them to the small town of Santa Mira,
California. The motel manager explains that Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) and
his company, Silver Shamrock Novelties, which produces wildly popular latex
jack-o-lantern, witch and skeleton masks for Halloween, are
responsible for the town's prosperity. While signing the motel register,
Challis learns that Grimbridge stayed at the same motel. Other motel guests
include shop owners Marge Guttman and Buddy Kupfer, Buddy's wife, Betty, and
their son, Little Buddy, who all have business at the company's factory. Guttman
finds a microchip on the back of a Silver Shamrock button, and is electrocuted
by its laser beam after poking it with a hairpin. Challis and Ellie learn of
Guttman's accident, and Challis attempts to help, but is forced away by a group
of men dressed in lab coats, who drive away in a van with Marge's body. The
next morning, Challis and Ellie tour the factory with the Kupfers, and discover
Grimbridge's car there, guarded by more men dressed in suits. They return to
the motel, but cannot contact anyone outside the town. While Challis attempts
to phone for the authorities, Ellie is kidnapped by the men in suits, and
driven to the factory. Challis pursues them, breaks into the factory, and
discovers that the men in suits are androids created by Cochran.
Challis is captured by the androids and Cochran reveals his plan to sacrifice
children wearing his masks on Halloween, thus bringing about a resurrection of
the ancient age of witchcraft. For Silver Shamrock's "Big
Giveaway", which will air at 9:00 P.M. on all television channels
following the "Horrorthon", each of these masks contain a fragment
of Stonehenge implanted in its trademark microchip. When activated by
a flashing signal of the commercial's on-screen "magic pumpkin", the
microchip causes the mask wearer to succumb to brain damage from absorbing the
energy of Stonehenge and unleashes a swarm of insects and snakes that come out
of the wearer's corpse and kill anyone nearby. To demonstrate, Cochran kills
the Kupfers this way. That night, Cochran puts the Silver Shamrock mask on
Challis, and leaves him to die the same fate as the trick-or-treating children,
who will come back home for his false watch-and-win Halloween sweepstakes that
he created for his company. But Challis, after destroying the television set
and removing the mask, escapes through a ventilation shaft and rescues Ellie.
He dumps the chips from the overhead rafters, and activates their signal with
the commercial, killing Cochran and his employees, and destroying the computer
chips along with the entire Silver Shamrock factory. As the two drive away,
Ellie attacks Challis, revealing that Cochran replaced the real Ellie with an
android duplicate. Challis crashes the vehicle and decapitates the android with
a tire iron. On foot, Challis arrives at Jones' gas station, where he
contacts the television stations and convinces all but one of the station
managers to remove the commercial. However, at the same moment, a group of
trick-or-treaters, wearing their masks that are not destroyed, come to
participate in the Big Giveaway without being aware of the sacrificing threat.
Challis persuades the stations to take it off channels one and two, but not
channel three where the fake sweepstakes keeps on playing, right onto the magic
pumpkin sequence. He then desperately tries to convince the company to stop
playing the commercial, yelling on the telephone, as the animated pumpkin head
blinks non-stop in front of him and the children. The film ends with Challis
screaming for the final station to turn off the commercial. It’s not a great
story admittedly and even though I’m a firm believe that one shouldn’t think
too hard about a horror film’s plot if you want to fully enjoy it, this one
does raise a multitude of question. I personally liked how ridiculous it was
and how seriously it was taken. The music and the ‘Three more days ‘till
Halloween’ jingle really add a special edge of eeriness that are extremely effective
throughout the film. Whenever anyone mentions the franchise as a whole, the
first thing that pops into my head is that jingle and I saw the film years and
years ago. I liked that Dick Warlock had a cameo in the film as the android
assassin and Jamie Lee Curtis provided he voice as the Santa Mira curfew
announcer and the telephone operator but Nancy Kyes’s performance as Challis's
ex-wife Linda was a bit confusing, given that she was in the first two
Halloween films (that we are told are fiction) as Laurie Strode's promiscuous
friend Annie Brackett. Stonehenge and killer robots – I can see why people didn’t
warm to it – but for me I could still feel Carpenter, Hill and Wallace’s vibe
and I really like it, despite how ridiculous it all is. I actually think it has
got better over time.
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