Halloween Retrospective: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween Retrospective | #3 | Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Halloween III is an interesting beast, particularly in the context of the Halloween franchise. As mentioned in my Halloween II review, the franchise was originally pitched as an anthology series, in which a different story relating to Halloween was told every year. Halloween III is to date the only entry in the franchise to explore this concept. The story is completely divorced from the characters and narrative of the original; it has quite a few easter eggs relating to John Carpenter’s classic original and the story of Michael Myers, but other than that it’s its own beast entirely. The film was poorly received upon release by audiences and critics alike, with the lack of Michael Myers (which most fans expected after Halloween II) being a large driver of that criticism. In recent years, though, Halloween III has been the recipient of some fan rehabilitation, with some even going as far as saying it’s the best in the entire franchise, and as a result I was particularly excited to see this one. Is this film on par with John Carpenter’s original? Absolutely not – but it’s nowhere near as bad as the initial reception indicated, either. In fact, I had quite a lot of fun with it.

The film, written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and starring Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin and Dan O’Herlihy, has a much different focus and tone than its predecessors. It’s neither as grounded as Halloween nor as brutal and bleak as Halloween II. It’s instead a slow-burn mystery thriller focused around a small town doctor slowly unveiling a sinister corporate conspiracy relating to a bizarre murder case and a line of popular Halloween masks. While it plays itself straight, it also seems to be aware of how it would inevitably be received by audiences as a low-effort cash grab. It almost leans into this, embracing its inherent silly B-movie nature without sacrificing its own tone with fourth wall breaking meta humor the likes of which we see too often nowadays. As a result, it’s one of the least pretentious films I’ve seen in a long time. It knows exactly what it is and never tries to be something deeper, and never outstays its welcome.

That’s not to say that this film is about nothing. It has themes about worker exploitation and evil CEOs and mass media-powered consumerism and how it preys upon the most vulnerable in our society. At the same time, though, it’s not a deep statement on those things so much as it is simply observing that they are harmful and normalizing the idea that we should be skeptical of them. I’ve heard it said that horror is sort of a playing ground for filmmakers and writers to test out new ideas that more mainstream genres aren’t quite willing to approach yet, and in the context of the neo-liberal 1980’s, Halloween III is a good example. It’s pure pulp on its surface, and a shameless cash-grab at that, so it’s written off as trash and nobody really pays attention to it, and when nobody’s paying attention it can play with some subversive ideas that don’t dominate the film, but are still there and very much noticeable.

That being said, this is still campy 1980’s horror mystery at its core, and it does that really well. Its story is extremely silly and over the top when you think about it for more than two seconds, but that’s part of the fun, especially when its able to present it in such an intriguing slow build that everything sort of flows naturally together. The villain’s motive is paper thin, but he’s portrayed in such an archetypal way that we can sort of accept it. There are leaps in logic everywhere, but… come on, do you really care in a film like this?

I don’t think Halloween III is some masterpiece. Compared to the utterly genius craft and execution of John Carpenter’s 1978 original, it still pales in comparison. It feels a lot cheaper and less intentional, and it’s far less grounded in reality with less interesting characters. Nothing in this film’s score even comes close to the brilliance of the original. But Halloween III feels made for a very different mood than the original; it’s not a harrowing, genre-defining benchmark, and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s enough to just be a cinematic carnival ride of fun ideas made for the audience’s pleasure.

What I see in this film is the potential for what the Halloween franchise could have been; not a hit-or-miss deluge of Michael Myers slasher stories but a playground for film directors to take fun, spooky concepts and run with them, exploring styles and tones and themes in ways that one might not be able to in other situations. I haven’t seen any Halloween film more recent than this one, so I can’t speak to the quality of the franchise we got. But the one we could have had seems pretty damn fun.