Halloween Count Down Day 25

Halloween 3 Season of the Witch 

So one of the many movies I try to cram in during the Halloween season is the much hated but for me loved movie Halloween 3. The 1982 installment of John Carpenters franchise was the first Halloween that does not include Michael Myers. This seems to be everybody's gripe about the movie. But for a 12-year-old at the time, it was a great story about the best holiday of the all.

Directed and written by Tommy Lee Wallace ( Fright night 2, It) and stars  Tom Atkins and well played creepy Dan O'Herlihy. O'Herlihy is the mysterious owner of the Silver Shamrock Novelties company.

Halloween 3 was a complete turn from its slasher driven original Halloween. And not as gory as Halloween 2. But as a child, this had some great intense death scenes. And that song just try and get it out of your head go on try!

I can't tell you how bad I wanted one of those masks.  

On Saturday, October 23, shop owner Harry Grimbridge (Al Berry) is chased by mysterious figures wearing business suits. He collapses at a filling station clutching a Silver Shamrock jack-o'-lantern mask and is driven to the hospital by the station attendant (Essex Smith) all the while ranting, "They're gonna kill us all." Grimbridge is placed in the care of Dr. Dan Challis. Another man in a suit (Dick Warlock) enters Grimbridge's hospital room and kills him, then goes to his car and kills himself through self-immolation.



Dr. Challis with Grimbridge's daughter Ellie, investigates the incident leading them to the (fictional) small town of Santa Mira, California, home of the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory. Hotel manager Rafferty (Michael Currie) reveals the source of the town's prosperity is Irishman Conal Cochran and his factory and that the majority of the town's population are descendants of Irish immigrants. Challis learns that Ellie's father stayed at the same hotel. Other hotel guests are shop owners Marge Guttman (Garn Stephens) and Buddy Kupfer (Ralph Strait), Buddy's wife Betty (Jadeen Barbor) and their son Little Buddy (Bradley Schacter). All have business at the factory and eventually meet gruesome ends through the Silver Shamrock masks.

Challis and Ellie tour the factory with the Kupfers and are alarmed to discover Grimbridge's car there, guarded by more men dressed in suits. They return to the hotel but cannot contact anyone outside the town. Ellie is kidnapped by the men in suits. Challis breaks into the factory to find her and discovers that the men in suits are androids created by Cochran. Challis is captured by the androids and Cochran reveals his plan to kill children on Halloween night. The Silver Shamrock trademark on the masks contains a computer chip containing a fragment of Stonehenge. When the Silver Shamrock television commercial airs on Halloween night, the chip will activate, killing the wearer and unleashing a lethal swarm of insects, killing those around the wearer. Cochran explains his plan to resurrect macabre aspects of Gaelic festival Samhain, which he connects to witchcraft.

Challis escapes and rescues Ellie. They destroy the factory and Cochran. Challis is attacked by "Ellie", causing him to crash his car. He finds that she is an android copy and destroys it. Challis returns to the filling station Ellie's father had come to eight days earlier and contacts the television stations, convincing all but one to remove the commercial. Trying unsuccessfully to stop the broadcast through the final station, Challis screams into the telephone, "Turn it off! Stop it! Stop it!"



Halloween III: Season of the Witch opened in 1,297 theaters in the United States on October 22, 1982, and earned $6,333,259 in its opening weekend. Like its predecessor, the film was distributed through Universal by Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. It grossed a total of $14,400,000 in the United States but was the worst performing Halloween film at the time. Several other horror films that premiered in 1982 performed far better, including Poltergeist ($76,606,280), Friday the 13th Part 3($34,581,519), and Creepshow ($21,028,755). Internationally, the film premiered in the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain, West Germany, Sweden, France, Canada, Australia, and Singapore.

I'm not sure why everybody is down on the movie if you look at as a movie about Halloween you really get a super creepy movie that plays with your inner child. Nothing is more terrifying as putting on a mask that could turn your head into maggots. If you live under a rock and have never seen this movie I say you must check it out.

4 bloody brains out of 5