Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tommy Lee Wallace
Produced by	John Carpenter Debra Hill Moustapha Akkad Joseph Wolf Dino De Laurentiis
Written by	Tommy Lee Wallace
Starring	Tom Atkins Stacey Nelkin Dan O'Herlihy
Music by	John Carpenter Alan Howarth
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Editing by	Millie Moore
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	October 22, 1982 (1982-10-22)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.5 million
Gross revenue	$14.44 million
Preceded by	Halloween II (1981)
Followed by	Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a 1982 American horror film and the third installment in the Halloween series. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and starring Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin and Dan O'Herlihy, the film is based on an original screenplay by Nigel Kneale and focuses on an evil scheme by the owner of a mask company to kill the children of America on Halloween night through a series of popular Halloween masks: a witch, a jack-o'-lantern, and a skull.

The story of Halloween III: Season of the Witch is unrelated to the story of previous Halloween films, which featured the character Michael Myers. Halloween III: Season of the Witch was intended to revise the Halloween franchise as an anthology series, with a new Halloween storyline every year.^[1] This film depicts the trailer for Carpenter's original 1978 Halloween airing on a TV. The story abandons the Michael Myers plotline, and the film departs from the slasher film genre the original Halloween spawned. The focus on a psychopathic killer is replaced by a "mad scientist and witchcraft" theme.

Produced on a budget of $2.5 million, Halloween III grossed $14.4 million at the box office in the United States.^[2] In addition to relatively weak box office returns, most critics gave the film negative reviews. Where Halloween had broken new ground and was imitated by many genre films following in its wake,^[3] this third installment seemed hackneyed to many. One critic twenty years later suggests that if Halloween III was not part of the Halloween series, then it would simply be "a fairly nondescript eighties horror flick, no worse and no better than many others".^[4] Cultural and film historians read minor significance into the film's plot, linking it to critiques of large corporations and American consumerism.

Plot

On Saturday, October 23, shop owner Harry Grimbridge (Al Berry) is chased by mysterious figures wearing business suits. He collapses at a gas station clutching a Silver Shamrock jack-o'-lantern mask and is driven to the hospital by the filling station attendant (Essex Smith) all the while ranting, "They're gonna kill us. All of us." Grimbridge is placed under the care of Dr. Daniel "Dan" Challis. While Grimbridge is hospitalized, another man in a suit enters his room and pulls his skull apart, killing him instantly. The man then returns to his vehicle, douses himself with gasoline and lights himself on fire, causing the car to explode.

Challis, together with Grimbridge's daughter, Ellie (Stacey Nelkin), begins an investigation that leads them to the small town of Santa Mira, California, home of the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory. They learn from a hotel manager, Mr. Rafferty (Michael Currie), that the source of the town's prosperity is Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) and his factory and that the majority of the town's population is made up of descendants of Irish immigrants. Challis learns that Ellie's father had stayed at the same hotel. Other guests of the hotel included shop owners Marge Guttman (Garn Stephens) and the Kupfer family: Buddy (Ralph Strait), Betty (Jadeen Barbor) and their son "Little" Buddy (Bradley Schacter). All have business at the factory and eventually meet gruesome ends because of the Silver Shamrock masks.

A day after arriving in Santa Mira, Challis and Ellie tour the Silver Shamrock factory with the Kupfers and are alarmed to discover Grimbridge's car in a storage building guarded by more men dressed in suits. They return to their hotel but find that they cannot contact anyone outside Santa Mira. Ellie is kidnapped by the men in suits from the factory, and in an attempt to locate her, Challis breaks into the factory. There he discovers that the men in suits are actually androids created by Cochran. Although Challis succeeds in neutralizing one of the androids (Dick Warlock), he is captured by the others, and Cochran reveals his plan to kill children on Halloween night. He explains that the Silver Shamrock trademark on the masks contains a computer chip embedded with a small fragment of a five-ton sacrificial stone stolen from Stonehenge. When the Silver Shamrock television commercial airs on Halloween night, the chip will activate, discharging energy which will cause the wearers' heads to dissolve and spew insects and snakes. Cochran further explains that he is attempting to resurrect the more macabre aspects of the Celtic festival, Samhain, which he connects to witchcraft.

Challis escapes from the cell Cochran leaves him in, rescues an unusually passive Ellie, and manages to sabotage Cochran's computers so that the commercial is played into the factory's control room. He then releases a shower of computer chips, which explode in front of the TV monitors and destroy Cochran's androids. The computers and the standing stone form a magic circle; Cochran politely applauds his opponent before the circle's energy discharges through him and vaporizes him. Challis flees as the factory is consumed in the chain reaction, but discovers that the "Ellie" he has saved is another android. He destroys it and makes his way to the same filling station where Ellie's father had come eight days earlier. Challis contacts the television stations and convinces all but one of the station managers to remove the commercial. The film ends with Challis on the phone, begging the station to turn off the commercial while the "Magic Pumpkin" which triggers the computer chip in the mask begins to flash. He frantically yells for the station to stop the commercial before it is too late. The film ends with him yelling "STOP IT!" and the credits then roll.

Production

Development

When approached about creating a third Halloween film, original Halloween writers John Carpenter and Debra Hill were reluctant to pledge commitment. According to Fangoria magazine, Carpenter and Hill agreed to participate in the new project only if it was not a direct sequel to Halloween II, which meant no Michael Myers.^[5] Irwin Yablans and Moustapha Akkad, who had produced the first two films, filmed Halloween III on a budget of $2.5 million.^[2]

The masks created by Don Post were featured in a 1982 article in The Twilight Zone Magazine.

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.^[6][7] Hill told Aljean Harmetz, "We didn't exactly have a whole lot of money for things like props, so we asked Post, who had provided the shape mask for the earlier 'Halloween [II]' ..., if we could work out a deal."^[8] 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.^[8]

Writing

Producers recruited Manx 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 adds, "The main story had to do with deception, psychological shocks rather than physical ones." Kneale asserted 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. Wallace was then assigned to revise the script.^[9]

Wallace told Fangoria that he created the title of the film as a reference to "a plot point"—the three masks featured in the film—and an attempt to connect this film with the others in the series. He explained in the interview the direction that Carpenter and Hill wanted to take the Halloween series, stating, "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." Each year, a new film would be released that focused on an aspect of the Halloween season.^[10]

Hill told Fangoria that the film was supposed to be "a 'pod' movie, not a 'knife' movie."^[11] As such, Wallace drew inspiration from another pod film: Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Santa Mira was the fictional setting of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the name was adopted for Halloween III as an homage to Siegel's film.^[8] Aspects of the plot proved very similar as well, such as the "snatching" bodies and replacing them with androids, and the pessimistic conclusion at the film's end. Halloween III's subtitle comes from George A. Romero's second film Season of the Witch (1973)—also known as Hungry Wives—but the plot contains no similarity to Romero's story of a housewife who becomes involved in witchcraft.^[4]

Historian Nicholas Rogers notes that Halloween III is "the only film in the [Halloween] cycle that explores the sacrificial aspects of Halloween in a sustained manner."^[12] Film critics like Jim Harper, however, called Wallace's plot "deeply flawed." Harper argues, "Any plot dependent on stealing a chunk of Stonehenge and shipping it secretly across the Atlantic is going to be shaky from the start." He noted, "there are four time zones across the United States, so the western seaboard has four hours to get the fatal curse-inducing advertisement off the air. Not a great plan."^[4] Harper was not the only critic unimpressed by the plot. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "What's [Cochran's] plan? Kill the kids and replace them with robots? Why?"^[13]

Casting

The cast of Halloween III: Season of the Witch consisted mostly of character actors whose previous acting credits included small roles or bit parts on various television series. The exceptions were Tom Atkins and veteran actor Dan O'Herlihy.

Tom Atkins as Dr. Dan Challis in the last scene of Halloween III.

Cast as alcoholic doctor Daniel "Dan" Challis, Tom Atkins had appeared in several Carpenter films prior to Halloween III. Atkins played Nick in The Fog (1980) and Rehme in Escape from New York (1981). Atkins guest starred in television series such as Harry O, The Rockford Files and Lou Grant. Atkins told Fangoria that he liked being the hero. As a veteran horror actor, he added, "I wouldn't mind making a whole career out of being in just horror movies."^[14] After Halloween III, Atkins continued to play supporting roles in dozens of films and television series.^[15]

Stacey Nelkin co-starred as Ellie Grimbridge, a young woman whose father is murdered by Cochran. She landed the role after a make-up artist working on the film told her about the auditions. In an interview, Nelkin commented on her character: "Ellie was very spunky and strong-minded. Although I like to think of myself as having these traits, she was written that way in the script." Nelkin considered it an "honor" to be playing Jamie Lee Curtis's successor.^[16] According to Roger Ebert, Nelkin's performance was the "one saving grace" in the film. Ebert explained, "She has one of those rich voices that makes you wish she had more to say and in a better role... Too bad she plays her last scene without a head."^[13] Prior to her role as Grimbridge, Nelkin played only bit parts in television series like CHiPs and The Waltons. After Halloween III, Nelkin continued working as a character actress on television.^[17]

Veteran Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy was cast as Conal Cochran, the owner of Silver Shamrock and the witch from the film's title (a 3000-year-old demon in Kneale's original script).^[5] O'Herlihy had played close to 150 roles before co-starring as the Irish trickster and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954). He appeared in another twenty films and television series before his death in 2005.^[18] O'Herlihy admitted in an interview with Starlog magazine that he was not particularly impressed with the finished film. When asked what he thought of working in the horror film, O'Herlihy responded, "Whenever I use a Cork accent, I'm having a good time, and I used a Cork accent in Halloween III. I thoroughly enjoyed the role, but I didn't think it was much of a picture, no."^[19]

Two members of the supporting cast were not strangers to the Halloween series. Nancy Kyes played Challis's ex-wife Linda; she had appeared in the original Halloween as Laurie Strode's late promiscuous friend Annie Brackett. Stunt performer Dick Warlock, who earlier co-starred as Michael Myers in Halloween II, makes a cameo appearance as a similar character as the android assassin defeated by Challis.^[20] Furthermore, Jamie Lee Curtis had an uncredited role as the operator's voice that frustrates Challis' attempts to call for help from Santa Mira and the one announcing curfew in the town.^[21]

Directing

The film was the directorial debut of Wallace, although he was not a newcomer to the Halloween series. Wallace had served as art director and production designer for Carpenter's original Halloween and he had previously declined to direct Halloween II in 1981. After Halloween III, Wallace directed other horror films such as Fright Night II (1988), Vampires: Los Muertos (2002), and the miniseries It (1990), the television adaptation of the Stephen King novel.

Despite disagreements between Wallace and original script writer Nigel Kneale, the actors reported that Wallace was a congenial director to work with. Stacey Nelkin told one interviewer, "The shoot as a whole was fun, smooth and a great group of people to work with. Wallace was incredibly helpful and open to discussion on dialogue or character issues."^[16]

Although the third film departed from the plot of the first two films, Wallace attempted to connect all three films together through certain stylistic themes. The film's opening title features a digitally animated jack-o'-lantern, a reference to the jack-o'-lanterns that appeared in the opening titles of Halloween and Halloween II. Wallace's jack-o'-lantern is the catalyst in the Silver Shamrock commercials that activates the masks. Another stylistic reference to the original film is found in the scene where Dr. Challis tosses a mask over a security camera, making the image on the monitor seem to be peering through the eye holes. This is a nod to the scene in which a young Michael Myers murders his sister while wearing a clown mask.^[22] Finally, the film contains a brief reference to its predecessors by including a few short scenes from Halloween in a television commercial that advertises the airing of the film for that upcoming holiday as a minor story within a story.

Wallace's use of gore served a different purpose than in Halloween II. According to Tom Atkins, "The effects in this [film] aren't bloody. They're more bizarre than gross."^[23] Special effects and makeup artist Tom Burman concurred, stating in an interview, "This movie is really not out to disgust people. It's a fun movie with a lot of thrills in it; not a lot of random gratuitous gore."^[24] Many of the special effects were meant to emphasize the theme of the practical joke that peppers the plot. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby notes, "The movie features a lot of carefully executed, comically horrible special effects ...." Canby stood as one of the few critics of the time to praise Wallace's directing: "Mr. Wallace clearly has a fondness for the clichés he is parodying and he does it with style."^[25]

Most of the filming took place on location in the small coastal town of Loleta in Humboldt County, California. Familiar Foods, a milk bottling plant in Loleta, served as the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory, but all special effects involving fire, smoke, and explosions were filmed at Post Studios.^[7]

Music

Music remained an important element in establishing the atmosphere of Halloween III. Just as in Halloween and Halloween II, there was no symphonic score. Much of the music was composed to solicit "false startles" from the audience.

John Carpenter (left) and Alan Howarth composed most of the soundtrack to Halloween III using synthesizers.

The soundtrack was composed by Carpenter and Alan Howarth, who had worked on the score for Halloween II. The score of Halloween III differed greatly from the familiar main theme of the original and sequel. Carpenter replaced the familiar piano melody with a slower, electronic theme played on a synthesizer with beeping tonalities.^[26] Howarth explains how he and Carpenter composed the music for the third film:

The music style of Carpenter and myself has further evolved in this film soundtrack by working exclusively with synthesizers to produce our music. This has led to a certain procedural routine. The film is first transferred to a time coded video tape and synchronized to a 24 track master audio recorder; then while watching the film we compose the music to these visual images. The entire process goes quite rapidly and has "instant gratification," allowing us to evaluate the score in synch to the picture. This is quite an invaluable asset.^[27]

One of the more memorable aspects of the film's soundtrack was the jingle from the Silver Shamrock Halloween mask commercial. Set to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down", the commercial in the film counts down the days until Halloween beginning with day eight followed by an announcer's voice (Wallace) encouraging children to purchase a Silver Shamrock mask to wear on Halloween night:

Eight more days 'til Halloween,

Halloween, Halloween.

Eight more days 'til Halloween,

Silver Shamrock.^[28]

The jingle and its lyrics are used as part of the intro to the "Helloween" song "Starlight". It is heard as part of a radio advert while someone in the intro retunes their radio.

Release

Halloween III opened theatrically in October 1982 on the same weekend as First Blood. Some people were so upset with the film not showing Michael Myers that they threw things at the screen. Both movies were rated R and both depended on the male movie goer. In 1981, Halloween II opened up the same day as Time Bandits. While Halloween II did well against the PG fantasy, Halloween III however was no match for First Blood.

Halloween III, like its predecessor, was distributed through Universal by producer Dino De Laurentiis. It grossed a total of $14,400,000 in the United States,^[2] the worst performing Halloween film at the time.^[29] Several other horror films that premiered in 1982 performed far better, including Poltergeist ($76,606,280), Friday the 13th Part III ($34,581,519), and Creepshow ($21,028,755).^[30] Internationally, the film premiered in the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain, West Germany, Sweden, France, Canada, Australia, and Singapore.

In 1983, Edd Riveria, designer of the film's theatrical poster, received a Saturn Award nomination from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA, for Best Poster Art, but lost to John Alvin's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) artwork.^[31] Riveria's poster art featured a demonic face descending on three trick-or-treaters. His artwork was later featured on the cover of Fangoria in October 1982. Oddly enough, no creature even remotely resembling the face on the theatrical poster appears in the film.

Merchandising

Edd Riveria's Halloween III artwork featured on the cover of Fangoria.

As part of a merchandising campaign, the producers requested Don Post to mass-produce the skull, witch, and jack-o'-lantern masks. Producers had given exclusive merchandising rights to Post as part of his contract for working on the film, and Post Studios had already successfully marketed tie-in masks for the classic Universal monsters, Planet of the Apes (1968), Star Wars (1977), and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1981). Post used the original molds for the masks in the film to mass produce masks for retail sale. He speculated, "Because the masks are so significant to the movie, they could become a cult item, with fans wanting to wear them when they go to see the movie." Post gave mask-making demonstrations for a Universal Studio tour in Hollywood. The masks retailed for $25 when they finally appeared in stores.^[8] Each mask also included a small metal button that contained a crystal pinned to the inside.

The script was adapted as a mass market paperback novelization in 1982 by horror writer Dennis Etchison writing under the pseudonym Jack Martin. The book was a bestseller and was reissued in 1984.^[32][33] Etchison had written the novelization to Halloween II only a year before.

The film was later released on the VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, and RCA Selectavision Videodisc formats in 1983 by MCA/Universal Home Video. Subsequent videotape re-issues were released in 1984, 1987, and again in 1996. GoodTimes Home Video owned the rights at one point and released a VHS in 1996. DVD versions were distributed by Goodtimes in 1998 (with a re-issue release in 2001) and by Universal in 2003.

Halloween III's score, composed by Carpenter and Alan Howarth, was released by MCA Records at the time of the film's debut on LP and was re-issued briefly on compact disc in 1989 by Varèse Sarabande. The original CD issue is considered a rarity and commands high collector prices. In 2007, for the film's 25th Anniversary, Alan Howarth's record label AHI, in association with buysoundtrax.com, re-issued the score again on CD with additional unreleased material.

Critical response

Critical response to Halloween III: Season of the Witch was negative. New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby struggled to apply a definite label to the film's content. He remarks, "Halloween III manages the not easy feat of being anti-children, anti-capitalism, anti-television and anti-Irish all at the same time." He says that the film "is probably as good as any cheerful ghoul could ask for."^[25] Other critics were far more decisive in their assessments. Roger Ebert wrote that the film was "a low-rent thriller from the first frame. This is one of those Identikit movies, assembled out of familiar parts from other, better movies."^[13]

Tom Milne of Time Out, a British magazine, offered a more positive review, calling the title "a bit of a cheat, since the indestructible psycho of the first two films plays no part here." Unlike other critics, Milne thought the new plot was refreshing: "With the possibilities of the characters [of the previous Halloween films] well and truly exhausted, Season of the Witch turns more profitably to a marvellously ingenious Nigel Kneale tale of a toymaker and his fiendish plan to restore Halloween to its witch cult origins." Although Milne was unhappy that Kneale's original script was reduced to "a bit of a mess," he still believed the end result was "hugely enjoyable."^[34]

Halloween III has gained somewhat of a cult following among audiences. Academics find the film full of critiques of late twentieth-century American society. Historian Nicholas Rogers points to an anti-corporate message where an otherwise successful businessman turns "oddly irrational" and seeks to "promote a more robotic future for commerce and manufacture." Cochran's "astrological obsessions or psychotic hatred of children overrode his business sense."^[12] Tony Williams argues that the film's plot signified the results of the "victory of patriarchal corporate control."^[35] In a similar vein, Martin Harris writes that Halloween III contains "an ongoing, cynical commentary on American consumer culture." Upset over the commercialization of the Halloween holiday, Cochran uses "the very medium he abhors as a weapon against itself." Harris references other big business critiques in the film, including the unemployment of local workers and the declining quality of mass produced products.^[36]

Nigel Kneale, while displeased with the finished film, said in an interview "I wrote a very good script – if I say it myself. It’s one of the best I’ve ever written."^[37]

References

External links

• Official website
• Watch the Magic Pumpkin.com
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch at the Internet Movie Database
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch at Allmovie
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch at Rotten Tomatoes
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch at Box Office Mojo
• Halloween III: Season of the Witch at FEARnet