Halloween III: Season of the Witch - When Halloween Wasn't Halloween

This unique entry in the Halloween series deserves recognition for its weirdness over 30 years on, and here's why.

Halloween III's theatrical release poster in 1982. Photo: Universal Pictures

When the topic of Halloween films is brought up in a general conversation, most would think about either John Carpenter’s 1978 classic or David Gordon Green’s 2018 admirable legacy sequel. In a series filled with releases that garnered mixed to negative critical reception, these two stand out for being the only films that garnered positive critical reception. Halloween III: Season of the Witch stands out from the series as well, for a very different reason.

Following the astronomical success of the 1978 original, John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s idea for the future of Halloween was that they’d turn it into an anthology series. Each year, a new film could come out whose only connection to the previous films would be that it centred around a Halloween theme, and yet any one of these hypothetical entries could, in turn, become a franchise in its own right, spinning off its own sequels. The idea was promising, but the issue was the popularity of Michael Myers. Once Halloween II was released in 1981, though, concluding the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (at the time), the anthology idea was picked back up again, and in 1982, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released. And what an undoubtedly bizarre film it is.

Halloween and Halloween II can be bluntly summarised as films where a guy in a mask terrorises a neighbourhood and a hospital, respectively. Halloween III: Season of the Witch can be bluntly summarised as a film where a toy manufacturer creates masks that kill children when a commercial plays a jingle, which triggers the mask to crush their heads, releasing various bugs and snakes in the process. For a more concrete summary, the plot revolves around an alcoholic womanising doctor, Daniel Challis, and Ellie Grimbridge, the daughter of a murder victim, who uncover a plot by small-town mask maker Conal Cochran. Cochran plans a Halloween mass murder utilising an ancient Celtic ritual, involving a stolen boulder from Stonehenge (don’t ask how, because the film doesn’t even try to explain), the use of Silver Shamrock masks and a triggering device contained in a television commercial — all designed to kill millions of children. A bit of a far cry from the 9 victims who died at the hands of Michael Myers in Halloween II.

The most significant thing about this film, other than the lack of Michael Myers, is how weird it gets. This isn’t a slasher film anymore; instead, it’s more of a ‘pod’ film. Director Tommy Lee Wallace was heavily inspired by Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, evidenced by the fictional town of Santa Mira being used as the setting for both films and the plot element of ‘snatching’ bodies and replacing them with androids. The violence and gore have been scaled back from Halloween II’s graphical violence, alongside a lot of the ‘horror’, but what is left leans more on the disturbing and disgusting side of horror. Ever wanted to see a film where a swarm of insects and snakes get released from a child’s head after they’ve died of fatal brain damage? This film has you covered.

As is tradition for the series, the John Carpenter score is an ever-present mark of quality. Even if the film isn’t the same as the previous two Halloween entries, the opening credits forming a pumpkin on television and computer screens are a neat evolution of the opening credits from the first film, fitting in with the film’s content. Following that point, this film can be seen as an ongoing, cynical commentary on American consumer culture. Upset over the commercialisation of the Halloween holiday, Cochran uses the very medium he abhors as a weapon against itself, keeping in line with his intention to resurrect ancient pagan rituals of sacrificing children during the age of Samhain. You could even say the ambiguous ending fits with the film’s commentary on American consumerism. Two of the three television channels about to show the “Big Giveaway” commercial abort the broadcast after a frantic Dan phones them up, but a third station fails to do so, leaving the audience wondering whether Dan stopped the broadcast in time. Ultimately, as much as you try to slow down mass consumerism, there’s always going to be one last commercial.

And how about that ending? Logically, the different time zones of America would mean this could never have worked the way the villain intended, as different areas could have discovered the effects of the commercial before it aired in their respective local times. But at the end of the day, despite Tom Atkins, Dan’s actor, saying that Dan stopped the broadcast, you can’t help but admire the dark and ambiguous ending and the fact that the credits were originally going to include the screams of the dying children and parents. The novelisation of this film went even further, dropped the ambiguity and made it so that the broadcast was not stopped, and that Dan failed as millions of children died screaming. In other words, Michael Myers’ actions are child’s play compared to the hypothetical deaths caused at the hands of an Irish toymaker and an annoying TV commercial.

Sadly, this was to be the only time a Twilight Zone-esque anthology film was released. Bearing the burden of being an entry in the Halloween franchise resulted in the negative reception the film received in 1982, as it likely would’ve been better received if it weren’t. Even if the original intention for Halloween was to be a series of anthology films centred around Halloween itself, the popularity of Michael Myers postponed that idea when this wasn’t as big a success critically or commercially, that idea was never realised again, and Michael Myers returned in 1988 onwards. Ultimately, it’s a shame because, despite its flaws and the fact that it isn’t like Halloween, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a fascinating oddity that deserves more attention than it gets.