Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

I had been interested in seeing Halloween 3 for a while now, as it’s pretty well known for being the odd man out of the Halloween franchise, as the series tried to break away from the slasher format and actually try something new. It’s generally pretty well hated among horror fans, I guess for having the nerve to actually try something different, and for not having Michael Myers in it (a quick cameo as they show the original movie on TV is all he gets here). I had never actually gotten around to seeing it before now, however, and I had always been curious as to how much of the hatred was actually warranted.

As it turns out, while there was certainly a good deal of room for improvement to be had, it really wasn’t bad at all, and was certainly better than the two Halloween movies I’ve seen that were made after this (H2O and Resurrection). One nice thing is how the plot, which has tended to lean towards the nonexistent side of things in pretty much all the other Halloween films, is so labyrinthine that it could easily have comprised two movies. Over an hour and a half, we are treated to a murder mystery, an evil children’s commercial, clockwork men, mind controlling Halloween masks, witchcraft, Stonehenge, a town under such strict curfew that even the pets need to be inside after 6, people being turned into insects, and warring between a toy manufacturer and his various clients. If all that seems like a bit much, then I probably also shouldn’t reveal that they found time to give the heroic doctor an estranged wife to have a fairly annoying subplot with, as well as managing to throw in a quick sex scene with him and a woman he had just met the day prior. Whatever your feelings on its overall quality, you cannot call this film boring.

While I will freely admit that this is not the best movie out there, it is at least a passable film, and were it not a part of the Halloween series I think people would view it much more fondly. It’s an interesting idea, at least, and if you’re doing a marathon of Halloween movies it’ll be nice to have one that is actually more than just “Guy in Shatner mask walks around stabbing people”. Give it a chance.