Over 40 years later,Halloween III: Season of the Witchcontinues to age well, while most of the franchise sequels featuring Michael Myers ultimately fall into oblivion.Halloweenis one of the most successful horror franchises out there, but fans are well aware there are many ups and downs involved.
Amidst jumbled chronologies and exhausting mystification of the Strodes descent into horror,Halloweenproducers understand that regardless of a strange or incompetent script, the figure of Michael Myers will always be directly tied to good visibility and box office numbers. That’s why many insist on pretendingHalloween III: Season of the Witchnever existed, even though it’s one of the franchise’s only films that actually does justice to its name.
Lives Up to John Carpenter’s Original Idea for a Halloween Franchise
Unsurprisingly, eachHalloweenmovie takes place during the popular Halloween season in the United States, but to what extent do costumes, decorations, and trick-or-treats actually interfere with the plot beyond aesthetics? With each movie, the game of cat and mouse between Michael Myers and his victims feels considerably distant fromHalloween’s original premise and the sequels' storylines could be happening at any place or time, if it weren’t from the traditional Halloween decorations that pop up every once in a while. That’s one of the main reasons why fans argue the franchise lost its identity, even with the different attempts tostartHalloweenfrom scratch, first with Rob Zombie and then with David Gordon Green’s trilogy.
One might argue that the date resonates directly with Michael Myers and Laurie’s tragic pasts, as iftheHalloween exerted a nearly mystical power over them both, while at the end of the day, it was nothing more than a narrative convenience. This becomes evident when creatorJohn Carpenter’s original planfor aHalloweenfranchise is taken into account: an anthology series of films set during Halloween. With that in mind, Michael Myers' past is nothing more than a pretext, but the original movie happened to come out right when studios were witnessing the rise of blockbusters, eager to claim a successful franchise of their own.
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That’s how Carpenter’s idea was discarded over a ready-made formula. And so,Halloweencrept its way into the delicate reign of promisingfranchises in the ’80s, where, alongsideNightmare on Elm StreetorFriday the 13th, certain rules had to be followed to ensure profit. Characters had to remain faithful to their motivations, meaning they should be making the same mistakes over and over again, elements from the original elements had to pop up solely for nostalgic value, and so on.
Yet, how does these rules apply to a movie that rejects any connection with its predecessors, and why was this considered a bad thing? PerhapsHalloween III: Season of the Witch’s biggest mistake is to carry the burden of being the third installment in a franchise. Certainly, the reception would’ve been different had the movie come out as the secondHalloweenmovie, complying with Carpenter’s original idea.
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Season of the Witch Embraces the Absurd, Mixing Sci-Fi and Horror
Halloween III: Season of the Witchshould be considered an essential horror movie thattakes place on Halloween. It feels as if the general contention for the movie is much more tied to the public’s difficulty in dissociatingSeason of the Witch’s original and independent narrative from Michael Myers' arc, turning their back to one of the genuinely bravest horror productions of the past century. In the movie, the Halloween date hovers like Judgment Day over unsuspecting victims, and the mystery is established right from the start as a local company’s hypnotic TV commercial, specializing in Halloween masks, hints at a thrilling surprise to all the children using the masks of a company called Silver Shamrock on Halloween day.
This seemingly innocent narrative proposal is interspersed with the cunning investigation of Dr. Challis and young Ellie, who together travel to the small town, where the revered Silver Shamrock is based and produces its masks and toys, in an attempt to uncover the truth about the mysterious death of Ellie’s father. That’s when the movie fully begins to embrace the absurd, with learnings from the classicThe Wicker Manclearly hovering overSeason of the Witch’s storyline.
It’s with evident ease that the movie deconstructs everything it established in the first hour in a matter of minutes. Making use ofimpressive practical effects, the film uses the grotesque to conduct the audience towards Silver Shamrock’s macabre interests. What’s particularly impressive aboutHalloween III: Season of the Witchis its decision to reject continuity and logic in favor of a deep dive into the unknown, challenging viewers to go down the rabbit hole alongside the main characters. These absurd elements are exposed in scenes such as when a TV signal activates Silver Shamrock’s creepy mask mechanism on a young boy, melting his face and releasing a bunch of snakes and insects from the kid’s skull. There’s no point in asking where they came from, or what’s the meaning behind this; reality no longer matters at this point.
Politically,Season of the Witchis the strongestHalloweenmovie by miles — not that there’s anything really political about Michael Myers chasing after his sister. However,Season of the Witchtouches on important topics such as the mass hysteria that was spreading through America at the height of the Cold War. Themes such as bizarre scientific experiments, mind control, and governmental conspiracies are all here in the form of a local problem that takes global proportions. In addition, Carpenter’s score tries, like the film itself, to free itself from Michael Myers' shadow, leaving the haunting piano fromHalloween’s theme behind and making room for a complex synth track, bordering on techno-pop at times, which blends perfectly with the cyberterror atmosphere of the movie.
The commitment to the anthology format is superb, using the characters as mere mechanisms to direct the story to an invigorating and cruel climax. The consequences don’t matter, the damage has already been done.Halloween IIIbegins and ends on Halloween, just as it should. The fact that the movie consistently brings more fans on board each year, aging like fine wine, should be a clear indication that it might not be too late for the Halloween franchise to revisit theoriginal anthology plan.
