Halloween III Movie Review

I went into this movie with high expectations. The fandom surrounding this specific installment in the franchise had me wondering what exactly this movie was about. I don’t normally read the synopsis of the movie before watching, because I like the surprise you get, and not having any shred of a spoiler whatsoever. The movie’s name “Season of the Witch” and the cover had me thinking I was going into something supernatural and maybe full of strange magic. I wondered if maybe they’d somehow tie it in to the first two installments and explain how Michael Myers comes back in the fourth Halloween.

I was let down. I was very let down.

The movie itself had great potential. The movie started out with a chase scene between a man who had a death grip on a Halloween mask and a man in a suit who can’t be killed. No real explanation, but starting out in an intense scene was a great way to start a movie. The man with the mask ends up in the hospital where our main character, Daniel (Tom Atkins), is a doctor. The man is hospitalized, then the man in the suit comes in and finishes the job. Pretty cool. I thought it was going to get pretty intense after that, and had me on the edge of my seat wondering what may come next. The daughter of the man who was murdered, Ellie (played by Stacey Nelkin) shows up to the hospital and was very visibly distraught. Daniel then tells her that he will help her find the answers she surely has.

They set out to seek out why her father was murdered. The friendly relationship between Daniel and Ellie turns into something more than a friendship seemingly out of nowhere. They’re on a quest to find out why her father was so suddenly murdered, but then out of the thin blue air, they’re taking a break from looking for clues to hook up in a hotel room. After that Ellie seems to be.. pretty much over her father’s passing.

The acting throughout the movie is pretty melodramatic on all fronts. It makes the problem at hand that is discovered later in the movie seem like it isn’t really all that serious. The story itself is very bland, the movie really drug on and there was only one reference to the first two movies, it was more of an Easter Egg than a call back.

There is this commercial that plays for a company called Silver Shamrock that plays throughout the movie. At first it’s clever, then halfway through it’s redundant and gets a little annoying. It’s the same jingle, over and over and over. It does tie into the plot, but it gets monotonous hearing this same ad play every 20 minutes in the movie.

The climax and resolution to the movie left me with two words; “that’s it?” It turns into a macabre Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and although the main antagonists plan was truly manichal, and also very clever, left me feeling very unsatisfied.

Halloween III had potential, that in my eyes it didn’t meet. I gave it 5 out of 10 because it wasn’t really THAT awful, it was just a little dated. The Halloween fandom cherishes this installment in the franchise, and that’s perfectly okay. Every franchise has a sinker or two, this one was the sinker for me. I went on to watch Halloween 4 and 5 and it went back to the Halloween feel from the first two movies. I will give Halloween III another chance down the road, but as of right now, I’m sitting on a firm 5/10 rating.