31 Days of Halloween 2024 — Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Yesterday I wrote about one of the most important movies to me, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). More to the point, I wrote about 8 minutes of that movie; 8 minutes with nary a chainsaw in sight, but a lot to say.
Today, I turn my attention to a movie of somewhat lesser importance, but a movie that is also a case for constant questions of “what-if” that rattle around in my head.
Today, we’re gonna talk about Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). I think you can stream it currently on Peacock. I managed to get a copy from a friend dressed as a pirate.
Odd that he was already in costume given it is only… seven more days ’til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. Seven more days ’til Halloween. Silver Shamrock.
25. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
When it comes to the idea of the multiverse, one “what if” has always popped up when I ask myself what I would want to see if I could travel between these alternate realities.
Inevitably, I quickly mention the timeline where Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) served as the foundation of John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s desire for Halloween as an anthology series. An annual Halloween anthology title is a great idea and I feel like audiences would have been more receptive to something like that today. Somewhere I expect a middle-ground where fan-favorite Michael Myers would return while a mainline anthology series continued. It’s not like the concept of a franchise spinoff is all that unusual to us today.
But, back in 1982, Halloween III: Season of the Witch did not seem to grab audiences in a way that encouraged the anthology approach. That is a real bummer.
We know Carpenter and Hill’s future works together, as well as individually. There is no reason to assume that the anthology approach couldn’t have been a success had it moved forward. The initial reaction to Halloween III at release was surely disheartening, but this was also a new spin on what was originally a one-two punch of what would become one of the most iconic slasher characters in film history.
Given the understanding of sequels and franchising, as it was in the 1980s, I am not shocked that there was an immediate, visceral course correction back to Michael Myers. It makes sense. That is not to say that today a studio would be any braver in such a scenario.
But two things I think about in this context are; first, what if they had moved forward with a fourth Halloween without a Michael Myers connection? Second, with the video boom of the late '80s into the early '90s being a possible factor, what if the anthology had taken off in retail?
Again, we’re vastly into a different sort of timeline and territory here, but it doesn’t seem impossible that a hypothetical Halloween 4, carrying forward the anthology concept, might have faired better than 3, because at least the trend is established then. And then, supposing said film landed on video, perhaps the stock of 3 may have risen as well, where now there are three different Halloween stories, with the potential for more every couple of years thereafter.
Yes, there may have been diehards asking “Where is Michael? When is Michael coming back?” and I think there would be enough of a demand by then that we have two parallel Halloween franchises. Would there be a confusing branding issue between them? Absolutely. But I am sure there would be a potential solution found, I’m sure. After all, it couldn’t be any messier than the current Halloween multiverse.
All of this is vastly hypothetical; the whole premise is faulty because as a what-if, there was never really a chance of the anthology route following Halloween III’s lackluster box office performance. Season would be easily outpaced financially by Poltergeist, Friday the 13th Part III, and Creepshow the same year. The Creepshow wrinkle in all of this is funny, as it is a successful anthology, especially more so today with it being an anthology series on Shudder.
But, the fact remains, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was not a success in any real sense; not at the box office, not critically, and not for Carpenter and Hill’s desire to have a series of Halloween stories. We can imagine all sorts of scenarios or approaches to this, but the bottom line is that the movie just needed to be better. The film has had a little bit of a reassessment within the horror community and isn’t so much thought of as the worst thing ever committed to film, ever, as Star Wars fans just won’t shut the hell up about The Last Jedi (2017) (which is actually the best of the sequel trilogy).
Halloween III isn’t exactly good. It has a lot of issues. It’s incredibly ridiculous. The fusion of witchcraft and technology is extremely nonsensical and the world of Halloween III is largely inconsistent. It’s a movie about a magical witch ritual that involves goddamn robots. Tommy Lee Wallace’s direction is nothing too outstanding, for example. But, it is not terrible, either.
There is a lot of fun to be had within Halloween III. The recursive loop of Tom Atkins’ Dr. Dan emulates the opening scenes of the movie. The conspiracy angle includes elements of witchcraft, popular conceptions of the men in black, and pointed critiques of capitalism. Other wildly entertaining elements include the aforementioned witchcraft robots and the big plan about turning everyone into bugs and snake fountains with chips from Stonehenge. Plus, there is the outsized presence of John Carpenter’s score. All shit I adore.
It’s a fun movie, I can at least say that. I unironically have been humming the Silver Shamrock melody all day. But I can also see why it didn’t light the world of horror fans on fire like Halloween (1978) did years earlier.
I could easily continue to spiral into all sorts of scenarios that might have led to Halloween III becoming more successful, or at least enough of a success that making another anthology sequel wouldn’t have been as poisonous to Moustapha Akkad, the legendary producer of so many of the films in the series.
But, as fun as it is to do, it’s ultimately meaningless. We have Halloween III: Season of the Witch as it is, now, and I accept and enjoy it.
Latex witch mask warts and all.
