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| Eeriness abounds on this poster for Tommy Lee Wallace's Halloween III: Season of the Witch |
Evil Halloween masks threaten national security, and only one cop is on the right track!
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is written and directed by debuting Tommy Lee Wallace (Baywatch (1989, TV-series)), with John Carpenter (Escape from L.A. (1996)) and Nigel Kneale (Quatermass 2 (1957)) contributing uncredited writing. It is the third entry in the Halloween franchise (1978-) and the only entry not featuring slasher boogeyman Michael Myers.
Tom Atkins (Masquerade (1983, TV-series)) is good as the protagonist cop. Though Myers is entirely absent, and the story has no connection to preceding or later Halloween movies, the feeling of dread is clear and present in Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which is an effective, infernal b-movie horror of its very own ilk.
Related posts:
Halloween franchise: Halloween (2007) - Zombie's remake is a bloody stinker
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - Myers returns for dull slasher
Halloween (1978) - Carpenter's haunting slasher classic
Watch a VHS trailer for the film here
Cost: 2.5 mil. $
Box office: 14.4 mil. $ (North America only)
= Some uncertainty - but at least a huge hit (returned 5.76 times its cost in North America alone)
[Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released 22 October (North America, Turkey) and runs 98 minutes. The original Halloween's writers Carpenter and Debra Hill envisioned Season of the Witch as the first film to turn Halloween into an annual anthology horror franchise, each with a wholly fresh plot and characters. Kneale had his name removed from the credits, because executive producer Dino de Laurentiis insisted that more gore be added to the script. Joe Dante dropped out of directing shortly before production to work on his segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), and Wallace was consequently hired. Shooting took place from April 1982 - ? in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release First Blood, to a 6.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#2) and grossed 14.4 mil. $. Regrettably the film's international gross numbers are not made public. It is the lowest-grossing in the Halloween franchise, and this fact turned the filmmakers and studio heads to the opinion that all future Halloween movies must center on slayer Michael Myers. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, translating to 3 notches under this one. Wallace returned with The Twilight Zone (1985-86), Max Headroom (1987, TV-series) and theatrically with Aloha Summer (1988). Atkins returned in 6 TV credits prior to his theatrical return in The New Kids (1985). Halloween III: Season of the Witch is rotten at 41 % with a 4.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Halloween III: Season of the Witch?
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