Following a bizarre murder, Dr Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) follows the dead man’s daughter (Stacey Nelkin) to the Silver Shamrock company in Santa Mira.
What they uncover is a sinister conspiracy to turn Halloween into a bloodbath.
Can our heroes save the world before it is too late?
"Why, Cochran, why?"
"Do I need a reason?
While I watched Halloween II fairly quickly after the original, I had no interest in diving into the series. Halloween never seemed refillable as a concept. Over the years, I caught a few entries (see the related links below). They all have their moments, but all they did was reinforce my feelings toward the 1978 original.
After watching Halloween II and Season of the Witch, it drove home how key simplicity is to horror.
On paper Halloween’s story falls apart.
But thanks to Carpenter’s focus on what he wants to show you, you do not question why there are no parents around, or Dr Loomis' incredibly suspect diagnosis of his patient.
Halloween II tried to explain the central concept of the Shape.
Meanwhile Halloween III is just way too complicated, in terms of motives, stakes and world-building, to be effective as a horror movie.
Not that it is not worth watching. Halloween II is trying to bottle lightning. Season of the Witch is trying to conjure up a new bottle.
Part of its appeal is the sense of unfinished business. It is the promise of a future not taken.
Weirdly, despite its over-ambitious plotting, Season of the Witch feels more cohesive than Halloween II, at least in terms of atmosphere.
It is probably as inconsistent as a scare production machine.
The opening is almost great - a man running through the darkness from an unseen threat.
Once the threat is revealed, it starts to feel contrived: this man escapes strangulation by pulling the stock out from a car.
The automatons in this movie should be great - anonymous men in dark suits - but something about them never read quite right.
This might be a question of taste.
When I think of killer robots, my baseline is The Terminator and Westworld - they look human but they move with smoothness and with no personality whatsoever. There is something uncanny about those performances.
In Halloween III, the robots have almost too much character.
It is small things: a robot wiping its hands clean after the first murder; the same robot closing its eyes before pouring gasoline over itself; the way the robot stumbles while fighting Dr Challis in the factory.
It all reads a little sloppy.
The big problem comes back to the script: apparently original scribe Nigel Kneale (Quartermass) left over creative differences and Carpenter himself stepped in to re-write it.
There is something rushed about the story.
The villain's lack of clear motivation, and the diffuse nature of his scheme (how do timezones factor in?) does not help with the stakes.
Dan O'Herlihy brings a real sense of menace as the villain, but it is diffused by the script’s lack of clarity.
Our central couple also feel like sketches rather than fleshed-out people. Atkins and Nelkin have decent chemistry but it also feels like we do not have enough time to get to know them.
Because we do not care about the characters, the shock reveal that Nellie is a machine is just another random plot point.
It also feels like the film writes itself into a corner once Cochran’s plot, such as it is.
It is too easy for Challis to escape and his showdown with Cochran lacks any kind of catharsis.
The movie also feels like it does not have enough budget for its ambitions. With its hidden layer and global threat, the film comes across like a low-budget version of a James Bond movie.
This is going to come across as contradictory but while the movie does not work, it has ba atmosphere and weirdness that is compelling.
The performances are good, Dean Cundey’s photography milks atmosphere out of every frame, and John Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s score gives the movie its singular heartbeat.
If Carpenter had directed it, maybe its flaws could have been overlooked or side-stepped. Maybe.
As is, it is a fascinating what if.
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