The Halloween franchise set aside Mike Myers for its third film, a bizarre supernatural/SF mystery thriller that underwent numerous rewrites. I find it not as bad as its initial mainstream critical reception—but nowhere near as good as its eventual cult following claims.
It's Halloween in 1982 and it's most definitely the Season of the Witch.
A doctor (Tom Atkins) with personal issues and the daughter (Stacey Nelkin) of man who dies under mysterious circumstances unmask a fantastically bizarre plot to unleash real and lasting horror on Halloween night.
The story begins well, and it features a good, if unusual, central concept that taps into several popular fears which surround Halloween. Also, fears about children and television, but those feel quaint now. All of these things derive from Nigel Neale's original script. Alas, the studio and the director could not leave that alone. It's a horror movie. It needs more violence! Executives remained in awe of Star Wars. Add more science fiction! The plot went through so many revisions that Neale had his name removed.
The film grows increasingly ridiculous as the film progresses. The adversary (Dan O'Herlihy), quietly menacing at first, becomes a parody of a Bond villain. As a bonus he has a surveillance obsession-- except when it serves the plot for surveillance to be lax. Our doctor morphs into an action hero and the universe plays along. And with everything else we have to accept as a part of the premise, did Cochran also need to have an army of super-advanced robots that look like door-to-door religious solicitors, but who work on already out-of-date surplus computers? It's one of several items that aren't needed and don't really make sense.
Finally, the villain's plot itself runs into problems related to time zones. There is also the lingering question of just whom Challis calls at the end to get the specific results that he does.
The film features wildly uneven effects. Some of the death scenes remain effective. The visuals created for the finale, however, didn't look great in '82 and have since become entirely laughable.
The film dared to do something different with the franchise, and it features a number of original elements. This premise really could have worked.
Halloween (1978) changed the face of seasonal horror. A less-than-positive response to Halloween II led the filmmakers (as noted in the previous review) in a new direction. Keep the title, but make the series a sort of Inner Sanctum/Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt, featuring different, unrelated horrors.1
It might have happened had this film been the second one.
As it stands, III fared poorly at the box office, and all future Halloweens brought back Michael Myers. Halloween III did turn a profit and its status as an oddball cult film has increased over the years. The film's masks have turned up as Easter Eggs Halloween Goodies in some other films.2
Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
Writers: Tommy Lee Wallace, John Carpenter, Nigel Neale.
Animation director: Ralph Bakshi
Tom Atkins as Dr. Daniel Challis
Stacey Nelkin as Ellie Grimbridge
Dan O'Herlihy as Conal Cochran
Michael Currie as Rafferty
Al Berry as Harry Grimbridge
Maidie Norman as Nurse Agnes
Nancy Kyes as Linda Challis
Ralph Strait as Buddy Kupfer
Jadeen Barbor as Betty Kupfer
Brad Schacter as Little Buddy
Garn Stephens as Marge Guttman
Jonathan Terry as Starker
Wendy Wessberg as Teddy
Essex Smith as Walter Jones
Paddi Edwards as Secretary
John MacBride as Sheriff
Dick Warlock as Assassin
Jamie Lee Curtis as Santa Mira PA voiceover
Tommy Lee Wallace as Silver Shamrock voiceover
Notes
1. A brief advertisement for the original Halloween appears on TV at one point.
2. Livide (2011), The Guest, and some of the twenty-first century Halloween sequels.
Reviews of other films entitled Season of the Witch may be found under that title.