Mang Now!: Most Underrated Horror Flick: Halloween 3-Season of the Witch

I am writing this while watching the movie Halloween, arguably the best Halloween related film of all time. Unfortunately, we will not know for sure which movie is the best horror film until later this week, but I did want to take a little time now to cover what in my opinion is the most severely underrated horror film that came out of the 80s—Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.

Believe it or not, this is probably my second favorite movie in the Halloween series. The original Halloween is definitely my favorite of the bunch for obvious reasons, but Season of the Witch received such a bad rap from fans because of the lack of Michael Myers that it was doomed to ever be shown on TV with the rare, exceptional appearance. Similarly as has been with previous Halloween’s, it is not going to be on TV this year either.

Musically, Season of the Witch is as good (if not slightly better) than the original score for Halloween. In fact, I would say it is quite exceptional for a horror film, as typically horror films are not known for musical scores. Do not get me wrong, the right use of music and sound can make or break any horror film, but as with the theme for Halloween, tracks like “Chariots of Pumpkins” from Season of the Witch are also quite memorable. I will include a link so you can hear it if you haven’t already. John Carpenter was responsible for the musical score of this film, though he was not the director for this installment.

Regarding the plot—some critics have argued that the film was based on a flimsy plot. To an extent, they are right. However, let’s be honest for a minute: every sequel subsequent to Halloween was itself flimsy. You have a killer who has been stabbed with a knife, poked in the face with the rough edge of a clothes hanger, and shot with a gun out of the second floor of a house. He then conveniently gets up and walks away, only to be in the middle of an explosion at the end of the sequel, and then proceeds to do ten more sequels suffering other damage that would be fatal to everyone else but him. Furthermore, he goes on to do two more remakes.

Do you still want to talk about flimsy?

As you might have guessed, this third installment does not have Michael Myers. The plot of this installment involves a man by the name of Conal Cochran, who has a plan to kill children through the use of three Halloween masks made by his company Silver Shamrock. The masks are created by a fairly large piece of Stonehenge (enter the flimsy plotline). The protagonist is Dr. Dan Challis, and he is involved in trying to figure out what is happening in the town as well as later attempting to stop Cochran from following through on his plan. I do not want to give away any more of the details in case you have not yet seen it, because the story is interesting and has quite the unique ending.

Is the plot farfetched? Absolutely. It would be a tremendous feat to move a Stonehenge stone across the Atlantic and across the country. A tourist attraction, you would think at some point someone would have noticed the stone was missing, or at least saw someone trying to move it. It was also mentioned there was a problem with the ending, at least in terms of how practical or realistic it would be by today’s standards. However, there are a ton of far-fetched movies out there that are praised even though there is absolutely no chance of them being realistic. It could be that this was just a good movie and did not need to be 100% realistic.

The Halloween series, according to John Carpenter, was intended to be an anthology of stories related to the season of Halloween rather than a marathon of sequels involving a crazed (but methodical) killer who simply would not die. Carpenter took the job with Season of the Witch under the condition that it would not involve Michael Myers, and that promise was kept.

Looking back on the series as a whole, it turned out to be quite the horror franchise. However, it does leave the mind to wonder as to what other stories Carpenter might have concocted as they related to the Halloween season. Season of the Witch is certainly different from the two preceding films, but I think that is precisely what Carpenter intended to happen. Sure, it does not continue the first two plots, but the film was still very enjoyable and watchable. Granted some of the effects and props are a little cheesy (it was the 80s after all), but I still enjoy this film immensely.

If you get the chance, try and check it out.

As for the next article, I am looking to do something Halloween related before getting to some of the best horror films of all time. Keeping in the spirit of the season, we move forward with this theme for at least one more week.

Enjoy a Halloween 3 trailer and "Chariots of Pumpkins".