HALLOWEEN 3 - SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Tommy Lee Wallace from a story by Nigel Kneale.

STARRING - Tom Atkins as Dr.Dan Challis

 Stacey Nelkin as Ellie Grimbridge

Dan O'Herlihy as Conal Cochran

Michael Currie as Rafferty

Ralph Strait as Buddy Kupfer

Jadeen Barbor as Betty Kupfer

Brad Schacter as Little Buddy Kupfer

Garn Stephens as Marge Guttman

Nancy Kyes as Linda Challis

Jonathan Terry as Starker

PLOT - It's a few days before Halloween and a terrified injured man is admitted to hospital clutching a Halloween mask and saying "They're coming". Moments later the man is dead - murdered in his room by a silent assassin.

Dr. Dan Challis teams up with the dead man's daughter - Ellie Grimbridge - to uncover the sinister secret of the Silver Shamrock mask factory, a secret which could well mean the end of civilization as we know it... 

PERFORMANCES - Before I start ranting on, I just thought I'd better mention the elephant in the room - this entry in the Halloween series does NOT feature - or continue the story of - everyone's favourite William Shatner mask wearing psycho Michael Myers, neither does it feature Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode (although both of them get a kind of cameo appearance due to footage from the original being shown as a movie on TV at one point, and Jamie Lee Curtis DOES play the voice of the curfew announcer in the creepy town Silver Shamrock have overtaken, so that's something I suppose...)

What this movie DOES feature is a whole new original story and cast, as the producers sought to re-think the franchise (it didn't work. Michael was back for part 4).

Anyway, enough about what this movie doesn't have, let's talk about what it does have. One of those things is Tom Atkins in the lead role of Dr. Dan Challis. Atkins was a well loved B-movie actor in the 80's - with his tough guy weather beaten looks he was a popular choice for playing a certain kind of 80's hero - namely one on the wrong side of his forties who still has a way with the ladies. Dan Challis is no different - he's a divorcé and father but he's also a bit of a ladies man and (it's heavily implied) is also an alcoholic.

Throughout the first half of the movie Dan flirts, smooth talks and otherwise charms the fairer sex in his own way - he even slaps a nurse on the arse at one point (an action that would probably get him struck off for sexual harassment in this day and age). Despite all that though he's still quite a likeable character - he clearly loves his kids and you have to feel for the poor bloke just by the amount of shit his ex-wife gives him. The ladies for their part also don't seem to have a problem with Dan coming onto them, in fact they seem to love it (maybe it's the "porn star" style 'stache that does it).

One of the many ladies who loves Dan's attention is Ellie (Stacey Nelkin), initially she's investigating the death of her father but it's not long before she's shagging Dan in a Silver Shamrock owned motel room - even though he's old enough to be her dad (ok, it's DEFINITELY the 'stache...). Needless to say Atkins is (as always) great.

Nelkin is good enough in her role too, but we never really get to know her character that well. This is partly because the script is more concerned with establishing the mystery elements of the plot rather than concentrating on character development, but also because halfway through the film Ellie gets replaced by an android duplicate and from that point onwards never speaks. I've got to say that Nelkin really nails playing the android version of Ellie - she gets the uncanny valley robotic movements down to a tee. Good stuff.

Speaking of good stuff, we then get Dan O'Herlihy as the villain of the piece - the owner of Silver Shamrock himself - Conal Cochran.

Cochran initially comes across as a genial toymaker and business man - he's smart and has old school manners but there's points where his mask slips and we see the viscious being that hides in plain sight underneath the cultured exterior. These types of villains are always some of my favourites - and O'Herlihy knocks it out of the park here.

Cochran ultimately turns out to be a several thousand year old warlock who is tired of the modern day commercialised Halloween - he wants the fields to flow red with blood just like they did in the old days. I love the way that Cochran has played a "long game" and inserted himself right in the heart of the Halloween merchandise industry, from there he can make his final move of killing thousands of innocent children on Halloween night with his deadly magical masks.

O'Herlihy plays Cochran as both mischievous and cold blooded - just the way any Halloween centric villain should be. I just love the sarcastic "applause" he gives Dan Challis when it (momentarily) looks like Challis may have beaten him.

Oh, a quick mention must be made of (the excellently named) Dick Warlock - a stuntman/actor who's been known to play Michael Myers himself from time to time - here he plays one of the android assassins who act as Cochrane's henchmen. With a name like Dick Warlock maybe he should have played Cochran - seeing as how Cochran is a warlock and is indeed something of a dick...

SEX & VIOLENCE - Dan Challis pulls Ellie with one of the best chatup lines ever. When they arrive at the motel Ellie asks him where he wants to sleep that night. Dan (ever on the lookout for some poon-poon) replies with "That's a dumb question, Miss Grimbridge." Cut to Dan and Ellie in a post coital moment. Ellie doesn't hold back for long though as she's soon flashing Dan and seducing him into yet more sex.

The violence is very well done and very dark (I mean all violence is dark but this comes over as particularly dark seeing as Cochran's master plan involves killing kids).

For starters there's lots of scenes of human looking androids getting crushed, blown up, or otherwise damaged - this usually results in lots of slimy goo oozing from thier damaged robot bodies. Ellie's android duplicate gets her head knocked off at one point.

Mind you, the androids can get pretty grisly themselves when it comes to dealing death - a man gets his face pulled apart, another bloke gets his head pulled off and a lady gets a drill skewered into her head (only the decapitation is graphic though).

Another lady causes a mask to "misfire" and gets lasered in the face for her troubles. We get a loving closeup of her destroyed face.

Even better is when (in the film's most famous scene) a kid tries on one of the masks as a human guinea pig. The mask seems to crush his head and from his corpse's mouth spews hundreds of creepy crawlies, snakes and deadly insects (which then go on to fatally bite his parents). It's a deservedly iconic scene.

This is the ultimate fate Cochran has in mind for the children of America. In the final seconds of the film it's left ambiguous as to whether Dan Challis has succeeded in stopping him. If he hasn't then there's going to be a SHIT-TON of dead kids and families come November the first...

SFX - Some nice practical FX. The android "blood" was created by using concentrated orange juice apparently.

RATING - Over the years this film has been critically reappraised by many. In the 80's it was largely hated by fans of the series because it didn't feature Michael Myers as the villain, however fast forward several decades and it now seems to be pretty well loved by most.

This is, of course, a good thing as it's a nice little movie, it may be edging towards absolute classic status even. There's very little to fault here - the scripts good, the acting's good and it's absolutely dripping in that all important HALLOWEEN ATMOSPHERE !!!!!!

In it's own way it's become pretty iconic and deservedly so.

5 killer masks out of 5. The ginger stepchild of the franchise that outgrew it's siblings.

ART -