Halloween 3..A Review..

Firstly, this review is my humble opinion of a film series I’m a big fan of, now it’s not my favorite and by no means is it the best, having nothing in relation to Halloween 1 or 2 it shouldn't really be classed as an Halloween film.

So, my first point is why have a film titled Halloween 3 if it has no follow on to the previous two, it makes no sense, so seeing as I’m a fan I bought the whole series, having the seen the one’s featuring Michael Myers, AKA ‘The Shape’ numerous times and only having seen this one once and it was many years ago, my knowledge to the storyline was quite vague, so, being bored upon one afternoon I started to go through the movies in order.

The time had come to watch Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the film starts with shop owner Harry Grimbridge trying to escape two men from ‘The Silver Shamrock’ company the company are making Halloween masks which seems normal as it’s a week from Halloween, after being caught and then escaping again, he then ends up at a gas station where he collapses and is then took to the hospital, this is where we meet our main character, Dr. Daniel Challis, a divorced father of two. Whilst in the hospital Grimbridge is approached by a man similar to the ones that were chasing him in the first scene, this is where we have our first death scene, it seems this man has rather strong fingers and crushes Grimbridges nose, instantly killing him, the man then gets into his car and sets himself alight, blowing him and the car into pieces and the in comes our second main character, Grimbridge’s daughter, Ellie.

So, we have a mysterious death on our hands and Ellie, after doing some research into her fathers schedule and where he had been prior his death she then asks Challis for help, he agrees to help and this then leads us to Santa Mira, California, which is a small town and also the home of Silver Shamrocks factory, the film then introduces more important characters such as Conal Cochran, owner of Silver Shamrock and shop owners Marge Guttman and the Kupfer family: Buddy, Betty and their son "Little" Buddy.

After two more death’s, Marge Guttman is killed by a misfiring micro chip that has dropped off the back of a Silver Shamrock mask, and some homeless guy is killed by two more of the men similar to the man who killed Grimbridge, we get to the Silver Shamrock factory, where owner Conal Cochran gives the remaining characters a guided tour of the mask making facilities, Challis then see’s more of the suspicious men guarding a car, which Ellie says is her fathers and tries to run to but is stopped by the men, this is where the film gets a little better, Ellie is kidnapped and took back to the Factory which then leads Challis back there on an heroic rescue mission, but he is also caught and then took to Cochran, we then find out that the men are androids but are functioned to act and look lifelike, he then shows Challis his plan by killing off the Kupfer’s, in some fashion, little Buddy is killed by the mask, which operate when the chip’s respond to an advertisement of Silver Shamrock masks, and the parents are killed by the snakes and bugs that crawl out of little Buddy’s head after his death, Cochran then tries to do the same to Challis but he escapes and rescues Ellie, they then kill Cochran and his workers by throwing a big box full of the chips off a platform into a room where a rock from Stonehenge (which is supposed to have some magical power) then makes them react and triggers an electrical current of some short to energy rays, Challis and Ellie escape but Ellie’s dead and has been replaced by one of Cochran’s androids, she then tries to kill Challis but he kills her by decapitating her, this then builds up to the end scene which is set at the gas station where Grimbridge escaped to, Challis rings the TV companies and tells them to stop the Silver Shamrock adverts, two of them are stopped but the third channel is still broadcasting it, the film then ends. (Shown Below)



So there’s the plot to the film, in fairness, it’s not a great plot, but it works, it’s different to most horror film plots out there, so what lets the film down, apart from the obvious of having nothing in relation to any of the others, nothing, the general eeriness is there, and the soundtrack does add to this very well, the death scenes, well the Family death scene is very graphic and does make you feel sick (well me especially as I have a snake phobia so thinking about one crawl out of some kids mouth just makes me cringe, never mind seeing it happen from a close up camera angle.) (below)



The ending is also good as you don’t actually know of he stops the advertisement or not.

So, although I do think this shouldn’t be classed as a Halloween film, I can respect parts of the movie and the graphic details of some of the deaths are pretty gruesome, there’s just something missing that would have made the film better, maybe a reason to why Cochran is planning on killing all the children, well I say a reason, I mean a better reason than just telling Challis the true meaning of Halloween and thinking that it's alright to go around murdering innocent children with silly Halloween masks because of it.

All in all, it’s worth a watch for some of the death scenes, and for a laugh at some of the rubbish acting (mainly in the last scene shown further up the page), but it’s not by any means a bad film, I mean I’ve seen a lot worse in my time of movie watching.