Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Tagline: “The night no one comes home”
Duration: 98 minutes

Film Quality: 3/5
Gore Content: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5
Originality: 3.5/5

Introduction

This is a hard one to introduce! John Carpenter had originally envisaged an anthology of horror films, a series with each one bearing the ‘Halloween’ name. Clearly not anticipating the incredible success of the first instalment, Carpenter and Hill produced ‘Halloween II’ with the intention of it being the last word on Michael Myers, fully intending to move away from that to create an entirely different ‘Halloween’ movie. To audiences desperate for more mayhem featuring everyone’s favourite TJ Hooker lookalike, Carpenter not only threw the baby out with the bathwater, he blew up the bathroom. Goodbye slasher, hello mysticism and witchcraft…welcome to ‘Halloween III’!

In a nutshell

After witnessing a bizarre series of events, seemingly surrounding a Halloween mask, a Doctor teams up with the daughter of a murdered man to investigate. They’re drawn to a mysterious town where the masks are manufactured, uncovering a strange plot to destroy society on Halloween night…can they stop his megalomaniacal plans in time?

So what’s good about it?

There is no escaping the fact that this is a crap film, but it’s one that I’ve returned to several times and wholly enjoyed. I’m not entirely sure what it is, whether it’s the silly plot played entirely straight, whether it’s the plotholes that rival swiss cheese, the charming special effects…I’ve never put my finger on it. Some films are best left without deep analysis and simply enjoyed for what they are. Who cares if it’s blatantly terrible, if you enjoy then let the flaws wash over you and embrace it what it is…pure hokum!

Yet there is a lot to enjoy. You have to admire Carpenter, Hill and writer Tommy Lee Wallace for taking the hard route and moving away from what would have been a money making third Myers movie and sticking to their guns, for one film at least. The slasher movie was in its prime, they had two huge hits already and even if it had been as bad as part 5, a third Myers movie would have raked it in. Instead they did what nobody expected, left their best player on the bench for the big game. In a move of creativity rarely seen today they took a risk. I don’t know if it really paid off, people are still talking about it today, not always in a positive way but it has its fan base.

John Carpenter’s only real creative input into this film is, for me the standout part and that is the wonderfully electronic score. Again, moving away from the traditional slasher score of strings and piano, he goes all ‘Escape From New York’ on us and gives us a soundtrack not unlike 1984’s ‘The Terminator’. It works as well, the opening scene is full of muted, low frequency sounds and blips as a digitally constructed pumpkin is drawn on our screen. It’s expertly done, but then we’ve come to expect nothing less from a master musician.

For what is clearly a low budget is some pretty good and inventive set piece gore and effect moments. The head ripping scene is both graphic and surprising, the death of the Kupfers in the warehouse and the ‘misfire’ in the hotel room are suitably gruesome and some of the android effects are handled very well, if a little silly with the yellow blood! In fact, this is always seen as less graphic than the first two but I’d argue the opposite. Our actors look like they’re having a great time, an assertion backed up by veteran Dan O’Herlihy as the evil Cochran who said that he only uses his Cork accent when he’s having a good time and there it is, very much present and correct.

But for me the thing that stands out most, and it rarely gets credit for, is what a dark premise it has. It’s often seen as the silly film in the pack, the one that’s not being entirely serious, but we see children killed graphically onscreen. In fact the entire plot is about attacking and killing children who are trying to enjoy themselves at a fun time of year. It’s a pretty nihilistic and apocalyptic idea and could have been an absolute classic…had it not been so damn silly and likeable!!!

Oh, and a great tagline that plays on the original brilliantly!

What about the bad?

Oh there’s plenty, most of it forgivable out of sheer absurdity. How the hell did they manage to nick a chunk of Stonehenge? How did they know it had magical powers? Where do the snakes and insects come from? How did they get an android version of Ellie so quickly? Why does Cochran want to kill children and replace them with androids? If the androids are so strong that they can crush a guy’s head and rip another clean off, how can Challis overcome several of them on hit own with just a tyre iron? It’s all very strange and I can completely understand why some people find it so difficult to accept when it can be pulled apart so easily. It is a huge, jumbled mess of a film to the extent that if you asked ten different people what the ‘bad’ would be, you’d get ten different answers.

Of course people’s main grumble with this film is the absence of Michael Myers, to the extent that some fans don’t regard it as part of the ‘Halloween’ cannon. It does reference the original movie as a piece of fiction in what is portrayed ‘real life’ within the film. Not many film franchises have had the balls to reduce its hugely successful original to a mere TV trailer!

Any themes?

There’s quite a bit going on in this film. At face value it’s a comment on capitalism, the flood of big business, mass production and its effects on small town America. Cochran’s big business ‘Silver Shamrock’ moves in, he doesn’t hire anyone from Santa Mira, they swiftly lose any source of income, other industries dwindle and die and there’s nothing left but a liqueur store, poverty, unemployment, resentment and a ready-made excuse for failure. “Fuck Cochrane” one of the locals says, knowing that his own future is bleak with no prospects. The opening scene of ‘Halloween 4’ features a similarly desolate farm that has clearly suffered from a dwindling, small town economy that has crashed, this brief prologue has more in common with the end of ‘Halloween 3’ than it does with the rest of ‘Halloween 4’.

Consumerism is also attacked viciously, both in terms of the commercialism of ‘Halloween’ itself, exemplified by that irritating advert which is clearly aimed at kids who would be singing it every morning at the breakfast table demanding a mask until their parents give in! But also given that it is the advert itself which is the mode of attack, burying the signal, or subliminal message, unseen within the carefully co-ordinated make-up of the ad. The commercial is designed to both entice and consume in the most literal sense, in the same way cigarette adverts use attractive women and ‘cool’ lifestyles to get you to buy addiction and lung cancer. To this end it shares some common themes with Carpenter’s own ‘They Live’ (click here for full review), a film that also features plans at world domination based around a signal hidden within adverts.

Release History

It’s had a very odd relationship with the UK market, never cut by the BBFC but for most of its early life released only in pre-cut versions! At least two minutes was missing from its first Warner VHS release, presumably to get a ‘15’ certificate. It was missing most of the (fairly tame) drill murder, the face crushing, the head ripping, the aftermath of the ‘misfire’ and part of the ‘sex’ scene. This applied to early DVD releases as well, although cuts differ slightly. Ironically, at a time when TV censorship was very heavy, BBC1 showed a version in the early 90s which included all of the violence and gore but edited out the profanity. They were very strange times!!! Of course now it’s available totally uncut, although still no blu-ray release in the UK but there is a region B release from Germany that includes the soundtrack.

Cultural Impact

Not much other than pretty much forcing the hand for another Michael Myers movie. I wonder if ‘Halloween 3’ hadn’t been released, or had been better received as part of an anthology series, would Myers have returned, or would it have been left nicely resolved and self-contained as two movies? I suppose we’ll never know but the lasting legacy of this film is that you will never here the song ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ or answer your kids’ question of ‘how many days is it until Halloween’ without that catchy advert playing inside your head for the rest of the day!

Final thoughts

It’s certainly not a ‘so bad it’s good’ film, it’s just much more entertaining that it has any right to be and that’s largely because there’s so much going on. It never allows itself to be boring but sacrifices any pretentions it may have had as a serious horror film as a result. More likely to be remembered as a result of association with Carpenter’s original than anything else, nevertheless it has an audience and a place at a certain time of year. Altogether now…”Three more days ‘til Halloween…Halloween…Halloween…Three more days ‘til Halloween….Silver Shamrock!” Now try getting it out of your head!!!

Memorable quotes

TV Announcer: “It’s almost time kids, the clock is ticking…be in front of your TV for the horrorthon followed by the big giveaway. Don’t miss it and don’t forget to wear your masks. The clock is ticking…it’s almost time.”

Cochran: “It will be morning soon, Halloween morning. A very busy day for me.”

Challis: “For God’s sake please stop it, there’s no more time, please stop it…stop it now. Turn it off, stop it, stop it, stop it…STOP IT!”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Demonic Toys’, ‘The Fog’, ‘Tourist Trap’

Related posts

‘Haloween’ – Click here
‘The Fog’ – Click here

The DPP 39: Video Nasties List - Part 8

In 1984, the Video Recordings Act ushered in a terrifying new era in UK home video entertainment.  The regulation and subsequent censorship of home videos by the British Board of Film Classification led to a number of films being seized by the authorities and prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. In total, 39 of these films were successfully prosecuted, over the coming months The Horror Video will look very briefly at the release history of each film and its current status. To view the rest of the series…

Part 1: ‘Absurd’, ‘Anthropophagus’ and ‘Axe’, click here
Part 2: ‘Bay of Blood’, ‘The Beast in Heat’ and ‘Blood Feast’, click here
Part 3: ‘Blood Rites’, ‘Bloody Moon’ and ‘The Burning’, click here
Part 4: ‘Cannibal Apocalypse’, ‘Cannibal Ferox’ and ‘Cannibal Holocaust’, click here
Part 5: ‘The Cannibal Man’, ‘The Devil Hunter’ and ‘Don’t Go in the Woods’ click here
Part 6: ‘The Driller Killer’, ‘Evilspeak’ and ‘Expose’. Click here
Part 7: ‘Faces of Death’, ‘Fight for Your Life’, ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’ click here

Title: ‘Forest of Fear’ (1980)

Director: Charles McCrann
Uncut running time: 89 minutes
Alternative titles: ‘Toxic Zombies’, ‘The Bloodeaters’, ‘Blood Butchers’

Quite possibly the first of the deep south, redneck zombie sub-genre, there’s not a great deal to get excited about here in what is essentially a low budget drive in movie. Charles McCrann wrote, directed, produced, edited, acted and most likely made the tea for this film…a real labour of love.

A bunch of dim-witted hippies have produced their own marijuana plantation, large enough to draw the attention of the government who decide to kill the crop with a chemical spray. No doubt it worked but the side effects were much worse than smoking the crop as the hippies are turned into flesh eating zombies…was there any other kind after Romero? It’s entertaining enough if you’re in the right mood and there is some pretty decent gore with a few lost limbs, blood spurts and severed heads. It’s near impossible to see what the authorities saw in this that put it on the same level as the likes of ‘Cannibal Ferox’ and ‘Faces of Death’. It clearly was a different time!

Bizarrely the film has never really suffered from any censorship issues. Released on Monte Video in November 1982 the only edit was an inconsequential epilogue telling us that the FBI agent involved quit his job! Quite why it then made the nasties list almost exactly a year later is a mystery. It stayed there throughout the moral panic and has never seen a UK release since, which tells you a lot about its almost total lack of notoriety.

Current status: unavailable in the UK, though surely not through any moral or censorship issues, available uncut on Telavista in the US.

Title: ‘The Gestapo’s Last Orgy’ (1977)

Director: Cesare Canevari
Uncut running time: 81 minutes
Alternative titles: ‘Last Orgy of the Third Reich’, ‘Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler’


I’ve never quite understood the Nazi bongo flicks, it’s a genre that I’ve never had any interest in and has completely passed me by. Consequently I’ve not seen this particular ‘gem’, in fact in the UK in particular you have to look very hard as it is still banned here.

It seems that the entire film is told in flashback as Lise meets a former Commandant at the remains of an old death camp and she recalls the horrors she had to endure. A little research reveals those horrors to be rape, ritual humiliation, mother-daughter incest, sodomisation with bats and the killing of a baby born through rape. Not the kind of stuff you find in your average Sam Raimi flick! This type of film clearly had an audience at the time but it’s certainly not for me so I hold my hands up and claim to know absolutely nothing else about what this film has to offer.

In terms of censorship, VFP released the film on VHS in the UK in 1983 with 10m 48s of missing footage, mainly from two scenes of an Aryan fantasy and cannibalism. It was banned in March 1984 and has never seen the light of day since. You can, if you so wish, obtain the movie in the US on Intervision…a region free release that is uncut.

Current status: Banned in the UK, available uncut in the US through Intervision DVD.

Title: The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Uncut running time: 87 minutes
Alternative title: ‘The House Outside the Cemetery’, ‘Quella Villa Accanto al Cimitero’


The third part of Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell’ trilogy and the second to make the official nasties list (only ‘City of the Living Dead’ escaped that fate), this is a classy film and ranks as one of the finest on the list. Dr Freudstein ‘lives’ in the cellar of the titular house and keeps his rotting flesh alive by feasting on the living. When another Doctor brings his family to the house to carry on the work of his colleague whilst investigating his suicide, it brings a whole new buffet of bodies for Freudstein to feast on.

Owing more to the tropes of the haunted house movie than the zombie (despite the best efforts of the tagline which promised ‘marauding zombies’!) there is a literary influence from Lovecraft and Henry James, most notably ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and its cinematic incarnation ‘The Innocents’. With plenty to say about the nature of children, childhood and how they channel their fears, the ghostly Mae and the tediously irritating Bob (you have the English dub track to thank for that!) appear to hold the key to the whole mystery whilst being the only ones to escape Freudstein’s clutches. Having scant regard for causal logic and linear time, it’s a suitable conclusion to the trilogy.

The BBFC didn’t get this film at all, focussing only the gore and heavily editing the film, Vampix releasing the cinema version missing close to a minute and a half. Following the nasties panic Elephant put out a version missing a further four minutes, VIPCO going one better in the 90s with a version shorn of 6m 19s of gore! VIPCO tried a little harder in 2001 when a release missing 33 seconds was brought out before Arrow succeeded in bringing UK audiences the uncut version on 2012. For full review click here

Current status: Uncut in the UK on Arrow Video being out of print, uncut on Blue Underground in the US.

Puppet Master (1989)

Tagline: “Evil comes in all sizes”
Duration: 90 minutes

Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 4.5/5
Originality: 3.5/5

Introduction

Fresh from the demise of his Empire Pictures film studio, horror auteur Charles Band turned his attention to new company Full Moon Pictures, looking to make and distribute low budget horror and sci-fi that had the appearance of bigger budget movies…kind of like a modern day Val Lewton! He needed something to launch his venture so sought inspiration from one of his previous glories, taking the general premise of ‘Dolls’ and giving it, if you’ll pardon the horrendously pretentious pun, a life of its’ own…sorry!

In a nutshell

Following the death of their colleague Neil Gallagher, four friends with psychic abilities believe that their perished pal discovered the secret of Andre Toulon’s experiments in reanimation. Curiosity gets the better of them as they go to Bodega Bay, the site of Toulon’s suicide more than five decades previous…but Galllagher has a few surprises from beyond the grave.

So what’s good about it?

The prologue is a popular method of setting up backstory but I’ve not seen many that are as effective and intriguing as this one. In terms of setting up a mythology it is nigh on perfect. We are introduced to Toulon, know that he has managed to bring life to inanimate objects and that dangerous men will kill for it. Expectations dictate that the puppets would likely be introduced later but no…we meet Shredder Khan before any human characters are introduced and see him moving of his own free will. There is also a glorious point of view shot of Blade running through the hotel, scaring guests. The whole thing raises so many questions. Who is Toulon? How has he given life to the puppets? Why has he done it? What do the Nazis want with him and how do they know about his secret? Why has he committed suicide?

This leads straight into the mythology that underpins the entire film. From the introduction, and the wonderful, albeit brief performance of William Hickey as Toulon, you get the sense that what we are seeing is just a snapshot within this particular universe. There is a massive backstory that we’ve not been given access to and I suppose this is why the series has endured. The aforementioned Shredder Khan is not seen again in the film, despite a huge amount of effort and craft going into its design. It really is a brilliant opening scene and gives the film gravitas, elevating it far above the usual low budget horror in terms of storytelling and plot.

The puppets themselves, created by David Allen’s production company, are works of art, each one uniquely memorable. Blade is the pick of the bunch, apparently modelled on Klaus Kinski who looks innocent and almost childlike in the early scene, becoming more like a film noir villain with his facial and fashioned contrast of white and black. Jester, as he should be, represents the mood of the puppets with his constantly changing facial expressions. Pinhead is clumsy and awkward looking, every bit the street brawler, Tunneler provides the obligatory gore with his drillbit head whilst Leach Woman gives one sex crazed psychic what he most desires and fears at the same time. They’re wonderfully realised and very well brought to life through stop motion effects…one scene showing Pinhead climbing out of a coffin took days to produce for what is a ten second clip. It’s lovingly rendered and the end result is a testament to their combined craft.

I have to admit that most of the acting left me a bit cold, other than Hickey, however I found Jimmy Skaggs (left) excellent as the mysterious Neil Gallagher. He has the look of a ventriloquist’s dummy at times, with his overly slicked back hair, almost painted on smile that he lets slip on occasion, masking his true evil intentions. It’s a very good, again albeit brief, physical performance and kudos to the make-up team for giving him that effect which for me is a part of the film which doesn’t get enough attention.

It is a very well-crafted film, given a great look by Lucio Fulci’s frequent cinematographer Sergio Salvati and brilliant, carnival-esque score from Charles Band’s brother Richard which comes across as both scary and playful…all the fun of the fair! It’s very competently directed by David Schmoeller, who also directed the mannequin-themed horror ‘Tourist Trap’…he’s clearly very much at home with automatons! I love the shot of Blade at the end of the hall bathed in shadow, similarly the shot of Tunneler in the doorway, highly effective use of light. It was released straight to video despite being shot on 35mm for a theatrical release as Charles Band felt it would make more money in the booming VHS market. A very shrewd man who clearly knew his audience.

What about the bad?

The film, effective thought it is, does contradict itself in parts. It’s quite clear that the puppets are there to serve their master (they are puppets after all), however they are clearly possessed of independent thought. When Gallagher turns on his own puppets and attacks the friends of those the puppets have already killed, they seem horrified and turn on their master. However, why do they attack the maid? What did she do and why didn’t their conscience prevent them from carrying that out?

Also, for a short film, it isn’t without its pacing issues and with a bit of ruthless editing it could have a beautifully fast paced 80 minutes…the same length of some of Band’s other films. This could have been the result of its initial ambitions at a cinema run, but having taken the decision to go straight to video, the VHS market could have benefitted from a leaner run time. It certainly didn’t harm ‘Trancers’ or ‘Troll’!

Any themes?

It’s effectively a film about the quest for immortality with echoes of ‘Pinocchio’. The villains of the piece aren’t really the puppets, like an army that does the killing, the order come from a higher authority…they ‘just’ carry out the bidding. Of course this doesn’t absolve them of blame but the villain of the piece is a normal man who has developed a God complex having discovered the secret of everlasting life.

It’s about control and a lack of control. Our psychics seem drawn to the Bodega Bay Hotel despite seemingly knowing that they’re heading to their deaths, all of them having premonitions of doom. If there really is such a thing as fate, and surely as a psychic you MUST believe in it otherwise how could you predict an unmapped future, then they have no control. This puts both the puppets and the psychics at the mercy of forces that they have no control over and both must assert control over their own existence and force that momentum onto Gallagher to break his immortality.

Release History

It’s not a film that’s been associated with censorship but such problems have plagued ‘Puppet Master’ in its early releases, more in the US than UK. The ‘uncut’ version was shorn of 3 seconds upon its initial release (a brief shot of forced nudity in the elevator dream sequence deemed ‘sexual violence) but all gore was left intact. This was the version released by Entertainment in Video in 1989.

However, the US censors really got their knickers in a twist with 1m35s cut, including Toulon’s gory suicide, a comical shot of two puppets watching a couple having sex (come on!!!), a couple of shots of Neil punching Alex (again, seriously!), plenty of the final puppet attack on Neil and one of Leech Woman’s special moves. This version was lazily used as the basis of subsequent UK DVD releases by Film 2000. Thankfully 88 Films did a tremendous job with a blu-ray and DVD release completely uncut and loaded with extras…however Razor got their first in 2010 in the US, so it all had a happy ending!

Cultural Impact

Well they’re still churning out the sequels with ‘Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich’, possibly a reboot to the chronology, slated for a 2018 release! Writers have really rung that back story dry throughout the sequels, which run into double figures and a crossover with ‘Demonic Toys’, some more successful than others and going backwards and forwards throughout the chronology. New puppets have been introduced, you’ve had ‘Retro’ puppet masters, back to Nazi Germany and, much like the ‘Friday the 13th’ series, a ‘Final Chapter’ midway through the series. But you can’t keep a good puppet down and Toulon’s creations have endured incredibly well.

Final thoughts

Benefitting from an incredible opening prologue that hints at a universe and mythology way beyond that which the film explores, that’s what has led to the legacy of this way above average low budget gem, or perhaps we should say ‘rough diamond’. There is a lot to admire in this Charles Band production with excellent writing, good special effects, superb cinematography and wonderfully realised puppets. Easily the best of the series, it was a shrewd move to release it straight to video where it absolutely found its audience and a place as a true b-movie classic has been assured.

Memorable quotes

Neil: “You’re the puppets, I’m the master.”

Alex: “A little life insurance from the White Witch.”

Dana: I’m not a cynic Frank…I like to think of myself as a nasty bitch.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Child’s Play’, ‘Dolly Dearest’, ‘Demonic Toys’, Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

Related posts

‘Trancers’ – Click here
‘Ghoulies’ – Click here