31-Day Horror Challenge Day Thirty One: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

I figured I would step away from being cliche reviewing 1978's Halloween and instead, review one of my other favorite films, Halloween III.  While I will still being watching Halloween and Halloween II, as I do every year, I figured this was the best option for review.  The original idea for the Halloween series was to create a completely different movie with a completely different story every year in an anthology style.  Great idea, right?  So why did it go wrong?  Well, because people were so mad that this film had nothing to do with Michael Myers that the producers were forced to go back to being unoriginal.  In fact, I have never heard a complaint about this film that didn't have to do with the fact that Michael Myers was not a part of it.  The hate is completely unfounded and people need to be able to look at this as the great standalone movie it is.  Now that that's out of my system, let's get to it.

After a strange murder/suicide occurs in a hospital ER, Dr. Dan Challis(Tom Atkins) decides to start an unofficial investigation into the matter.  After a lot of research and questions, he discovers that a crazy toy maker is plotting to kill as many children as possible on Halloween night by way of his special toy masks and a strange ancient ritual.  Will he stop the madness in time, or will thousands of people suffer?  It's thrilling and creepy right until the end!

It really is a shame that the producers of this series were thwarted from making a creative new movie every year.  This is a great taste of what we could have seen.  The script is fun, the direction is admirable and the acting is great.  Check this one out but please look at it as its own film and not a part of the other ones.  If you can do that, you're bound to enjoy it.

____  ____  8/10 Jack O'lanterns



Thanks to everyone who's been reading these.  I've had a blast watching all these movies and writing about them and I'll definitely be doing this again next year with 30 completely different films.  Be sure to stay tuned though, I will have plenty of reviews and fun stuff until then.