With Halloween III, John Carpenter wanted to wipe the slate clean. He entrusted the project to a colleague, someone he’d been working with in various capacities since the start of his career, Tommy Lee Wallace. He asked Wallace to write, direct, do the production design and turn it back into a franchise based in independent filmmakers, rather than churning out money-making studio sequels. Wallace took a big gamble by making the third Halloween sans Michael Meyers. That’s right, no Michael Meyers here. In fact, there’s no Laurie Strode, no Dr. Loomis and no slasher killer of any sort.
The story of III, concerns a Dr. who is treating a patient that makes claims of evil deeds going on in a small California town. The Dr., for inexplicable reasons, travels with the now deceased man’s daughter to this small town to investigate these alleged acts of mischief. He finds something far worse than he’d imagined. See, Halloween is fast approaching and he begins to suspect the Silver Shamrock company, who makes Halloween masks for children, may be responsible for several recent mysterious deaths, including the above mentioned patient. As it turns out, the company is making masks that will totally pulverize their wearers and release poisonous snakes and spiders on all those around when the wearer watches a certain video. Oh, and by the way, the company has been running promos non-stop telling all kids with Silver Shamrock masks to tune in at nine on Halloween to watch for a big prize giveaway.
While the production values of this movie are fairly cheap looking and the acting is hardly Olivier, I actually like this installment. The movie made back somewhere along the lines of triple it’s budget, but was a huge critical failure. Most people didn’t like it because they didn’t understand how it could be called a Halloween franchise movie. I gotta agree here, as it really should just stand on its own, but they hated the movie for it, while I think it’s only a mildly annoying curiosity. It’s campy, it’s at times predictable and the ending is fairly lame, but overall, it’s just the sort of cheesy 80’s horror I love. As a kid, this was one of my favorites and watching it now I may well be blinded by nostalgia. Either way, I enjoyed the heck out of this 80’s horror trash.
ME
The story of III, concerns a Dr. who is treating a patient that makes claims of evil deeds going on in a small California town. The Dr., for inexplicable reasons, travels with the now deceased man’s daughter to this small town to investigate these alleged acts of mischief. He finds something far worse than he’d imagined. See, Halloween is fast approaching and he begins to suspect the Silver Shamrock company, who makes Halloween masks for children, may be responsible for several recent mysterious deaths, including the above mentioned patient. As it turns out, the company is making masks that will totally pulverize their wearers and release poisonous snakes and spiders on all those around when the wearer watches a certain video. Oh, and by the way, the company has been running promos non-stop telling all kids with Silver Shamrock masks to tune in at nine on Halloween to watch for a big prize giveaway.
While the production values of this movie are fairly cheap looking and the acting is hardly Olivier, I actually like this installment. The movie made back somewhere along the lines of triple it’s budget, but was a huge critical failure. Most people didn’t like it because they didn’t understand how it could be called a Halloween franchise movie. I gotta agree here, as it really should just stand on its own, but they hated the movie for it, while I think it’s only a mildly annoying curiosity. It’s campy, it’s at times predictable and the ending is fairly lame, but overall, it’s just the sort of cheesy 80’s horror I love. As a kid, this was one of my favorites and watching it now I may well be blinded by nostalgia. Either way, I enjoyed the heck out of this 80’s horror trash.
ME
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