Bad Halloween flick that isn’t even camp
Print Edition
Well, it’s Halloween, time for horror flicks, good and bad.
Here’s one — “Halloween III — Season of the Witch” — that’s really bad, with few redeeming qualities, but then, it’s Halloween.
Fans of John Carpenter, director of the first and acclaimed “Halloween” (1978) might be lured to see this 1982 film, which he did not direct (Tommy Lee Wallace did). But this is a cheap fake-out scare that evokes Carpenter without pulling it off; he wrote the score and produced it.
Carpenter staked his claim on film history with movies like “They Live” (1986) which at first glance may appear to be above average sci-fi or horror flicks. Their surface is only camouflage for biting social commentary.
For that first “Halloween,” Carpenter was director, writer, score composer add producer.
For “Halloween III,” Carpenter’s role was diminished and the writing and directing roles were seemingly discarded. His hand can be detected in the sound track, however, and in an shotgun approach to criticizing just about the commercialization of Halloween seems to be in the cross hairs, but so do outsourced jobs, philandering, TV culture and Irish people.
Whereas Carpenter’s own films have a laser-like focus, “Halloween III” has a kitchen-sink approach with both targets as well as techniques, throwing killer robots, children-killing gadgets, and occultism like spaghetti against the wall.
The results feel like a “Scooby-Doo” mystery, with detectives whose motivation we don’t understand, foiling a bone-headed bad guy with the silliest of motivations to murder millions of kids. It’s the kind of screwy plot only a child would find motivating.
This movie can best be seen as a commentary on itself. It’s a call for a more visceral and viscous-heavy Halloween by demonstrating the opposite. But there’s a point when self-commentary becomes self-parody, and “Halloween III” is the latter.
(Brian Offenther is a Shanghai-based DJ/freelancer.)
‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch’ (1982)
• Where to see it: Dada (115 Xingfu Rd)
• When to see it: Today, around 10:30pm (second half of a double bill with “Night of the Creeps”)
• Price: Free
• What to see: This is the second sequel to John Carpenter’s “Halloween” but not by Carpenter. It revolves around a doctor’s investigation of a mysterious death that seems to be connected to a Halloween mask manufacturer.
• Brian’s score: 1/10
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