Halloween III - Season of the Witch

Rating:
Summary: Black Sheep of the series
Review: The "black sheep" of the Halloween series,not a bad sequel, but this one has no Michael Myers,Laurie strode,or even Dr.Loomis and even lacks the town of Haddonfield,instead it has Tom Atkins as Dr.Challis who helps Ellie,the daughter of the man who died before Halloween,when he notices a mad man named Conal Cochran has made masks on Halloween to break children's skulls and release blood and bugs to go out of them when they die,he and Ellie must stop Conal.the only time you see Michael Myers is on the Tv preview of HALLOWEEN.also Halloween 3 features tons of gore like woman has spiders going out of her face,man has orange blood,and crickets go out of a kid's face after he watches the Silver Shamrock commercial.here's the pros and cons details

PROS:
Cool masks{pumpkin mask,skeleton mask,and witch mask
Tons of gore{mostly red and orange blood}
Good cast and director
Good special effects
Good plot

CONS:
No Michael Myers,Laurie Strode,Dr.Loomis
Dosen't take place in Haddonfield

No special features on the widescreen dvd

Rating:
Summary: what were they thinking?!
Review: oh... my... God! this movie totally screwed the whole HALLOWEEN series! what the heck was Carpenter thinking?! why would he want to screw his rep as a once admired director for this! did michael want to take a year off or something? spend halloween with the wife and kids?, i mean, come on! a word to the wise: DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE UNLESS YOU HAVE A REDICULOUS AMMOUNT OF BOOZE IN YOUR SYSTEM!

Rating:
Summary: possibly worst movie ever
Review: This film is quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. Oh, it's true... What a waste of time! No Mike Myers, Jamie Lee or the Doctor? Why even have "Halloween" in the title then? There's absolutely nothing scary here except maybe the acting and cheesy effects. Horrible!! 100% USDA Garbage

Rating:
Summary: 2.5 stars.
Review: A non-sequel, really. This movie ignores its roots, which are suggested in the title, and travels along a bizarre path. There's no Michael Meyers in this movie. It does have is share of creepiness, but suffers from the absence of John Carpenter's directing and creative force.

Rental only.

Rating:
Summary: A great film!
Review: Its unfortunate that so many people could not see past the exclusion of michael myers in a halloween film to give this a chance. I mean how many times could john carpenter be expected to basically remake the original film over and over again to satisfy those obsessed with myers.. This film is probably the goriest and most disturbing of all the halloween films, bar possibly the original, and its ending will certainly leave you feeling somewhat uneasy! I wonder if this had been a success, just how good the following films could have been, as it is known carpenter had several more halloween stories lined up but scrapped them all and washed his hands of the series after the publics predictable reaction.

Rating:
Summary: Way out of place!
Review: I rented this movie once about 4 years ago, and was so disappointed that I wanted my money back! It's incredible how one film can bring a horror series spiraling downward. Instead of having Michael Myers continuing his onslaught, we are introduced to a madmad who makes Halloween masks for kids, that have this Silver Shamrock label attached to them. When the kids watch the advertisement for the Silver Shamrock on TV while wearing the masks, their heads shink and are fried.... I guess. I can still remember the "demonstration" kid and how his head shrank, then bugs, then worms came out of his mouth, then a yellow rat snake, then a rattlesnake, which bit the father! It was so rediculous that I laughed. Needless to say, I wasn't laughing an any other point during the movie. I was waiting for something exciting to happen but nothing did. I would have given this movie 0 stars if I had the option.

Atkins seems to drop out of nowhere in this movie. He tries to stop the madman by having this girl lead him on a trail to his factory, where he is destroyed along with his Silver Shamrocks,( Wow, was that jingle annoying!). Then the girl turns out to be a robot, and he made love to her earlier? Yeah right. The plot didn't go anywhere, and neither did the action. This was not a horror film at all, but more like those ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? episodes they used to show on Nickelodeon, and even some of those were scary.

I have no idea what John Carpenter had in mind when he made this. It is a good thing he took a backseat as producer or he would have been even more humiliated. I'm guessing he tried something new and it didn't work. I personally think that Carpenter was considering making a whole series of Halloween movies with different stories. He started off with the Michael Myers story, and it was supposed to end after Halloween 2. Then he tried to introduce this theme that never got off the ground. If "Halloween III" was removed from the title, it might help resolve this film's bad reputation as an intruder to the Halloween series, though it wouldn't improve the quality of the film itself. The movie also has nothing to do with witches. Take the time to not watch this one and stick to the first two.

Rating:
Summary: Not just bad because of no Micheal Myers
Review: I saw this movie on the AMC Monster Fest, and I DID watch it all the way through, and I believe I can honestly say this is not a very good movie at all. It is more of an adventure-type story than the all-out horror of the other Halloween flicks. This story is "Let's go save the children of the world from the diabolical plot of a madman", whereas the Michael Myers-focused flicks are all about "Surving through the night". The least they could've done was keep in the spirit of the previous films. It's okay trying to do something a little different, but this is a complete turnaround for the series, and it really could've just been titled "Season of the Witch" and it wouldn't make any difference.
Basically, my main complaint is that this film doesn't fit at all into the same horror sub-genre as any of the other films in the series, and that's just plain wrong. My second complaint is that the movie as a whole was medicore, it's only redeming quality, if you could call it redeming at all-is that it tried to do something different from the previous films, it just didn't work is all.

Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the naysayers
Review: Ask any fan of the Halloween series which film was the worst and nine times out of ten they will tell you that it's Halloween 3. When you ask why, all they will say is "because Michael Myers isn't in it and it has nothing to do with the series". Little do they know, little do they know. Anyway, when John Carpenter still had control of the series, he wanted to steer it away from becoming the series of re-hashes that it would become by steering away from anyplace called Haddonfield and anyone by the last name of Myers, Strode, or Loomis. The story revolves around a doctor (Tom Atkins) who stumbles upon a plot to kill children by a group of druid descendants who manufacture halloween masks (they call themselves Silver Shamrock) that will kill whoever is wearing them when they watch a commercial for the company. Did I mention that there are suit wearing humanoid robots running around doing some killing of their own? It all sounds cheesy, but despite what fans of the series say, Halloween 3 has it's share of creepy moments, and I find it a lot better than many of the other installments of the series. All in all, if your looking for a nice way to kill an afternoon or want something half decent to watch on Halloween, then give this a look, it's not as bad as it is reputed to be. This is the new re-released DVD of Halloween 3, and just like all of Universal's other recently re-released horror DVD's of late (Prince of Darkness, They Live, Demon Knight, People Under the Stairs, etc.) there are no extras whatsoever to be found here.

Rating:
Summary: Trick, treat---gimme 1 million shares of Silver Shamrock!
Review: Wondering whether you should take the risk, defy the critics, and pop "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch" on the hopper?

Wonder no further, for this underrated little nugget of gleaming viscera has it all! You want brutal decapitations with plenty of red sauce? Check, pilgrim! Heads dissolving into masses of squirming cockroaches? You got it, hombre! Perhaps you're looking for a sadistic screwdriver to the head slaughter? You're in the right place, pal.

And that's not all---you get a small army of Evil Toys, a gaggle of serial murderers in Grey Flannel Suits, a toe-tapping little TV Halloween ditty set to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down", and a grinning, giggling, dapper evil tycoon who wants to shred America's snotty-nosed trick-or-treaters like confetti.

Much like "Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows", "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch" is yet another fine example of a ghoulishly gory little horror film felled by fans who wanted more of the same. How far could The Shape's evenings on the town go, anyway, reasoned Carpenter and team---and having prematurely retired Mr. Myers in the 2nd installment, the result was a new direction for the franchise, with the outting helmed by first-time director Tommy Lee Wallace, and centering on the villainous Conal Cochran's plan to send out a big techno TRICK! to millions of trick-or-treaters.

Michael Myers may not be with us in the flesh, but he's in "Season of the Witch" in spirit. This is a flick that's merciless, unflinching, sadistically gory (I laughed for about an hour after the 'misfire'), and willing to use handtools to get the job done. Add to that the aforementioned army of suits, and "Halloween 3" anticipated cubicle culture and Dilbert by a decade.

But the real fun in "Halloween 3" lies in the face-off between its two veteran actors: in THIS corner, Tom Atkins (playing Dr. Dan Challis), a great character actor who played the doomed Dad in "Creepshow" ("that's what fathers are for, babe---that's what fathers are for"---that never gets old---thanks Tom!). And in THIS corner, the great Dan O'Herlihy, reprising his elder statesman/tycoon role from "Robocop", only with a little more Mr. Hyde in his dapper Mr. Jekyll. O'Herlihy's Conal Cochran is one of the best evil capitalists in cinema history---if I couldn't be Gordon Gekko, I'd be Conal Cochran!

Wallace has directed a bleak, brutal little horror flick with some truly unsettling moments, about an hour of pure laugh-out-loud goodness, and a few deft comments about company towns and Men in Grey Flannel Suits. Have your broker buy 1 million shares in Silver Shamrock, and don your masks, children---get around the TV---it's time! It's time! Two more days 'til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, two more days 'til Halloween...

Rating:
Summary: One cool horror flick
Review: During the early 80's there were a slew of horror movies and this was one of the most origanal ones released. The plot is simple, an evil warlock, who is also a business man, tries to change the world through grisley machinations from the influence of his Silver Shamrock company. If you are trying looking for formula shocks, buckets of gore and special effects this movie will disappoint you. Moreover, Michael Myers is not in it, which makes it stand on it's own unlike all the Halloween sequals after it. However, if you are looking for something novel in a saturated genre that has tight scripting, descent direction, and good acting this will prove refreshing. Even though this movie is directed by Tommy Lee Wallace it has a strong feeling of John Carpenter from the music to how it was lensed. For fans of John Carpenter's work, the pacing in not unlike his movies 'The Fog' and 'Village of the Damned' and should be checked out. This gem also includes technically driven sorcery, robots, the sexy Stacy Nelkin, and an ending that says something else other than the cliche 'evil never dies'.