Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

Writers: Tommy Lee Wallace

Composers: John Carpenter, Alan Howarth

Starring: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy, Michael Currie, Ralph Strait, Jadeen Barbor, Brad Schacter, Garn Stephens, Nancy Kyes, Jonathan Terry, Al Berry, Maidie Norman, Jamie Lee Curtis

More info: IMDb

Tagline: ...and now the earth will run with blood again!

Plot: Kids all over America want Silver Shamrock masks for Halloween. Doctor Daniel Challis seeks to uncover a plot by Silver Shamrock owner Conal Cochran.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

I hope I'm not alone in feeling this way but when I saw this in the early 80s on a tape rental, I was expecting another HALLOWEEN movie with Michael Myers and I was, at very least, disappointed (if not pissed) that it was not the further adventures of an unstoppable killer.  Many years later I watched it again and I rather enjoyed it.  Carpenter never intended for the first movie to continue but instead have a series of films that had one thing in common and that's that they all took place on Halloween.  Well, I like it.  Two things make this totally watchable and that's Carpenter & Howarth's synth score and the wonderful Tom Atkins (and at near 50 he was looking great and he was in great shape, judging from his nude scene).  The music oozes classic Carpenter pictures.  Atkins is just all kinds of fun and he's sometimes delivering lines a little differently than what anyone else would and they feel genuine.  That adds a lot to his performance.  The story isn't as solid as it should've been.  There's a chunk of the picture where not much happens as far as unfolding the mystery is concerned but it's still enjoyable and that's what matters. But it does have one great little ending.  I score films based on how much I enjoy them, not on the merits of their technical aspects.  I don't care much about budgets, special effects and all.  It's what's on screen and how I react that counts.  Knowing where Carpenter wanted to take this series and make it one big anthology, that' would've been a neat way to treat the series.  At the same time I'd still like to see Myers killin' folks.