Review of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) by Viniciusbrito — 24 Nov 2018

As soon as a strange man, seller of masks for halloween, end up in a gas station, saying that people will kill all of them he is sent to a hospital a few days before halloween, in the same night he got brutally murdered by a strange and mysterious man and no one knows the possibly reason for it. So his daughter, Ellie Grimbridge, and the doctor who attended the man, Daniel Challis, go investigate the last steps of the seller and try to find out what could have happened to lead into that. Directed and written by Tommy Lee Wallace.

This movie creates a mystery since the very beginning, with a nice persecution sequence at the very beginning, where you don't understand much what is going on, but later on the movie it got pretty clear what could have happened. I think that the hospital scenes wasn't much well applied, like the man could surely speak, he was just repeating the sentence "they will kill all of us" or something like that, there are moments that people got shocked and say only one thing, but I didn't got convenced that he couldn't have said more, or at least showed the mask more clearly to the people there or something like this. I believe that they could have placed some dialogues where they did explained why not call the police or something, or at least put the cops somewhere in this film, a mysterious and brutal murder have happened in a hospital and not even a comment about cops, that felt like a flaw for me. A thing that I really enjoyed in the script here, was that strange and fully of secrets in that small town that they went, the whole atmosphere in that place was strange, people looking, cameras watching everything, weird people, you could just feel that things wasn't going well around there. The development of the plot durint the second act in the small town, together with the some other details, I think that it is satisfactory, it goes calmily and little by a little we got know more about what is going on there, who is living there, what business happens, that wasn't anything great at a point to make you care much about anyone, but, for me, it was decent. Toward the end things got almost 100% off, in a point that can screw things up, I don't really mind strange things, I like the incomprehensible, really enjoy to think about it, but there is somethings that isn't really here, it got ridiculous, like a mask become into a bunch of snakes and flies with worms, sorry, but that is way to overly unreal and nonsense, durint the escape from the factory, things got way to dumb with some really weak writing decisions, since the mask throw, and that completely nonsense part where Challis put down those brooches and suddenly all the robots got destroyed, even those that weren't hitted by the symbols, except for one, the Ellie one, wich doesn't make any sense, first she being a robot and actually help Challis to escape from there and not giving away his position in any way, and later on she tries to kill him just for the sake of it, there was no necessity for she to be a damn robot and narratively didn't really made much sense, but it was kind of nice the battle in the end, it makes sense, no, but it was a bit fun. And also the part before that all, where Challis apparentely knows exactly how to turn on all of these computers and put the commercial there in all the screens, thing that he have saw it before, but it wasn't in that proportion.

The story remembers from Halloween 2 the mmystic aspect that was added, using the same name as before used, i'm not sure if this is really cannon with the others, in virtude that nothing except for this is mentioned and that they used the same actress from before to play other character in here, but I would say that it is.

This movie is definely not a horror movie, even that it tries to be sometimes, you don't feel fear watching this, it tries to be a slasher, in sometimes it does work, the kills aren't very creative, but are definely distressing. It also tries to be a investigation movie, wich worked.

Stacey Nelkin didn't made me buy that she was sad or affeard of something in much moments, she was functional, during romance moments she also was ok with her lines, she mostly spoke with not much emotion, but as I said, she was functional. Tom Atkins pretty much plays the hero in here, he does convince as a doctor, he could make me believe that he wanted to help in some moments, he also was very functional. Dan O'Herlihy is in here, and he is definely fun, the way that he speaks is nice, he have that malice where he is doing something good, but behind that all it have something hidden, he have some good sarcastic moments. Nancy Kyes that played Annie in the first Halloween movie is here, but to play Linda, Daniel's Ex-wife, she is here more as a homage to the original movie I think, if this is cannon thre was no reason to put her in here except for this, she don't have much lines, but she convinced me in what she did.