Creeptober Day 25: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a movie that hasn’t always been looked at fondly by wider audiences. But we’ve always liked it, and that’s why it’s our pick for day twenty-five of Creeptober!

Read on for our thoughts on Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) as well as a recap of the movie, and join the conversation on our Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram!

Reacting to Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Historically, Halloween III: Season of the Witch has been looked down on, mostly because of its status as an outlier in the larger Halloween franchise. It’s always had its supporters, but it is also well documented that it was initially met with mostly negative reactions. In the decades after its release, the film developed a growing fan base. It still has a fair number of detractors, but every year more and more people realize how fun this cult classic Halloween horror movie is.

I’m not going to react to Halloween III: Season of the Witch in the context of the Halloween film series. Yes, there are connections to the previous Halloween movies in terms of cast, crew, and even the fact that Halloween (1978) can be seen on TV a couple of times in this movie. But that approach has been done many times over the years, and it can be a bit stale at this point. Instead, I’m just going to look at a few of my favorite parts of Season of the Witch and explain why it’s a fun Halloween movie regardless of whether or not it had ever been associated with Halloween.

One of my favorite aspects of Season of the Witch is that it knows it’s kind of silly, and it doesn’t try to hide that fact. You can really see this attitude whenever Cochran is explaining his plans without really explaining anything. The best example is when he shows Challis the huge block from Stonehenge he’s stolen. When talking about the stone, Cochran says, “We had a time getting it here. You wouldn’t believe how we did it.” But then he doesn’t explain at all how they did it. It’s like the movie knows how ridiculous the whole scenario is, and it acknowledges the ridiculousness as a way of brushing it aside (this is called “lampshade hanging” for you movie nerds out there). This also happens when Cochran explains that his plan involves ancient rituals, but his explanations for why are very flimsy. He even wonders out loud if he needs a reason. I love it!

I also really enjoy Dan Challis as a character whose flaws are on full display. Tom Atkins is great in the role of Challis. He imbues this alcoholic, womanizing doctor with a 1980s-leading-man charm that makes him likable even when he’s acting in questionable ways. Like when he not-so-subtly makes it known that he wants to sleep with Ellie. Or when he has to get a six-pack of beer before their trip to Santa Mira, despite just leaving a bar. Or when he shamelessly flirts with Teddy while begging her to do an autopsy. Even with all of these things, he shows that his heart is in the right place in key moments, like when he uses the tags to destroy Cochran’s men and when he tries to stop the commercials from airing. But his flaws contribute to his failures. He fails to save Ellie because he wasn’t observant enough. He (probably) fails to save his kids because his drinking leads his ex-wife to not believing him when he calls to warn her about the masks. Doctor Daniel Challis is a thoroughly interesting character.

Also, I like the weird mixture of technology and magic. Androids and ancient Celtic rituals. Microchips and pieces of a magic rock. Television broadcasting and bug-filled portals opening in people’s faces. It’s like the past, present, and future are colliding in the small, fictional town of Santa Mira. It’s such a strange combination, but it works in a bizarre way. It makes the movie feel stylized, like a pulp novel or an episode from a cheesy sci-fi/horror TV series. Season of the Witch isn’t meant to be high art. It’s an entertaining horror movie meant to provide a few chills and many smiles. I certainly smile every time I watch it.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch – A Recap

A man carrying a Halloween mask in the shape of a jack-o-lantern is chased and attacked by mysterious men in suits. The man gets away and is taken to a hospital, but later that night one of the suited men arrives and kills him in his hospital bed. The man’s doctor, Dan Challis, chases the suited man, but the man blows himself up in a car. Challis is bothered by the murder, especially since his patient told him, “they’re going to kill us, all of us” before he died. Dr. Challis notices a “Silver Shamrock” tag attached to the jack-o-lantern mask.

A few days later, two days before Halloween, Ellie, the daughter of the dead man, finds Challis in a bar. She is looking into her father’s death and wants to know if he told Challis anything. Challis has his own concerns, so he goes with Ellie to her father’s store. They deduce that her father, Harry, ran into trouble sometime around his trip to the town of Santa Mira where the Silver Shamrock factory is. They immediately drive to Santa Mira to investigate further.

When they arrive in the small town of Santa Mira, Challis and Ellie check into a motel. Challis covertly looks at the motel’s register and finds Harry’s name listed for the previous week. Knowing they’re on the right track (and knowing that there is an attraction between them), they decide to go to the Silver Shamrock Factory the next day.

During the night, Challis runs into a homeless man after buying a bottle of booze. The homeless man speaks poorly of Conal Cochran, the owner of Silver Shamrock, and says he’s going to burn the factory down. Challis goes back to the motel, and the homeless man is killed by men wearing suits. Also during the night, A woman staying at the motel, Marge Guttman, is killed when she messes with a Silver Shamrock tag that fell off her child’s mask. The tag shoots a laser beam which rips a hole in Marge’s face. Soon after, Cochran and a team of men in white lab coats arrive and take Marge away. Cochran tells Challis that she’s being taken to a special facility at the factory. Quietly, a lab-coat guy tells Cochran that there was a “misfire.”

The next day, one day before Halloween, Ellie and Challis go to the Silver Shamrock factory. They end up tagging along on a tour of the facility with Buddy Kupfer—the top mask salesman in the country—and his family. Ellie sees her father’s car partially hidden in one of the factory’s buildings, and Challis recognizes the suited men as being similar to the man who killed Harry. They decide to leave town and call the police.

While Challis tries and fails to get a phone call connected, Ellie is abducted from their motel room. Suited men chase Challis. He avoids the men, but he enters the factory after seeing Ellie taken inside. Challis finds an old woman and asks her where Ellis is, but the woman turns out to actually be an automaton. Challis then fights one of the suited men who spits up orange fluid when Challis punches through his stomach. The man is an android, and Challis is captured by two other androids led by Cochran.

It is now the morning of Halloween. Challis is taken into a building called “Final Processing.” In the building is a stone slab stolen from Stonehenge, and Cochran indicates that the tags on his masks each contain a tiny piece of Stonehenge in a microchip. Using Buddy’s family, Cochran demonstrates how the tags will be used. In a locked room, Buddy’s son puts on a mask and watches a modified version of the Silver Shamrock commercial. The boy has a seizure, and when he falls dead to the floor, bugs and snakes crawl out of his face.

In the evening, Cochran explains his plan to Challis. He says that when children across the country put on their masks and watch the Silver Shamrock commercial at 9:00 p.m, they will be sacrifices as part of an ancient Celtic ritual that takes place during Samhain. Cochran puts a mask on Challis and leaves him to die, but Challis escapes. Challis finds and frees Ellie, but before they leave, he takes a box of Silver shamrock tags and dumps them into the Final Processing room while the deadly commercial is playing. Cochran’s men are killed by the tags going off, and Cochran disappears after being hit with an energy beam from Stonehenge.

While driving away from Santa Mira, Ellie attacks Challis. She is an android, and Challis destroys her. He then runs to a gas station where he calls the TV station to try to convince them to stop the broadcast of the Silver Shamrock commercial. Two stations stop the commercial, but a third lets it run. The commercial begins its deadly flashing as Challis repeatedly yells, “stop it!”

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