Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a 1982 American science fiction horror movie and the third installment of the Halloween movie series. This is the first film written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the creator of Halloween , returned as producers. This installment follows Dr.'s story. And Challis (Tom Atkins) when he tried to solve the mysterious murder of a patient in his hospital. She, along with Ellie Grimbridge patient's daughter (Stacey Nelkin), traveled to the small town of Santa Mira, California. The couple discovered that Silver Shamrock Novelties, a company run by Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy), attempted to use Stonehenge's mystical powers to revive the ancient aspects of the Celtic festival, Samhain, which connects Cochran with magic. Cochran uses Silver Shamrock Halloween mask to achieve its goal, to be achieved when all the children wear their masks to watch the commercially performed Halloween Shamrock show.
Halloween III is the only entry in the series that does not feature the Michael Myers antagonist series, nor does it include good story elements from Halloween (1978) or Halloween II (1981). In fact, he treated the first movie and, apparently, his sequel as a fictional film, as one of the characters watching the trailer for the original movie during; In addition, the movie tagline is a reference to the original tagline as well. It also departs from the slasher genre in which the first two installments are part of, instead of displaying the theme of "magic" with aspects of science fiction and alignment with the old Celtic fairy tale. Carpenter and Hill believe that the Halloween series has the potential to branch into an anthology series of horror movies centered around Halloween night, with each film containing its own character, setting, and storyline. Director Wallace states that there are many ideas for Halloween-themed films, some of which could potentially create some of their own sequels, and that the Magic Season is meant to be the first of a series anthology. However, after a disappointing box-office and gross acceptance, Michael Myers was brought back six years later at Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988).
The frequency of graphic and blood violence is less than Halloween II , but the movie death scenes remain intense. Like the other films in the series, dramatic tension and tension is the main theme. The dramatic element of violence against young children, something that is often taboo even for horror movies, is explored.
Produced on a budget of $ 2.5 million, Halloween III generates a good profit, gross income of $ 14.4 million (almost 5 times its production budget) at the box office in the United States, but, unfortunately, makes it the poorest performing film in the series Halloween at the time, despite the financial success. In addition to the disappointing box office returns, most critics gave the film negative reviews. One critic suggests that if Halloween III is not part of the Halloween series, it will only be "an unobtrusive eighties horror movie, no worse and no better than many other people.". "
Despite initially negative acceptance for the film, largely due to fan disappointment over the absence of Michael Myers, a re-evaluation over the last three decades has given Halloween III a new legion of fans and built his reputation as a stand-alone cult film.
Video Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Plot
On October 23, Harry Grimbridge's shop owner walked along a barren street in Northern California, chased by mysterious figures in a business suit. He made it at the gas station, holding the jack-o'-lantern mask. He was taken to the hospital by Walter Jones station officers. At the hospital, Grimbridge is placed in the care of Dr. And Challis. That night, another mysterious man dressed in a suit goes into Grimbridge hospital room, kills him, then goes to his car and perpetuates himself.
The next morning, Grimbridge's daughter, Ellie, arrives to identify her father's body. Ellie and Challis agree to investigate his murder, taking them to the small town of Santa Mira, California. The motel manager explained that Conal Cochran and his company, Silver Shamrock Novelty, which produces a very popular latex mask, witch mask and skeleton for Halloween, are responsible for the prosperity of the city. When signing the motel list, Challis finds out that Grimbridge lives in the same motel. Other motel guests include the shopkeepers Marge Guttman and Buddy Kupfer, Buddy's wife, Betty, and their son Little Buddy, all of whom had business in the company's factory.
Guttman found a microchip on the back of the Shamrock Silver button, and was electrocuted by his laser beam after poking it with a hairpin. Challis and Ellie know of Guttman's accident, and Challis tried to help, but were forced to leave by a group of men in lab coats, who drove the van with Marge's body. The next morning, Challis and Ellie walk around the factory with Kupfers, and find the Grimbridge car there, guarded by more men in their suits. They returned to the motel, but were unable to contact anyone outside the city. While Challis tried to call the authorities, Ellie was kidnapped by the suits, and taken to the factory.
Challis chased them, barged into the factory, and found that the men in suits were androids made by Cochran. Challis is captured by android and Cochran reveals his plan to sacrifice the children wearing his mask on Halloween, thus bringing about a revival of ancient magic. For Silver Shamrock's "Giveaway", which will air at 9:00 am. on all the television channels that follow "Horrorthon", each of these masks contains Stonehenge fragments embedded in their typical microchips. When activated by a flashing signal from the "magic pumpkin" screen on a commercial screen, the microchip causes the mask user to succumb to brain damage from absorbing Stonehenge's energy and releasing a bunch of insects and snakes out of the wearer's body. and kill anyone nearby. To show, Cochran kills Kupfers in this way.
That night, Cochran puts Silver Shamrock's mask on Challis, and leaves him to die the same fate with the trick-or-treating children, who will go home for the Halloween toss he reviewed and win the fake he made for his company.. But Challis, after smashing the television and removing the mask, escapes through the ventilation pit and saves Ellie. He dumped the chips from the rafters overhead, and activated their signals with advertisements, killed Cochran and his employees, and destroyed computer chips along with the entire Shamrock Silver factory. When the two go, Ellie attacks Challis, revealing that Cochran replaces the original Ellie with a android duplicate. Challis crashed the vehicle and decapitated the android with a tire iron. On foot, Challis arrives at Jones' gas station, where he calls the station and assures all but one of the station managers to remove the ad. However, at the same time, a group of trick-or-treaters, wearing their non-destroyed masks, came to participate in Big Giveaway without realizing the threat of sacrifice. Challis persuaded the station to take it from channels one and two, but did not channel three fake lottery spots constantly playing, right into the order of the magical pumpkin. He then desperately tries to convince the company to stop playing ads, screaming on the phone, as the animated pumpkin head blinks unceasingly in front of him and the kids. The movie ends with Challis shouting for the last station to turn off the ad.
Maps Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Cast
Production
When approached about the making of the third film, Halloween , the original author of Halloween John Carpenter and Debra Hill were reluctant to make a commitment. According to Fangoria magazine Carpenter and Hill agree to participate in the new project only if it is not a direct sequel to Halloween II , which means no Michael Myers. Irwin Yablans and Moustapha Akkad, who produced the first two films, filmed Halloween III with a $ 2.5 million budget.
Special artist Don Post Post Studios designs latex masks in films that include a shimmering dark skull, lime green witch and orange Day-Glo jack-o'-lantern. Hill told Aljean Harmetz, "We do not really have a lot of money for things like props, so we ask the Post, who has provided a shape mask for 'Halloween' before [II]... if we can work to make agreement. "The skull and wizard's mask is an adaptation of the Post Studios standard mask, but jack-o'-lantern is tailor-made for Halloween III . Post hooks the mask film with mask popularity in the real world:
Every society at all times has a mask that matches the public mood, from masked balls to clowns to makeup. People want to show feelings inside them - angry, sad, happy, old. It may be a sad commentary in America today that the horror mask is the most salable.
Most of the filming took place at a location in the small coastal town of Loleta, California. Familiar Foods, a bottling factory in Loleta, serves as the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory, but all special effects involving fire, smoke, and explosions are filmed in Post Studios.
Write
Producer recruits English science fiction writer Nigel Kneale to write original scenarios, especially since Carpenter admired his Quatermass series. Kneale said his script did not include "horror for horror". He added, "The main story is about fraud, psychological shock, and not physical." Kneale confirmed that the film mastermind of Dino De Laurentiis, the rights owner of the film distribution, ignored him and ordered more violence and graphics gore. While many of the plots remained the same, the change was not pleasant to Kneale, and he requested that his name be removed from the credits. Director Tommy Lee Wallace was later commissioned to revise the manuscript. Wallace told Fangoria that he created the title of the movie as a reference for "plot point" - the three masks featured in the film - and an attempt to link this film with the others in the series. He explained in the interview the direction that Carpenter and Hill wanted to take the Halloween series, stating, "It is our intention to make the anthologies out of the series, sort of along the lines of the Night Gallery, The Twilight Zone , just on a much larger scale, of course. "Every year, a new movie will be released that focuses on some aspects of the Halloween season.
Hill told Fangoria that the film should be a 'a' pod 'instead of a' knife '. "Thus, Wallace was inspired by another pod movie: Don Siegel Invasion from Body Guard (1956).The fictional city of Santa Mira was originally the setting of the Invasion of the Body Snatcher and so named in Halloween III as a tribute to the Siegel movie.The aspect of the plot proved very similar as well, such as "seizing" the body and replacing it with androids. "Halloween III subtitles came from the second film George A. Romero Season of the Witch (1973) - also known as the Hungry Wives - but the plot has nothing in common with the Romero story of a housewife who became involved in magic.
Film critics such as Jim Harper call Wallace's plot "highly defective". Harper argues, "Every plot depends on stealing a piece of Stonehenge and sending it secretly across the Atlantic will waver from the beginning." He noted, "there are four time zones across the United States, so the west coast has four hours to get ads that trigger fatal curses from the air. Harper was not the only critic who was not impressed by the plot. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "What is the plan of [Cochran]? Kill the children and replace them with robots? Why?"
Casting
The cast of Halloween III: Season of the Witch is composed mostly of character actors whose previous acting credits include cameo appearances on various television series. The exceptions are Tom Atkins and veteran actor Dan O'Herlihy. Cast as surgeon Daniel "And" Challis, Atkins has appeared in several John Carpenter films before Halloween III . Atkins plays Nick Castle in The Fog (1980) and Rehme in Escape from New York (1981). Atkins guest starred in television series such as Harry O , The Rockford Files and Lou Grant . Atkins told Fangoria that he liked to be a hero. As a veteran horror actor, he added, "I do not mind making a full career for being in a horror movie only." After Halloween III , Atkins continues to play supporting roles in dozens of movies and television series.
Stacey Nelkin plays Ellie Grimbridge, a young woman whose father was killed by Silver Shamrock. She got the role after a make-up artist who worked on the film told about her audition. In an interview, Nelkin commented on his character: "Ellie is very dashing and strong-minded.Although I like to think of myself having these qualities, she's written like that in a script." Nelkin considered it an "honor" to be played by Jamie Lee Curtis's successor. According to Roger Ebert, Nelkin's performance was "a saving grace" in the film. Ebert explains, "He has one rich voice that makes you wish he had more to say and in a better role.... Too bad he played his last headless scene." Prior to his role as Grimbridge, Nelkin was one of the main characters in the 1980 movie Mad Magazine Up The Academy, which also starred Ralph Macchio. After Halloween III , Nelkin continues to work as a character actress on television.
Irish actor veteran Dan O'Herlihy plays the role of Conal Cochran, owner of Silver Shamrock and witch of the movie title (3,000 year old devil in original Kneale manuscript). O'Herlihy has played nearly 150 roles before starring as an Irish swindler and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance on The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954). He appeared in twenty films and television series before his death in 2005. O'Herlihy confessed in an interview with Starlog magazine that he was not too impressed with the finished film. When asked what he thought was working in a horror movie, O'Herlihy replied, "Whenever I use a Cork accent, I have fun, and I use a Cork accent on Halloween III. I really enjoy this role, but I do not think it's a good picture, no. "Two members of the supporting cast are no stranger to the Halloween series. Nancy Kyes plays Challis's ex-wife, Linda; she appeared in the first two films of Halloween as her promising friend Laurie Strode, Annie Brackett. The acrobatic player Dick Warlock made a cameo appearance as an android killer. Warlock previously acted as Michael Myers on Halloween II. Jamie Lee Curtis also provides unwarranted sound work as a Santa Mira curfew announcer and telephone operator.
Redirecting
This film is the debut of director Tommy Lee Wallace, although he is not a newcomer to the series Halloween . Wallace had served as director of arts and production designers for the original John Carpenter Halloween novel and he had previously refused to direct Halloween II in 1981. After Halloween III Wallace directed other horror films like Fright Night Part 2 (1988), Vampires: Los Muertos (2002) and miniseries It (1990) ), a television adaptation of Stephen King's novel. Despite disagreements between Wallace and original scriptwriter Nigel Kneale, the actors reported that Wallace was a fun director to work with. Stacey Nelkin told one of the interviewers: "Fun, smooth, and great group shoots for a group of people who are great to work Tommy Lee Wallace is very helpful and open to discussing dialogue or character problems."
Though the third film departs from the plot of the first two films, Wallace attempts to connect the three films together through certain stylistic themes. The opening title of this movie features digitally digital jack-o'-lanterns, clear references to jack-o'-lanterns that appear in the opening titles of Halloween and Halloween II. Jack-o'-lantern Wallace is also a catalyst in Silver Shamrock advertising that activates the mask. Another style reference to the original film is found in scenes where Dr. Challis throws a mask over a security camera, making the image on the monitor seem to peek through the eye hole. This is a nod to the scene where a young Michael Myers killed his sister while wearing a clown mask. Finally, the film contains short references to its predecessors by including some short scenes from Halloween in television commercials that advertise the broadcasting of movies for the upcoming holidays as a small story in a story.
The use of Wallace's wounds serves a different purpose than at Halloween II . According to Tom Atkins, "The effects in [the film] are not bloody, they are more odd than disgusting." Special effects and makeup artist Tom Burman concurred, stating in an interview, "This movie really does come out to disgust people - it's a fun movie with lots of sensations in it, not a lot of haphazard randomness." Many of these special effects are intended to emphasize the theme of practical jokes that embellish the plot. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby writes, "This movie features many very carefully discussed special effects..." Canby stood as one of the few critics of the time to praise Wallace's briefing. : "Mr. Wallace clearly has a fondness for the cliches he is parodying and he does it in style."
Music
The soundtrack was composed by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, who worked together in scores for Halloween II and several other films. Music remains an important element in building an atmosphere of Halloween III . Just like in Halloween and Halloween II , there is no symphonic score. Most of the music is structured to collect "fake surprises" from the audience.
Halloween III score is very different from the original main theme of original and sequel. The carpenter replaces the familiar piano melody with a slower electronic theme that is played on the synthesizer with a sound tone. Howarth explained how he and Carpenter composed music for the third movie:
John Carpenter's musical style and myself are growing in the soundtrack of this movie by working exclusively with synthesizers to produce our music. This has led to certain procedural routines. The film was first transferred to a time-coded video tape and synchronized to the track master audio recorder 24; then while watching our movie compose music for these visual images. The whole process runs fast enough and has an "instant gratification", allowing us to evaluate the score aligned with the image. This is an invaluable asset.
One of the more memorable aspects of the movie soundtrack is the jingle of the Silver Shamrock Halloween mask ad. Arranged to the tune of "London Bridge Is Falling Down", the in-film ad counts the number of days until Halloween begins with the eighth day followed by the announcer voice (Tommy Lee Wallace) encourages the kids to buy Silver Shamrock masks to wear on Halloween night:
- Eight days until Halloween,
- Halloween, Halloween.
- Eight days until Halloween,
- Silver Shamrock.
Box office
Halloween III: Season of the Witch opened in 1,297 theaters in the United States on October 22, 1982, and earned $ 6,333,259 on its opening weekend. Like its predecessor, the film is distributed through Universal by Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. It earned a total of $ 14.4 million in the United States, but was the worst of the movie's Halloween at the time. Several other horror films aired in 1982 performed much better, including Poltergeist ($ 76.606.280), Friday the 13th Part III ($ 34,581,519), and > Creepshow ($ 21,028,755).
In 1983, Edd Riveria, the designer of movie theater posters, received a Saturn Award nomination from the Academy of Fiction Scientific, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA, for Best Poster Art, but lost to John Alvin's work. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Art poster Riveria displays a demonic face that comes down on three tricks-or-treaters. His artwork was then displayed on the cover of Fangoria in October 1982. The stylized face on the theater poster is actually a distorted picture of a witch mask that appears in the film. The trick-or-treater image is similar to a shot in a movie showing children in Phoenix, Arizona walking in silhouette with a red sun set in the background.
Merchandising
As part of a merchandising campaign, the producers asked the Don Post to massively produce skull, wizard, and jack-o'-lantern masks. The producer has granted exclusive merchandising rights to Posting as part of his contract to work on the film, and Post Studios has successfully marketed a tie mask for classic Universal monsters, Planet of the Apes (1968), Star Wars (1977), and ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Post uses original prints for masks in films for mass production masks for retail sales. He speculates, "Since masks are so important to movies, they can be misguided, with fans wanting to wear them when they go to watch a movie." Post also gave a mask-making demonstration for the Universal Studios tour in Hollywood. Mask sells for $ 25 when they finally appear in stores. The script was adapted as a novel novel in 1982 by the horror writer Dennis Etchison who wrote under the pseudonym Jack Martin. The book was best-seller and reissued in 1984. Etchison wrote a novelization to Halloween II just a year earlier.
Halloween III was later released on VHS and LaserDisc in 1983 by MCA/Universal Home Video and by Goodtimes Home Video in 1996. DVD version was distributed by Goodtimes in 1998, Universal in 2002, in 2007 as a two-disc "Universal feature double" with Halloween II , and Shout! Factory released the DVD edition of the collector and Blu-ray movie on September 18, 2012. The film was released on Blu-ray for the first time on September 18, 2012 from Shout! The factory, which contains the same special features as their DVD edition collectors, is in the form of comments, documentaries, trailers and galleries. Universal released the nude release of Blu-ray movies on August 11, 2015.
Reception
Critical response to Halloween III: Season of the Witch proved negative mainly due to the absence of Michael Myers. Although there is support. New York Times examiner Vincent Canby is struggling to apply definite labels to movie content. He commented, "'Halloween III' manages the feasibility of not being easy to be anti-child, anti-capitalist, anti-television and anti-Irish at the same time." On the other hand, he said that the movie "may be as good as anything a cheerful ghost can ask." Other criticisms are much more decisive in their judgments. Roger Ebert wrote that the film was "a cheap thriller film from the first frame." This is one of the identikit films, collected from familiar parts of another better film. However, he praised the performance of Stacey Nelkin. Cinefantastique the magazine referred to the film as "hopeless chaos". Jason Paul Collum shows the absence of Michael Myers and the nihilistic end of the film as the reason why the film is dissatisfied by the reviewers and audience.
Tom Milne of Time Out offers a more positive review, calling the title "a bit cheat, because the indestructible psycho of the first two movies does not play a part here." Unlike other critics, Milne thinks the new plot is refreshing: "With the possibilities of the last [Halloween] movie character and totally exhausted, Season of the Witch changed more favorably to the fairy tale Nigel Kneale is incredibly ingenious from a toy maker and his evil plan to bring Halloween back to the wizard's origins. "Though Milne was unhappy that Kneale's original manuscript was reduced to" a bit of a mess ", he still believes the end result is" great fun ". The film currently holds a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes review, based on 20 reviews.
PopMatters journalist JC MaÃÆ'§ek III writes that the film "does not feature serial killers or slashers of any kind... However, this may be somewhat interesting, or at least not condemned, whether the film has not. times start to the point where we might actually be engrossed in the movie, director Tommy Lee Wallace throws something as tacky as... oh, like a human headscene scene that shows how much the producers are investing in latex Seriously, can the effects specifically look a little more fake, please? I just got to the point where I can almost tell the robots of real people... make real people look more faker than Michael Jackson happy nose confuses me again. "
Academics find the film to be full of criticisms of American society in the late 20th century, historian Nicholas Rogers pointed out an anti-corporate message in which a successful entrepreneur becomes "oddly irrational" and seeks to "promote a more robotic future for commerce and manufacturing. " "The astrological obsession or psychic hatred of Cochran's children outperforms his business instincts." Tony Williams argues that the movie plot signifies the result of a "triumph of patriarchal corporate control." In the same vein, Martin Harris writes that Halloween III contains "an ongoing cynical comment about American consumer culture." Upset over the commercialization of Halloween holidays, Cochran uses "the media he hates as a weapon against himself." Harris also discussed other major business critics in the film, including local worker unemployment and the declining quality of mass-produced products.
References
Bibliography
Further reading
- "The Mask Factor" by Michael Gingold, Fangoria magazine # 317, October 2012, pages 60-62. Stacey Nelkin's interview of her role in the movie "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" was performed at Monster-Mania Con 2011, New Jersey. The three-page article has seven photos, four from Nelkin, one of them taken at Con.
External links
- Official website
- Halloween III: Wizard Season on IMDb
- Halloween III: The Witch's Season at AllMovie
- Halloween III: The Witch's Season at Rotten Tomatoes
- Halloween III: The Witch's Season at Box Office Mojo
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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