Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #19 October 2015 | Page 37

Cinema Obscura - The Overlooked
Gems of Cinema

halloween III: Season of the
witch (1982)
ByJeff Durkin

“It was the start of the year in our old Celtic
lands, and we’d be waiting in our houses of wattles
and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be
looking in to sit by our fires of turf. Halloween, the
festival of Samhain! The last great one took place
three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red with
the blood of animals and children.”
Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy)

Halloween III is an uneven film. Elements of
the movie work very well; other parts fail dismally.
Coming on the heels of Halloween II and the apparent
death of Michael Meyers, Halloween III tells a story
unconnected to the first two films. Producers Debra
Hill and John Carpenter hoped to turn the Halloween
franchise into a series of stand-alone films, sharing the
title but nothing else. That idea failed, with the next
movie featuring the return of Michael Meyers. Does
that mean Halloween III failed as a movie?

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