Halloween 3

Halloween 3 spent most of the past 30 years being despised by a fanbase that simply couldn’t understand why in the name of holy hell Michael Myers wasn’t onscreen killing more teenagers. The plot concerning some sort of Celtic apocalypse involving robots, Stonehenge and Halloween masks is admittedly ridiculous. But it’s also so gloriously convoluted and preposterous that it makes the movie stand out in a field of cookie-cutter slasher sequels that pride themselves on being as unoriginal as possible.

Producer John Carpenter gambled on audiences looking for something new…and lost. The original idea was to make a different scary movie each year with the Halloween moniker. However, this wasn’t exactly clear when Universal advertised the film back in ’82. Fans responded by making it the most reviled Halloween film in the series, which got quickly back on the monotonous Michael Myers track soon afterward.

Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and shot by long-time Carpenter collaborator Dean Cundey, it certainly looks like a Halloween film, full of all the beautiful nighttime compositions and lens flares that Cundey brings to the table. And it features a solid performance from genre veteran Tom Atkins (The Fog) as an alcoholic on-call doctor who gets pulled into investigating the death of one of his patients. The clues all point to Silver Shamrock, a Halloween novelty company which is blasting the airwaves with commercials for a new line of masks for trick-or-treaters. Turns out, CEO Conal Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) is planning the ultimate trick on kids around the world, and the clock is ticking!

Classic sci-fi writer Nigel Kneale (the Quatermass series) was commissioned to write the first draft, but later asked for his name to be removed after more violence and gore was added. Admittedly, Halloween 3 makes zero sense. The evil plan to kill off the world’s children has so many holes it’s like something out of an Austin Powers flick. But you can feel Carpenter’s love for the sci-fi genre throughout. And the wackier things get, the more endearing the film becomes. Just try to get that Silver Shamrock jingle out of your head…I dare you!

Shout Factory’s new Scream Factory label has put together a fantastic Blu-ray collector’s edition, with a beautiful transfer plus two commentaries, interviews, featurettes and all the theatrical and TV advertising.