Directed by: Tommy Lee Wallace
Starring: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O' Herlihy
John Carpenter, after the commercial success of Halloween and Halloween II, decided (since Michael Myers was seemingly dead) to release a Halloween-themed horror film every year beginning in 1982. Halloween III failed at the box office and soon after, Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers was released, complete with a return from the dead by Myers and Dr. Loomis. Carpenter is a skilled director and didn't need to hitch his wagon to this franchise, but he did and the rest is history. Halloween III had nothing to do with Michael Myers, but instead thrusted upon us a crazy plot involving witchcraft, robots, masks which release lasers that kill the wearer, and Stonehenge. It's as if the screenwriter was assigned in Screenwriting 101 to incorporate all of these elements into a screenplay. Not necessarily a good one, mind you, but a screenplay.
Halloween III begins with an older man running from a group of men who are more like robotic killing machines. He is clutching a Halloween mask from the Silver Shamrock company, whose ads play on TV with a catchy tune. The robots track him to a hospital where they crush his skull . Why was he clutching a mask? The doctor who examined him wants to find out and enlists the help of the dead man's daughter. Their investigation leads them to the quiet Northern California town where Silver Shamrock operates. What a strange town. It's full of weird people, surveillance cameras, and many more of the evil robots. Something is afoot and all roads to lead to Conal Cochran, the owner of Silver Shamrock, whose folksy demeanor hides evil secrets.
Cochran has a plan for all these masks which release the lasers and kill those who wear them. His plan is to advertise a special giveaway at 9pm on Halloween night. Viewers will be instructed to wear the masks and thus they will soon die (unbeknownst to them of course). Why exactly is he doing this? What does he hope to gain from killing off all of his customers except to guarantee a crappy upcoming fiscal year? If this was explained, I missed it. Apparently, the power of Stonehenge will be involved in the gruesome deaths, although this wasn't explained in great detail either. Perhaps Cochran is simply a mean, nasty dude who hates children.
The actors plod through this silliness giving their best effort. Atkins would go on to appear in Lethal Weapon and other Carpenter films. He provides more of a hero than the film deserves. He falls for Nelkin and who could blame him? O'Herlihy was an accomplished former Oscar nominee who tried to lend a respectable villain to the proceedings, but even he had to scratch his head at his character's motives.
None of this is scary or suspenseful. The doctor and the young woman consistently have to outrun the robots and escape from danger. The doctor manages to make it to a gas station a few minutes before 9pm, where he frantically calls the local TV stations one by one to beg them not to run the ads. Some of the stations actually listen and pull the ad. Uh huh. The final shot, however, leaves the question unanswered as to whether the last local TV station followed through and pulled the ad. Why do this? Was there going to be a sequel? You mean I had to sit through this and wasn't even rewarded with a proper ending?
I couldn't help but discover a hole in Cochran's plot. There are numerous shots of kids trick-or-treating wearing the masks in various cities across the country, like Phoenix, Seattle, etc. When Cochran instructed the ads to be played at 9pm, did he mean just Pacific time? Did he really think parents would let their kids stay up until midnight in the East to watch some crummy commerical? And if he meant 9pm in all four time zones, wouldn't word have gotten around that millions of children died from watching the ad and thus the ad would be pulled in the other three zones? I've obviously put more thought into this than the filmmakers did, which is sad.
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