Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 30: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Normally I save this one for Halloween itself, but I'll be at Spooky Empire horror con tomorrow, so I won't have time for a Scary Movie Month movie (however I will still post something here for the three of you reading this). I wrote about this one last year as well, but it's a Halloween tradition for me so I had to write about it again. Deal with it, jerks.

I adore this movie, because it's not only an entertaining riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it's also wall-to-wall batshit insane. Angel-who-walks-among-us-as-man Tom Atkins stars as Dan Challis, a doctor-slash-estranged-father-slash-lothario-slash-drunk. He stumbles across a plot masterminded by Conal Cochran, CEO of Silver Shamrock Novelties (Dan O'Herlihy, gloriously unhinged), to kill a whole bunch of children on Halloween night by using a television signal to trigger pieces of Stonehenge that are also insect-and-snake-producing lasers  sewn into the popular masks he manufactures to melt the heads of the kids wearing the masks. Feel free to read that (admittedly run-on) sentence again and let it sink in. Oh, and also there are people who are actually robots, one of whom kills a guy by breaking his nose FROM INSIDE HIS HEAD. Have I mentioned that this is a certifiably batshit movie?

This year it was even more fun than usual because I watched it with a commentary track recorded by (some of) the F This Movie! crew which is (as always) both hilarious and informative. From discussing the genesis of the movie and its place in the Halloween franchise to pointing out goofy details like Challis' handkerchief (or "dickcloth") I enjoyed every moment of the track, it really helped to make the movie feel fresh. Also, it was a kick to hear JB's assertion that it's not a good movie completely deflate as he kept pointing out more and more things he liked. For a movie about a crazed Irish mask-maker and his robot minions attempting to murder as many children as possible with Stonehenge-lasers it's strangely likable. From the painfully early-80's computerized opening credits to the legitimately great (and frighteningly bleak) final shot it's a tremendously fun watch. Plus you'll never get the Silver Shamrock jingle out of your head, ever, not even if you're the victim of a laser-equipped Halloween mask. Hap-py hap-py Halloween, Silver Shamrock!