Halloween III: Season of the Witch 4K 1982

The mad toy constructor decides to sacrifice millions of children on Halloween at once and prepares a batch of "Pumpkinhead" masks, which mysteriously work on All Saints' Day.

4k movies reviews
Every year on the eve of All Saints' Day, Hollywood frightened its viewers with a wide variety of horrors in which monsters from werewolves and zombies to vampires appeared, however, the bloody adventures of Dracula, the creations of Victor Frankenstein and other monsters were pretty tired of the public, frankly tired of monotony, from which the producers had to urgently look for other stories and tricks to return the nightmare to the screens again. He was not averse to playing a blood-chilling horror and little-known but stubborn producer Irvin Yablans, who decided to put a story about a maniac killing young nannies during a quiet, carefree night. Having shared his idea with director John Carpenter, Jablans completely relied on his colleague and allowed him to expand the original idea to a full-fledged script, based on which a standard full-length film could be produced for wide distribution. Sitting down to develop the project together with co-author Debra Hill, Carpenter wrote an extremely simple, but at the same time tense and eerie synopsis, which he himself realized on film, illuminating the world with the crimson tones of "Halloween". Delivering a truly unforgettable, frightening sight, Carpenter put all his strength into the picture and his efforts were not in vain. "Halloween" has repeatedly recouped all the costs of the creators and presented the audience with a monster of a completely different type, which, on the one hand, was raised on the basis of "Psycho", and on the other hand, became the prototype for the appearance of Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. However, when it came to the sequel, Carpenter stepped back from directing the sequel, taking on the duties of a producer and screenwriter. Nevertheless, the efforts of Carpenter's successor, Rick Rosenthal, were no less worthy, from which "Halloween 2" was quite successful from a financial point of view, thereby opening the way for the third part, which studio executives could not refuse. Carpenter himself, who retained influence on the series, expressed a strong desire to remove Michael Myers and Laurie Strode from the plot in order to limit speculation on cult history and show other facets of the horror that comes on the eve of All Saints' Day. Therefore, in the work on Halloween 3, the authors had to look for completely different dramatic foundations in order to please the fans, but all the efforts of the Tommy Lee Wallace team led to the fact that the audience completely refused to accept the franchise without its main star and rode the triquel with a merciless critical rink. which shouldn't have been filmed at all.

So, the plot of the film begins shortly before Halloween, when a middle-aged man runs from an unknown threat along the night streets of one of the cities of Northern California. Fearing something extremely terrible and inexorably following on his heels, the fugitive ends up in a local hospital, where they volunteered to provide the necessary assistance and hold him at least until the morning. However, evil doom so simply does not let go of those it is chasing, and the unfortunate man will still not be destined to go out on his own feet, since he will nevertheless become a victim of the one who was sent after him and says something to others that on this death the series of nightmarish incidents will definitely not end. The daughter of the deceased, who arrived the next day at the hospital, Ellie Grimbridge (Stacy Nelkin), decides to find out what exactly happened to her father and who he crossed the road, and after her, Dr. Daniel Cellis (Tom Atkins) is also sent to investigate, intrigued by the incident. no less than a discouraged girl. Gradually digging into the true essence of what is happening, the heroes go on the trail of a certain Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlichi), the owner of a factory for the production of carnival masks and other attributes of Halloween, who intends to organize a full-scale genocide through his products. Stopping a madman is not at all so easy, since under his command there is a whole detachment of henchmen, ready to unquestioningly follow all the instructions of their leader, but Ellie and Daniel are not going to be on the sidelines before the coming Apocalypse and begin a selfless struggle that will make them test their strength and face fears that yesterday they were not ready to face.

Moving away from the classic precepts of John Carpenter, the filmmakers tried to diversify the popular franchise, presenting the audience with a completely different, unpredictable and tough story in which they kill not only adolescents who indulge in sinful entertainment, but also ordinary children who are sent to neighbors in elaborate costumes, in order to say "Wallet or life". And if we evaluate the project solely in terms of the perspective of the idea, as well as the script qualities, then we can come to the conclusion that if you were in the right hands and having no connections with the true "Halloween" of John Carpenter, "Season of the Witches" could become quite worthy, frightening and a fascinating genre specimen capable of evoking, if not admiration, then restrained respect. However, the producers considered that the third part of the franchise should at all costs play on the glory of its predecessors, and its production was put into the hands of Tommy Lee Wallace, production designer for several Carpenter films, who suddenly felt that he was able to make films not much worse than senior colleague. And in many ways it was the choice of Wallace's candidacy for the post of director of "The Time of the Witches" did the worst service for the film, since the inexperienced director did not really understand what he needed to do on the set and how to dispose of the funds received, of which there were many by the standards of the franchise.

As you know, the original "Halloween" cost its creators $ 325 thousand, while "Season of the Witches" was already worth $ 2.5 million. But when you watch it, you don't feel at all that Wallace is operating with serious sums, since the story looks cheap to the point of frustration and is not able to boast of any really terrible murder. Of course, the creators tried to saturate the action with a variety of sadistic nuances, like snakes and other deadly creatures falling out of children wearing a mask, but in reality it all looks frankly meaningless and stupid, and even technical specialists and make-up artists who failed to create from improvised materials let their director down nothing sensible. But nevertheless, it must be admitted that for the "Season of the Witches" the greatest blow to the reputation was not at all faceless bloody moments, but a completely ruined atmosphere of anxiety and completely uninteresting characters who are present in the frame, but look mediocre, periodically commit stupid acts and a priori unable to interest itself, especially after such an intriguing game that Jamie Lee Curtis had previously played. The main villain Conel Cochran somewhat corrects such a gloomy order of things, luring him with his inappropriate behavior and sheer madness, but if we compare him with the same Michael Myers, who did not need any helpers or conversations, then Cochran turns out to be far from such a polished monster as I would like to.

See the next part: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers 4K 1988

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (82.7 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles
English SDH.