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| Halloween 3: Season of the Witch [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC) | ![Halloween 3: Season of the Witch [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41CRG7F7M9L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
Actors: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'herlihy, Michael Currie, Ralph Strait
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
Buy New: £3.57
Buy New/Used from £3.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  (23 reviews)
Sales Rank: 10597
Format: Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 99 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: MCAD3606D
ISBN: 0783292139
UPC: 025192360626
EAN: 9780783292137
ASIN: B0000AOX09
Release Date: October 7, 2003
Theatrical Release Date: October 22, 1982
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Halloween III: Season of the Witch was producer John Carpenter's attempt to get the series away from the original psycho-on-the-loose storyline and turn it into a vehicle for more far-fetched Halloween-themed horror tales. Incredibly, the fans voted for more of the same and Carpenter walked away for others to rehash the Michael Myers plotline in a succession of lookalike movies that are still turning up every few years. Though original screenwriter Nigel Kneale (of the Quatermass series and The Stone Tape) removed his name from the final film after a coarsening rewrite by director Tommy Lee Wallace, his strange touch is evident in the offbeat story. After the mysterious deaths of a toyshop owner, a doctor (Tom Atkins) and the man's daughter (Stacy Nelkin), an investigation takes place in the Irish-dominated Northern California community of Santa Mira, a company town owned by the Silver Shamrock Novelty corporation, whose bestselling Halloween masks are pushed by an amazingly irritating TV jingle you won't ever be able to get out of your head ("Two more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween"). Atkins and Nelkin are typical low-rent horror movie protagonists, dim-bulbs who discover an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style conspiracy involving sharp-suited corporate robots. But guest star Dan O'Herlihy steals the film as a Celtic joke tycoon ("the man who invented sticky toilet paper and the dead dwarf gag") who hates the way American kids are despoiling the religious spirit of Samhain and decides to teach them a nasty lesson. His scheme, which involves a stolen Stonehenge megalith ("sure, you'd never believe how we did it") and a techno-magic spell that turns the heads of TV watchers into writhing masses of snakes and insects, is value for money. O'Herlihy mixes enough serious malice into the charm to come across as a great screen baddie. On the DVD: Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a disappointment on disc. After letterboxed titles, this defaults to full frame throughout, severely cramping Dean Cundey's Panavision cinematography, and it's a grainy, indifferent print that ill-serves the performances or the atmospherics. However, the severe cuts to the gruesome scenes made to previous video releases (in order to preserve the theatrical 15 rating) seem to have been restored. With an extras-packed Halloween disc on the market, it's a shame the most interesting of the follow-ups rates such a flimsy release--with not so much as a trailer as an extra. --Kim Newman
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Excellent - But Not a true 'Ween film August 27, 2008
This is a great film - very early '80s (best part of the best decade ever) , very dark and atmospheric , from the disturbing entrance theme onwards . I won't waste your time with a massive review , but this film shouldn't really carry the 'hallowed ween' name . They need to ditch the name of this one as being 'ween 3' and move 'ween 4' back to being ween 3 etc , etc you get the drift .. But as a standalone 80's horror , this is great , marvellous hamming-it-up and the snakes and creepy crawlies coming out of the masks still make me gag slightly to this day , good stuff !
Samhain October 4, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Where is Michael Myers? This question relates to the majority of reviews that slate 'Season of the Witch', the third instalment of the 'Halloween' franchise that appears as relentless as the psychopathic killer himself. How can there be a 'Halloween' movie without Michael Myers?
I disagree.
'Halloween III: Season of the Witch' was never meant to include the psychologically-disturbed menace of suburban America. Tommy Lee Wallace [Stephen King's 'IT'] - in his first attempt at directing a feature film - wanted to avoid another 'slasher' sequel and instead concentrated on exploring the domestic roots of Halloween and its relationship to Celtic folklore.
So what is the general plot here? Conal Cochran [Dan O'Herlihy], a demented toymaker, has produced millions of Halloween masks, inside which pieces of the monument Stonehenge are buried. Through corporate advertising, Cochran has the world spellbound and craving for the day when they can don the masks and watch 'the great giveaway' on 31 October. His plans are to commit mass genocide, his victims mainly being the world's population of children, thus re-enacting the sacrifices that supposedly occurred hundreds of years ago at ritualistic monuments like Stonehenge. The story closely follows the legend of Samhain, the Celtic lord of death - the very God that children and animals were supposedly offered to as a sacrifice on the one night when the dead and the living walk together and children go 'begging for candy'. Indeed, Cochran is attempting to re-awaken the Celtic festival by way of the traditional elements of witchcraft and modern technology.
Dr Dan Challis [Tom Atkins, 'The Fog' & 'Creepshow'] decides to investigate the goings on within the confines of Cochran's toy factory in the remote Irish state of Santa Mira, California. He is suspicious of the Silver Shamrock masks - skull, witch & Jack-o'-Lantern - that are being produced inside the factory. The building and surrounding town are guarded by androids resembling humans, mechanical slaves created by the toymaker. He must stop Cochran and warn the world before the advert goes out on Halloween night.
'Not enough gore' is the general consensus, and critics have universally damned the film as a sub-average thriller. The film is nevertheless a breath of fresh air - Michael Myers returning from the grave [alongside his other 'slasher' brothers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees] becomes tiresome despite their ongoing popularity; the storylines being weak and predictable. 'Season of the Witch' boasts originality and examines the real legend of Halloween, the Festival of Samhain.
John Carpenter produced and wrote the score for Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and it is good to see that the director of the first film [arguably the best horror movie ever directed] was involved in the project. 'Halloween III', I think, was the only original sequel in the series and the most accomplished of the subsequent 'Halloween' films ... until Rob Zombie came along and directed 'the' best re-make of a 1970s/1980s horror film.
But that's another story.
 HUGE RIPP OFF! July 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The film I love. The reason for this rating is the rubbish DVD. Not widescreen, no extras and in all honesty a questionable level of authenticity. Its looks cheap, the disk looks home made and the presentation is crap. Wait for a better DVD or check out the complete Halloween box set which (I think) DOES have a letterbox version. AVOID and don't waste your money.
 Different but less frightening January 15, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The only film of the series of five that will not deal with the insane immortal criminal with his kitchen knife. Here Carpenter moves to another theme : some crazy Irishman is going to play a trick on the children of this world and then take over the whole world. The first task will be performed through the millions of Halloween masks he is producing and selling in the world, with television as the trigger to ignite the malevolence of these masks which will turn the kids into wasps and snakes and plainly kill them at the very neat hour of 2100 hours on the 31st of October. The second task will be achieved through the army of robotized mechanical human beings that will just rake over the world and destroy any resistance. We are in science-fiction this time and fear is definitely less important. It may terrorize the audience but with the menace of a mad scientist this time and again. But it does not horrifies the audience because this concept of taking over the world with robots is too gross to be really believable. Many films have done better along that line since then and even before then. The Time Machine and 1984 for the older generation and The Matrix or Cube for the newer generation. In other words it is rather disappointing though it is altogether kept going at the proper rhythm and the end is both predictable and fresh enough not to look too simplistic. But definitely too many allusions to and borrowings from too many films and other works of imagination to be attributed any imagination of its own.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
 Where's Michael? December 29, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
As a stand alone horror movie this film aint too bad. In fact if it hadn't been released as part of the Halloween series it may well have been more successful. However as part of the Michael Myres series.......it's a non starter. The title "Halloween 3" is extremely misleading as the movie itself does not in any way continue with the Michael Myres story line. However if you are like myself and have purchased all the other Halloween movies you'll most probably need this one to complete the set. Before you buy though I'd be very careful: The running time on this version (MIA) is 92 mins. The UK R2 Sanctuary version has a running time of 96 mins and the R1 US version comes in at 98 mins.
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