If you know anything about my husband Kiah, you know that he's pretty into Halloween. Last year he watched and wrote about 31 horror movies in 31 days, and this year we've decided to embark on the venture together. Tonight, the inaugural night of our Halloween movie marathon, we began with Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
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Kiah: I wanted to begin Halloween III for a few reasons. For one, starting the month off with a Halloween movie is a good way to begin October. For another, this movie gets dumped on a lot; far more than any other Halloween movie. That's unfortunate, because this movie, while nonsensical and stiffly acted, is FAR from the worst Halloween movie in the franchise. Also, I'll take any reason to watch Tom Atkins (who appears later this month in Night of the Creeps). (Rhi: AND CREEPSHOW! One of my childhood favorites!)
That said, I remember this movie being better. Granted, I haven't watched it since middle school, but jeez was there a whole lot of nothing going on. For a movie about people taking over society with curses and mind control and robots, this is a surprisingly mundane affair. It valiantly tries to make up for it in the last 15 minutes by throwing EVERY IDEA EVER at you all at once (SPOILERS: Microchips powered by Stonehenge will kill the children of America, leading to a resurgence of Irish witchcraft!), but it's a damn mess and in the end you kinda just hope the bad guys pull it off so you can see a world covered in dead kids and snakes. I dunno, that's gotta open up some pretty good storytelling possibilities, right?
Anyways, the movie didn't make much money, they brought Michael Myers back for every single Halloween that followed, and nothing of much value was lost. That said, it's not a total waste of time what with a few intense kills, slightly uncomfortable spring/fall hooking up, and again: TOM ATKINS (MANIAC COP YOU GUYS).
Rhiannon: There's a scene toward the end where someone's head melts and becomes a writhing mass of crickets and snakes, but the snakes are many different species of snakes; garter snakes and vipers and many small, worm-like baby snakes... I worry that these snakes perhaps weren't meant to be mushed together in such a way, and I am suspicious of the movie studio. Were these snakes handled properly? Was a snake professional on site, supervising the scene, taking special care that smaller, weaker snakes weren't becoming prey to their larger, more vigorous brethren? I'm very concerned about the snakes.
Kiah: Fears no longer needed in an age of CGI.
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That said, I remember this movie being better. Granted, I haven't watched it since middle school, but jeez was there a whole lot of nothing going on. For a movie about people taking over society with curses and mind control and robots, this is a surprisingly mundane affair. It valiantly tries to make up for it in the last 15 minutes by throwing EVERY IDEA EVER at you all at once (SPOILERS: Microchips powered by Stonehenge will kill the children of America, leading to a resurgence of Irish witchcraft!), but it's a damn mess and in the end you kinda just hope the bad guys pull it off so you can see a world covered in dead kids and snakes. I dunno, that's gotta open up some pretty good storytelling possibilities, right?
Anyways, the movie didn't make much money, they brought Michael Myers back for every single Halloween that followed, and nothing of much value was lost. That said, it's not a total waste of time what with a few intense kills, slightly uncomfortable spring/fall hooking up, and again: TOM ATKINS (MANIAC COP YOU GUYS).
Rhiannon: There's a scene toward the end where someone's head melts and becomes a writhing mass of crickets and snakes, but the snakes are many different species of snakes; garter snakes and vipers and many small, worm-like baby snakes... I worry that these snakes perhaps weren't meant to be mushed together in such a way, and I am suspicious of the movie studio. Were these snakes handled properly? Was a snake professional on site, supervising the scene, taking special care that smaller, weaker snakes weren't becoming prey to their larger, more vigorous brethren? I'm very concerned about the snakes.
Kiah: Fears no longer needed in an age of CGI.
VERDICT
Kiah: **/***** Rhiannon: */*****
Here is the rest of the month's tentative schedule. Join us! And we'll let you know if anything changes.