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Crazy "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" 1982 Review From Roger Ebert
I understand we don't always agree with the critics, but what if their review sounds like a completely different film than the one that everyone else saw. Have you all read the review that Roger Ebert did for Halloween III in 1982? It is beyond crazy. It is like he didn't watch the same film. How about this? Michael Myers was the lver Shamrock android that burned up at the hospital? I understand that both were played by Dick Warlock, but it wasn't the same character. That's just the start.
Anyway here it is, funny stuff.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
BY ROGER EBERT / October 31, 1982
There are a lot of problems with "Halloween III," but the most bac one is that I could never figure out what the villain wanted to accomplish if he got his way. His scheme is easy enough to figure: He wants to sell millions of Halloween masks to the nation's kiddies and then brainwash them to put them on at the same time, whereupon laser beams at the base of the neck will fry the tykes. Meanwhile, he runs a factory that turns out lifelike robots. What's his plan? Kill the kids and replace them with robots? Why?
A half-baked scheme like that feels right at home in "Halloween III," which is a low-rent thriller from the first frame. This is one of those Identikit movies, assembled out of familiar parts from other, better movies. It begins at the end of "Halloween II," when the monster was burned up in the hospital parking lot, but it's not still another retread of the invincible monster. In fact, the monster is forgotten, except for a lab technician who spends the whole movie fting through his ashes. Instead, the plot follows the young daughter (Stacey Nelkin) of one of the victims, who ran a toy shop. She enlists the aid of a local doctor (Tom Atkins), and they retrace her father's steps back to an ominous toy factory run by Dan O'Herlihy. The factory has the whole town bugged and under surveillance, and the factory's guards are androids who crush their victims' heads with their hands.
Like a lot of horror movies in this age of self-conscious filmmaking, "Halloween III" is filled with references to other movies. The friendly motel owner in the company town, for example, is dressed as a dead ringer for Henry Fonda in "On Golden Pond." The scene where the bugs and snakes crawl out of the crushed skull is a cross-reference, sort of, to "The Thing" -- the last movie by John Carpenter, whose original "Halloween" was incomparably better than Parts II and III. But the funniest reference comes when the hero and heroine break into O'Herlihy's factory and are captured. Then the demented toymaker takes them on a tour of his facility, while explaining his diabolical scheme. He's got an obligatory underground mad scientist laboratory, and we know the approach by heart from all the James Bond movies: White-coated technicians scurry around with clipboards, while the boss arranges a demonstration of the weird method of killing that will soon be tried on our heroes. The funny part is that the underground lab is so cheesy. It consts of a few TV monitors on high-tech bookshelves and a papier-mache mock-up of one of the stones from Stonehenge. (If you can figure out what Stonehenge has to do with this movie, you're smarter than anyone in it.) Next, there are lots of shots of the guy and girl running from O'Herlihy's henchmen. These are all obligatory shots where the man grabs the woman's hand and yanks her along, she of course being too dumb to run from danger on her own.
The one saving grace in "Halloween III" is Stacey Nelkin, who plays the heroine. She has one of those rich voices that makes you wish she had more to say and in a better role. But watch her, too, in the reaction shots: When she's not talking, she's listening. She has a kind of rapt, yet humorous, attention that I thought was really fetching. Too bad she plays her last scene without a head.
I have written to the Sun Times and Ebert to see if he would be interested in reviewing the film again as this review partially doesn't make nce and I question if he has even seen the film. Roger Ebert has went back and re-reviewed films including Night Of The Living Dead. I will update if I hear anything.
Anyway here it is, funny stuff.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
BY ROGER EBERT / October 31, 1982
There are a lot of problems with "Halloween III," but the most bac one is that I could never figure out what the villain wanted to accomplish if he got his way. His scheme is easy enough to figure: He wants to sell millions of Halloween masks to the nation's kiddies and then brainwash them to put them on at the same time, whereupon laser beams at the base of the neck will fry the tykes. Meanwhile, he runs a factory that turns out lifelike robots. What's his plan? Kill the kids and replace them with robots? Why?
A half-baked scheme like that feels right at home in "Halloween III," which is a low-rent thriller from the first frame. This is one of those Identikit movies, assembled out of familiar parts from other, better movies. It begins at the end of "Halloween II," when the monster was burned up in the hospital parking lot, but it's not still another retread of the invincible monster. In fact, the monster is forgotten, except for a lab technician who spends the whole movie fting through his ashes. Instead, the plot follows the young daughter (Stacey Nelkin) of one of the victims, who ran a toy shop. She enlists the aid of a local doctor (Tom Atkins), and they retrace her father's steps back to an ominous toy factory run by Dan O'Herlihy. The factory has the whole town bugged and under surveillance, and the factory's guards are androids who crush their victims' heads with their hands.
Like a lot of horror movies in this age of self-conscious filmmaking, "Halloween III" is filled with references to other movies. The friendly motel owner in the company town, for example, is dressed as a dead ringer for Henry Fonda in "On Golden Pond." The scene where the bugs and snakes crawl out of the crushed skull is a cross-reference, sort of, to "The Thing" -- the last movie by John Carpenter, whose original "Halloween" was incomparably better than Parts II and III. But the funniest reference comes when the hero and heroine break into O'Herlihy's factory and are captured. Then the demented toymaker takes them on a tour of his facility, while explaining his diabolical scheme. He's got an obligatory underground mad scientist laboratory, and we know the approach by heart from all the James Bond movies: White-coated technicians scurry around with clipboards, while the boss arranges a demonstration of the weird method of killing that will soon be tried on our heroes. The funny part is that the underground lab is so cheesy. It consts of a few TV monitors on high-tech bookshelves and a papier-mache mock-up of one of the stones from Stonehenge. (If you can figure out what Stonehenge has to do with this movie, you're smarter than anyone in it.) Next, there are lots of shots of the guy and girl running from O'Herlihy's henchmen. These are all obligatory shots where the man grabs the woman's hand and yanks her along, she of course being too dumb to run from danger on her own.
The one saving grace in "Halloween III" is Stacey Nelkin, who plays the heroine. She has one of those rich voices that makes you wish she had more to say and in a better role. But watch her, too, in the reaction shots: When she's not talking, she's listening. She has a kind of rapt, yet humorous, attention that I thought was really fetching. Too bad she plays her last scene without a head.
I have written to the Sun Times and Ebert to see if he would be interested in reviewing the film again as this review partially doesn't make nce and I question if he has even seen the film. Roger Ebert has went back and re-reviewed films including Night Of The Living Dead. I will update if I hear anything.
Cinezombi
Friday 12/16/2011 at 07:13 PM | 88346
Dammit Roger Ebert, you crack me up
ObscureCinema101
Saturday 12/17/2011 at 01:29 AM | 88359
Yeah pretty weird review but then again so are all of his!
Sephit
Saturday 12/17/2011 at 06:57 AM | 88371
Ebert is an idiot..I remember when I was at the official message board for The Devil's Rejects, and someone on there posted his review of the movie..True, he gave it a potive review, but it really sounded like he was expecting to totally hate the movie..And he didn't know who d Haig is before he saw the movie..The guy has been in movies nce the 60's..You would think that someone who gets paid to t on his ass, watch movies, then write reviews of them would know about that. His review of Halloween 3 is hilarious..He really didn't get why Stone Henge was in the movie? It was explained right in the film that it was where the druids conducted their sacrifices every Halloween, and that explained the main villian's motivation..He wanted to bring that tradition back.. Duh. It wasn't that hard to get..I guess I am smarter than Ebert. I wish I made the kind of money he does just for watching movies.
Moon
Monday 12/19/2011 at 05:24 AM | 88421
