It has taken 30 years for Halloween 3: Season of the Witch to escape its "bad seed" reputation of the Halloween series, but after two despised remakes and an inessential sequel featuring Michael Myers getting "served" by rapper Busta Rhymes, the time has finally come to welcome a Michael Myers-less instalment into the hearts of all avid horror fans. In 1982, director Tommy Lee Wallace made a failed, yet ambitious attempt to do something only the recent American Horror Story series has been able to successfully accomplish by attempting to turn the Halloween franchise into stand-alone features with his Invasion of the Body Snatchers-inspired sequel, Season of the Witch. The third instalment of Halloween is as laughable as it is amusing and viewers have Tom Atkin's deadpan performance of boozing, womanizing doctor Daniel Challis and Dan O'Herlihy's role as the villainous warlock in charge of a toy company, who strives to kill every child on the planet, to thank for that in this gaudy morality tale of the dangers of self-imposed conformity. While this falsely advertised instalment was panned on its initial release, this sharp Blu-Ray transfer manages to improve its tainted reputation, as well as maintain an undeniable nostalgia factor that ironically has been lost on later chapters in the Halloween series, despite the fact that hearing the infamous "Silver Shamrock" jingle repeatedly will make any sane person watching want to shoot themselves. The Blu-Ray is equipped with non-stop special features, including an attention-grabbing "making of" featurette with the filmmakers and the cast highlighting their favourite moments, as well as poking fun at the stigma associated with the movie. It also features an older episode of Horror's Hallowed Grounds, with the hilarious Sean Clark revisiting the original shooting locations of the film (love the recurring Robert Rusler cameo) and a still gallery, trailers, two commentaries featuring director Tommy Lee Wallace and actor Tom Atkins, and early TV spots that will quench every hardcore Halloween fan's blood thirst.
(Shout! Factory)Halloween 3: Season of the Witch [Blu-Ray]
Tommy Lee Wallace
BY Serena WhitneyPublished Sep 10, 2012