Halloween III: Season of the Witchis now streaming on Peacock. As the only entry in theHalloweenfranchise to not feature Michael Myers, the movie has always been the black sheep of the family, but is now able to find a whole new audience and get the reappraisal many believe it deserves.
Released in 1982,Halloween IIIwas panned on its release, and became a box office disaster thanks to a lot of misinterpretations about the original intention of theHalloweenfranchise. While the first two movies told the complete story of Michael Myers, Laurie Strode, and Dr. Loomis, fans expected that theHalloweenname immediately meant the resurrection of these characters. Therefore, they were hugely disappointed to discover thatthe third installment was a new standalone storythat had no connection to John Carpenter’s original tale.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
This was intentional on the filmmakers’ part, as afterHalloween IIended with the deaths of Michael Myers and Loomis, the franchise was supposed to take the form of an anthology series, with new directors coming in with their own Halloween tales to tell. Whether it wasn’t quite clear enough in the marketing or people just assumed that the franchise name would mean a direct continuation, the idea of theHalloweenfranchise without Michael Myers did not go down well.
What is Halloween III: Season of the Witch About?
Halloween IIItakes place far away from Haddonfield, instead setting its story in Santa Mira, California. Led by Tom Adkins as Dr. Dan Challis, the story sees Challis attempting to solve the murder of one of his patients. Accompanied by the dead patient’s daughter, the pair find themselves embroiled in a sinister plot being concocted by Silver Shamrock Novelties to use ancient powers to resurrect the powers of witchcraft on Halloween night. The film features some horrifying moments, and gruesome scenes involving some novelty masks that stay with you long after the movie ends. However, for audiences at the time of its release, it simply wasn’t the slasher movie they had expected.
Despite Carpenter and co-creator Debra Hill intending the Halloween franchise to become a series of different stories that all take place on All Hallow’s Eve, after the release ofHalloween III, that plan was quickly changed by Miramax. The franchise lay dormant for several years, and when it returned in 1988, the studio let everyone know that their favorite Shatner mask-wearing serial killer was back by titling the movie,Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
Halloween: How to Watch Each Timeline Chronologically and by Release Date
The Halloween movies can be a messy undertaking to piece together. Here is every film in the series split by timeline, in chronological order.
Despite going through three subsequent reboots, theHalloweenfranchise has continued to put Michael Myers front and center, just as fans requested. However, 1998’s soft-reboot ofH20: 20 Years Later, which brought back Jamie Lee Curtis for her first return to the series, and its sequelHalloween: Resurrection, Rob Zombie’s remakes of the original Halloween movies, andDavid Gordon Green’s divisive trilogy(which included Curtis’ second return) all ultimately failed to deliver anything close to John Carpenter’s original movie. This begs the questions of what would have happened if the studio had continued with the anthology idea despiteHalloween III’spoor reception.
Whether the powerful first appearance of Michael Myers would have ensured the character always remained present in the consciousness of cinemagoers, or whether he would have slipped into cinema history forever, is something we just don’t know. One thing that has become clear over time, is thatHalloween III: Season of the Witchmay have been a box office bomb, but it was never the weakestHalloweenmovie.
Halloween III: Season of the Witchis now available to stream on Peacock.
