The October Ordeal Day 31: Halloween III

October 31^st: Halloween III (1982)

One of the reasons I’ve always loved Halloween III is because it’s so damn weird. Some of its strangeness comes from observation (how strange it is to see kids running around in gross masks once a year), but most of it is inspired. This is a kitchen sink film and then some: a doctor investigating a vast conspiracy, robot henchmen, witchcraft… Stonehenge? Some aspects of Halloween III simply make no logical sense at all. Writer and director Tommy Lee Wallace made one of horror cinema's true historical curiosities, and decorated it extensively with carved pumpkins. Halloween III is a favorite of mine, and I’ve chosen it as the cap to The October Ordeal.

While Halloween III is generally well-remembered by genre fans now, it failed to excite at the box office. John Carpenter intended to kick-start a yearly series of diverse films under the “Halloween” banner. Unfortunately, fans simply didn’t want a Halloween without Michael Myers. Pity, as this film has more life than the sequels that followed it. The back of the original VHS release spends half the synopsis on the back cover explaining that Michael Myers in not in fact in Halloween III. Halloween IV is even apologetically sub-titled “The Return of Michael Myers.” It's hard to imagine what all the fuss was about. While this film is a self-contained story outside the Michael Myers continuity, it contains enough fun references and in-jokes to at least place it in the same universe.

There are of course differences. John Carpenter’s music—for instance—is considerably more upbeat, at times approaching disco. Many aspects of this film feel strangely familiar yet also displaced. At times it feels like an odd riff on the horror genre altogether. Truth be told, Halloween III is more of a Sci-Fi mystery than a fright film. While it may not be a typically "scary" horror film, Halloween III finds its inspiration in the American holiday itself, way more so than the first two films. While the first Halloween makes great use of the season, its concern is not the particulars of Halloween itself. Not only are the aesthetics of the holiday amplified here, but the ancient origins of Halloween as well, specifically its roots in pagan Samhain and Hallowe’en.

Tom Atkins is right at home as an alcoholic absentee dad cracking an occult conspiracy. I have no idea why he’s playing a doctor (Dr. Dan Challis); he plays it the same way he’d play a cop or detective. He's casually drawn into the pulp plot when a dying man in his ward exclaims “They’re going to kill us all” while clutching a pumpkin. Challis then sets out to find the killer, perhaps out of boredom. Dan O’ Herlihy is characteristically professional as the witch CEO of Silver Shamrock, a mask-making corporation based in sleepy Santa Mira, CA (the location of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Kids nationwide can’t seem to get enough of Silver Shamrock’s colorful masks, despite the fact they come in only about three varieties.

Silver Shamrock’s masks, unfortunately, are deadly. Each mask contains a coin chipped off of Stonehenge (?) which, when triggered, will lazer a kid’s face off and release bugs and snakes from the skull (??). Staging it as a media event, at nine PM on Halloween, Silver Shamrock plans to broadcast the image of a blinking Jack O’ Lantern to trigger the deadly masks (???). Conal Cochran (O’ Herlihy) plans to use the event as a way to punish ignorant kids. As a pagan wizard, Cochran is disgusted by Trick or Treats; he still sees Samhain as a time to honor the dead and confront mortality. Out of desire to “Control [the] environment” and appease an angry universe, Cochran has planned this mass sacrifice via TV and Toys, turning Halloween’s commerciality against itself. Television itself features in the film; a set is on anywhere Challis goes. Halloween III actually manages to exploits Halloween clichés in an interesting way, more so than Halloween. John Carpenter’s original film may be the masterpiece, but Halloween III is truer to its namesake.

Instead of the other Halloween films, the obvious reference point is Larry Cohen. There’s a playfulness here that reminds of The Stuff and Q. From the noncommittal Hitchcockisms to the hard-boiled characters and action, there’s a lot in common between Wallace and Cohen, throwing all ingredients into a blender so unapologetically being the most striking similarity.

Halloween III features a great (and reflexive) ending, ambiguous in one sense yet also definitive. Far too many horror franchise endings seem only to facilitate the next sequel. While it may be a good distance from the first film in quality, I argue that this is the second best film in the series, perhaps because it's the most unorthodox entry. The October Ordeal has been an ordeal, and this is the best film I could have chosen to end it with. Halloween III rocks, and belongs on the Halloween-party marathon list of any rowdy crew of drunken pagans.

The October Ordeal Day 26: Terror in the Aisles

October 26th: Terror in the Aisles (1984)

Andrew J. Kuehn's Terror in the Aisles is a collection of clips from (mostly) horror movies. While this has becomes a sort of cottage industry now (Something Weird Samplers; Synapse's excellent 42nd Street Forever series) with the advent of DVD, there were plenty of themed trailer collections in the days of VHS as well. Often, these tapes are simply commercials for a distribution company's back catalog. Terror in the Aisles is neither a nostalgic gimmick nor a marketing strategy, Kuehn seems to really love film. The objective here isn't to sell you on lesser-known fright films, its to remind you why the ones you already know about are still relevant. This is the intent anyway. The films on display are the bright lights of the genre: The Thing, Carrie, Scanners, Jaws, An American Werewolf in London, Exorcist, and Chainsaw Massacre.

Oh yeah, and Halloween. Lots and lots of clips from Halloween. This may have something to do with one of the hosts of the anthology: Loomis himself. Donald Pleasence hosts Terror in the Aisles along with Nancy Allen as his counterpoint. Pleasence, basically playing Loomis, roams a dark theater, where a room full of actors respond to unseen images on the big screen. Allen appears mostly in voice only, but occasionally the roaming camera will find her in one of the rows. Despite Pleasence's typical theatrics, Allen's calm, controlled demeanor is the real commanding presence in the film. Pleasence is grim, cryptic, teacherly; Allen is more inviting, inclusive in her earnestness (she's clearly having a blast). The typical Pleasence line goes something like: "There's something delicious about fear," or: "Perhaps we invent artificial horrors to help us cope with the real ones." Not limited to these wrap-around scenes, Allen and Pleasence are heard throughout, often speaking over clips.

The clips are divided into thematic clusters. One for Hitchcock features archival interviews with Hitch, and is the only section to feature a filmmaker speaking on his or her work. One section weighs the merits of suspense building over sudden shocks (Alien is used, as well as Jaws). A bizarre section on villains introduces clips from films which aren't in the horror genre (Nighthawks?), including clips from Vice Squad featuring Wings Hauser. At this point Nancy Allen takes over to host the bulk of the final segments.

Allen introduces a segment on women in horror with "And, unfortunately, in these movies, the victim is almost always... a woman.", and later adds "We are all born... totally vulnerable... slowly but surely, we learn to be afraid. We're taught the difference between right and wrong... and yet we're only human." This is in sharp contrast to Pleasence's constant talk of "evil" and "the Devil". I can't say whether Kuehn intended for their to be a difference in viewpoint, but it sure seems that way. Kuehn introduced the segment this way in order to examine closely the genre, to criticise it if necessary. Alas, the message only seems to be that this is unfortunate for the female characters themselves, which is obvious. Allen: "What the one thing these films have in common? People in trouble! [extreme playfulness here] And what gets people in trouble? Sex!" This is a totally irrelevant and tasteless section serving only to get some tits into the film, including revealing shots of Allen herself in Dressed to Kill. Yet, Allen also recites, with a sincere critical tone, "In terror films, sex rarely ends in pleasure; it ends in violence." If Kuehn meant only to point to abusers on screen, Allen seems to question certain filmmaker's motives via the power of her delivery.

A short section on science fiction is also included. Pleasence: "Malevolent life forms from other planets may jeopardize our position as supreme beings on this planet." Clips from the Body Snatchers remake are then shown. At the end Pleasence comes back to talk about horror's evolution from the Famous Monsters to slashers, and a truly awful song, "They're not very nice," by Larry Weiss, plays over some recap clips. After this, an unhinged Pleasence sits in the vacated theater: "It's only a movie... it's only a movie... but sooner or later, you must leave the theater and go home, perhaps alone!" This is all great fun. The interstitial bits are actually the best part of the film. Light on insightful commentary, it's a bit of a bore to sit through too-long scenes from movies best viewed as a whole, even if they are occasionally edited together in interesting ways (example: dialog from Rosemary's Baby and The Omen spliced: "God help me!" "God is dead!"). If someone makes a comp clip of just these theater scenes, definitely watch it. In the meantime, just watch the films themselves.

(This is kind of a cop-out review. Gimme a break I was busy today.)