[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKNIqG9J2KU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=374]

Only a few more days to Halloween.. silver shamrock.

This YouTube video is a conglomeration of scenes from HALLOWEEN 3, the Season of the Witch.

I fondly remember old times gone by, gathering together with friends in a house of our choice, firing up the colortini, and watching the waves of Halloween flow through the air. 

Actually, what we did was a high-school type version of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. We’d make comments and jokes, mock the film, and laugh throughout.. We did it for more than just Halloween 3, it was for many horror flicks. Our favorite character, as a group collectively, was Doctor Loomis. We coined a term “Loomicide” that would one day go on to become my late 1990s and early 2000s AOL screen name.. 

Oh, those good old days!

But in hindsight, dare I say, Halloween 3 is sort of a classic. I may have been met with scorn for that comment last century,  but I think people are rediscovering the awfulness and also amazingnenss of Halloween 3.

Sure,  the acting is terrible.. yes the scenery is awful.. and by all means, the flow of the movie is choppy and sloppy—but isn’t that what sort of makes it good in a sense?

However, think of it this way: Halloween 3 may have been the BEST of the entire series.

Sure, it didn’t feature the SHAPE, Michael Myers, donning the Shatner mask.. and no, it had no mentions of Laurie Strode.  There was a scene though where the tied up main star was forced to watch the original Halloween…

There were also some other lessons to be learned from Halloween 3, some cautionary tales to remember.. 

For instance: Bad parenting. The child who gets his head eaten by snakes and worms had really awful parents, they just seemed to want to be rid of their child.. they were selfish and had little skill in containing their son, who ran wild without attention. 

Another lesson: The overuse of television. In that time, the boob tube had antennas. Today, there’s no need with handheld devices and Twittering from all ends of the earth. Maybe, though, the fact that kids were glued to TV and almost slaves to it should be a lesson for all of us.

Something else: How powerful media is. And how many times influential hidden messages can be tucked into our shows. In this movie, kids were told to get home by 9 o’clock too put their Halloween masks on, and then eventually succumb to a massive amount of worms, snakes, bugs, and other things that would eat their brains.. Pretty scary if you minus out the acting of the movie. Maybe John Carpenter was actually trying to show that subliminal messages are alive and well, and that they could maybe make us do things against our will..? That or he just wanted to come up with an idea that was different. 

I tried contacting the legend, John Carpenter, for this, but his associate said he was not able to comment on Halloween 3 at this time. Understandable. I think he’s a little busier than me at the moment.

So in that sense, we need to look to past interviews to see what exactly John Carpenter intended on doing in THE SEASON OF THE WITCH. It’s worth remember that Carpenter really didn’t want to do any more Michael Myers related films. They actually envisioned that a fourth Halloween would have been a ghost story. Instead, since H3 flopped, the fourth was the RETURN  OF MICHAEL MYERS. And then there was a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, … bla bla bla.. John Carpenter told Aint it Cool news that he didn’t understand why fans of Halloween hated the third installment so much.. He said, “Hey, man, I don’t know. I like HALLOWEEN 3. I like the story, especially weird evil Irish industrialists. It’s hilarious.” 

And it was hilarious .. It was awful. Wonderfully awful.

I go back now and think to myself that Debra Hill and John Carpenter touched on a number of themes that are actually quite scary. Yes, teenagers can mock it, just as I did with friends back in sultry summer night parties in the late 1990s… But maybe I have developed a renewed appreciation for this movie..

What could be scarier for a child that having your mom and dad buy you a mass produced mask because you were convinced by a commercial with an annoyingly catchy theme to do it.. and you jump on the bandwagon with millions of other American kids… and you wear your mask, at the same time as them, at 9pm on Halloween night.. and have your brain eaten by bugs?

Now that is scary for a kid.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Who killed October horror movies? Who cares?

A very interesting story is appearing in USA TODAY, today.. Who killed the Halloween horror movies is the title, and the article goes in depth on how October has become an unusually quiet month for horror flicks—only the remake of CARRIE is really set to scare this month. … and USA TODAY concludes this, which I agree with: Horror has become such a successful genre that you would not be able to fit all the hits into one month. The summer has been another time where horror has seen a build influx of cash.. 

As someone who is dating myself in my less than youthful invigoration, I think things began to change around the the turn of the century from 1999 to 2001.. We saw hits happen in the summer, like THE SIXTH SENSE, the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and JEEPERS CREEPERS. It was clear to studios then, as it is now, that you don’t need leaves changing and cooler nights to entice movie goers to be scared. And in the summer, you have another good thing: Kids aren’t in school and are more inclined to do late movies. 

Either way, I don’t get angry or sad that October features few horror movies—most of them are less than watchable anyway to me..

My horror movie marathon for the season typically happens the night before or the night of Halloween, and is filled with only the first John Carpenter HALLOWEEN version..

And sometimes for fun, I’ll throw in Halloween III for some laughs.. I don’t know why no one has remake H3, a modern version of the SILVER SHAMROCK themed film could actually make it better..

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoqxhvdAdns?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=374]

Hurry up it’s Halloween .. 

Be safe out there.

(And don’t watch this video if you are wearing a mask. See Halloween 3 for reasons why)

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Tis the season: Taking another look at Halloween 3

Years ago, I would host and attend regular movie parties. We’d sit and watch awful films, laugh at plots, mock the narrative, and just have genuine fun. It was like MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 with a bunch of immature brats and younger adults who wanted to stay young—all of us were not paid for our efforts, but I dare say we came up with good comedy. If only iPhones and YouTube were available in the late 1990s, we’d have great podcasts. Maybe we would have been sued by companies for copyright issues.

One film caught our attention early and became a long standing joke for life: Halloween 3, the Season of the Witch.

If you never saw it, don’t be fooled by the name. It has nothing to do with the lunatic killer Michael Myers, and no it was not made by Rob Zombie. This movie was from director John Carpenter. He didn’t want to create another Halloween starring ‘The Shape’ so instead he changed the story. This one features a mask making company called Silver Shamrock that does some funky things with cursed rocks from Stonehenge and comes up with a plot to kill all kids that buy masks they create. The movie features women who look like robots that have their heads come off, awful music that never seems to end, and kids wearing pumpkin masks that turn into bugs and snakes.  In doing so John Carpenter violated a rule some horror movie makers go by: Not to kill off children in brutal ways in movies. Though it wasn’t brutal but actually quite tacky, leading to the humorous nature of the film.. In other words,it’s one of the one films ever made.

Or is it?

This is where I wonder if it was maybe not as bad as it seems. Are we just judging the movie when compared to Sam Loomis shreaking about a monster in Haddonfield? If so Halloween 3 will never be as good. 

In all fairness, the notion of wearing a mask and having it turn into snakes and bugs is frightening. In the movie it happens at 9pm because Silver Shamrock has seemingly been able to convince the entire youth of America that they should be home by 9 to watch ‘the big giveaway’ live on TV. It’s assumed that all cable networks at the time (1970s) were going to run the 9pm ad from the company. I know, I try to be logical, even with an illogical horror movie.

I think this film would have been much better were it to have been made in current times. Seriously. Think of it, minus our the mockery of the movie I’m sure you have done along with me and my friends, the movie has a social message: People are convinced easily by awful ads on TV to do just about anything. Including rushing home from tick or treating to tune in for some stupid giveaway. People are mind-numbed by television.. and even more modern technology has fried the parts of the brain that did not happen to become numb in the process of life.

In other words Halloween 3 is an epic narrative… a dark comedy.. an eloquent judgement on our times: Parents who will buy anything for their kids, including masks that will eventually turn into the demise of the nation. And kids will want anything to fit in. And in the end,  parents and kids will be equal in their inability to think for themselves and be convinced by whatever advertising tells them to do. 

I don’t think John Carpenter thought he was making a social commentary. Instead, watching Season of the Witch, it would appear that he was just smoking a hell of a lot of pot.

So … sing the song and watch the TV. Watch… watch… watch… 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmSP5b_Mi6g]