Saturday, October 23, 2010

Eight More Days Til Hallowen

Halloween III - Season of the Witch came out in 1982 and was unrelated to the previous and following Halloween movies which featured Michael Myers.  (Warning: This blog post contains Spoilers - so if you haven't seen the movie and intend to, proceed with caution, as I'll be giving the ending away)

And although, once I started watching it, I was disappointed with the fact that Michael Myers wasn't in it *, the movie won me over.

* (I should note that, although Michael Myers wasn't in Halloween III, there is a cute scene where there's a TV playing in the background featuring an ad for one of the other Halloween movies)

The basic story involves a plan by the evil owner of a mask company to kill children all over the U.S. on Halloween using specially developed masks with embedded computer chips that interact with a high frequency to be broadcast on a special program on network television.

The beauty is that the horror is about mass consumerism and seems to take the evil scheme of a sinister adult putting "razors in apples" and the associated fears of Halloween to a whole new level.


For those reasons, though critics despise the fact that the movie diverted from the rest of the franchise, to me, it's a more interesting film that says a lot about our culture and society.

One of the most annoying "ear worms" that live in my head to this day (and was the genesis of the title of this blog post) and replays itself in the days leading up to my favourite holiday, are the television commercial jingles advertising for the Silver Shamrock Halloween Marathon.


Thus, the "Eight more days 'til Halloween" as seen in this YouTube clip.

 

Of course, one of the more wonderfully kinds of moments for me, involves something seen in this YouTube montage.  "It's almost time. Don't forget to wear your masks!"  What a wonderful sense of foreboding and dread.

 

And I just love the way the movie ends. After struggling to put a stop to the whole event, Dr. Challis, the movie's main character, is on the phone with a station manager, attempting to get the program pulled off the air.  He succeeds in getting two out of the three taken off the air.  But the third station continues playing the program, and the screen strobes between Challis yelling "STOP IT!" and the flashing Silver Shamrock pumpkin.  Roll credits.



Most Hollywood movies tend not to end in such a way, with the bad guy succeeding. (Okay, except perhaps for horror films where one last quick and final scene reveals that Jason or Freddy or Michael Myers is seen to still be alive at the very end)

But that's one of the things I loved about this film.  I think I'll watch it again some time this week.

While wearing my Silver Shamrock mask, of course.

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