KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #30-#32: Halloween (1978)/Halloween II (1981)/Halloween III/Season of the Witch (1982)

“It was the boogie man.”
“As a matter of fact, it was.”

So, I decided to watch all twelve Halloween films this month, and also blog about them for Secret Movie Club, an idea I may live to regret by mid-month, but it starts out strong with this classic.

It’s funny to watch this, knowing what came afterwards, and see that Donald Pleasence not only gets top billing, but over the title billing. I mean, Donald Pleasence was a big name, and he not only made it possible for the film to be made, being the only name in the cast, but gave it a real punch with his presense and gravitas. However, when you think of the Halloween films, he’s not the first, second, or third thing you think of.

It starts in 1963, with that simple, but incredibly effective opening, shot through the eye holes of a Halloween mask, when little Michael Myers makes his presence known. Then we cut to 1978, when he escapes from the institution and goes back home to start a series of twelve slasher movies. Actually, thirteen, because the new one this year was supposed to be released last year, and the new one for next year was supposed to be released this year, just in case he dies at the end of Halloween Kills, you will know that he is exactly as dead as he was at the end of all the rest of the movies, i.e., not at all dead.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is babysitting, seeing a strange man with no face looming on the street, then disappearing. Her sexpot friends, Annie (Nancy Kyes), and Lynda (P.J. Soles) lovingly tease her for not dating and being a bookworm, but then terrible things start happening, while Dr. Loomis (Pleasence) tries to convince people that Michael Myers is out there, also that he is an inhuman evil monster with devil’s eyes, sounding not entirely like a really good psychiatrist.

Jamie Lee, making her film debut at 19, is excellent in the trope of the virginal heroine, the last girl. She has to carry the movie on her slim shoulders, because if we don’t care about her, we certainly don’t care about Michael Myers and his killing spree. Something that many other slasher movies would be hard pressed to remember. Possibly some in this very series, though I’m only guessing.

Between the great Donald Pleasence, the brand new star Jamie Lee Curtis, the tight script, the strong direction, the excellent villain, the Captain Kirk mask, and the perfect music (only rivaled by Tubular Bells as far as great horror movie music goes), this first film in the franchise is nearly perfect. It can only go downhill from here.“

Samhain isn’t evil spirits. It isn’t goblins, ghosts, or witches. It’s the unconscious mind. We’re all afraid of the dark inside ourselves.”

Halloween 2 starts about five minutes before the ending of the first movie, with Laurie sending the children out to call the police, Michael coming back to life, Loomis shooting him, then going on from there. He screams, “I shot him six times! I shot him six times! He’s not human!” so he’s still proving himself to be the worst psychiatrist in the world.

This time, Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis get equal billing, with Pleasence first but lower, and Jamie Lee second but higher, which is the difference three years make right there.

We follow Michael, full of Loomis’ bullets, grabbing a knife from an old woman’s kitchen, then going next door to kill a teen, because why bother killing old ladies? It’s very safe to be over twenty in these earlier films.

Laurie gets picked up by an ambulance, and has put on a terrible wig since the pre-credit sequence, for some unknown reason. Actually, the reason is that it’s really three years later and Jamie Lee Curtis has cut her hair, though the mystery is why nobody shelled out for a more expensive wig. They probably spent all the money on the music rights for Mr. Sandman.Also going to the hospital is a little boy with a razor blade sticking out of his mouth and a very calm mom, and it took me much longer than it should have for me to get that it’s a joke about razor blades in apples. Though the joke really is, what kid on this good green earth would ever pluck an apple out of a large bag of candy and eat it? Razor blades or no.

So, Laurie is in the hospital, Loomis and the sheriff (who finally finds out that his daughter was one of the murdered teens) are cruising around, trying to find Michael, and Michael is full of bullets and murder, on his way to finish the job.

The overall tone is lighter and jokier than the first film, while also being bloodier and more casually violent. There are some unnecessarily close shots of things going into eyes, if that’s a thing you’d rather not dwell lovingly on.

The film has some real solid slasher movie tropes, a body that might be the killer’s, except that we all know it’s not, a cat jump scare, a big ol’ unexpected twist, but my favourite part is the tv reporter saying, “MICHAEL MYERS has escaped from an asylum, is PRESUMED TO BE ALIVE AND AT LARGE, and by the way, LAURIE STRODE, the one person whom he didn’t kill, is at THIS PARTICULAR HOSPITAL!” Why don’t you just draw him a map, reporter guy?

Also, I don’t care how small this town is, one doctor, three nurses, two paramedics, and a security guard are not quite enough for a whole hospital. Though, since there seems to be only one patient, perhaps that is overkill. Pun unintended, but pretty apt!

On the whole, it’s not up to the quality of the original, but it is a solid follow-up. Maybe Halloween III will follow this same trajectory! (Reader: it does not)

“It will be morning soon. Halloween morning. A very busy day for me.”

Imaginary dialogue:“What did people like best about the Halloween films? Was it the cute teen girls?”
“Nope.”
“The unstoppable villain?”
“Not that.”
“The weirdo psychiatrist who knows nothing about gun safety?”
“Not even close!”
“The…mask?”
“BINGO!”
“Then let us go forth and make a whole movie about evil masks!”

“And now we shall relax in the knowledge of a job well done, and watch the money roll in!”

So, it seems that since, clearly, at the end of Halloween II, Michael Myers had 13 bullets in him, two literally in his eyes, then he gets burned to death right in front of God and everyone, there were going to be no more Halloween movies actually with Michael Myers in them. But the franchise must continue! And thus we have Halloween III: Season of the Witch, for our sins, the movie that threw out everything from Halloween and Halloween II except for the concept of masks.

This is a VERY terrible movie, obvious from minute one, when an older guy is running away from, seemingly, murderous Mormons, and then there is a very annoying TV commercial about the masks that will turn out to be evil, and you are like, where are the teen babysitters? We promise to believe that Michael can keep on keeping on with all of the bullets and fire you like! Just don’t make us listen to that Silver Shamrock jingle again! But fate is not so kind, and you will not only hear it several million more times over the course of the blessedly short film, but it will live rent-free in your head until the snow flies.

So the older guy gets his head ripped in half by a murderous Mormon (shorthand for young white guy in a suit, no actual Mormons were made murderous by this film), who then sets himself on fire, and the older guy’s grown daughter and the doctor from another sparsely staffed hospital get all Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew to find out why he got killed, and why was he holding that Halloween mask? We are half an hour in and there is no sense in sight. Will anything ever be scary? Unlikely!

So, we got evil masks, creepy crawlies, murderous Mormons popping off people’s heads, Dan O’Herlihy in the Donald Pleasence role of semi-name actor here to class up the jernt (though less famous and certainly cheaper to hire than Pleasence), cheaptacular 1982 special effects, and lots of big sex between a woman in her 20s and a man in his 40s who doesn’t remember for a VERY long time that his own children have those very evil masks. So, literally nothing that anyone who liked the previous two Halloween movies would ever want in a horror film. It doesn’t even have the goodness to include the Donovan song. I mean. Really.

Unless you are a Halloween completest, or, you know, had the bright idea to review the whole series in a month, save your time, money, and brain cells.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog