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UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ Halloween III Season of the Witch -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

sbjork

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NOT ME! 32 days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. 32 days til Halloween, Silver Shamrock.
I saw Carpenter & Co. perform live on both of the tours that he has done so far, and my biggest (and only) disappointment was that they didn't lead the audience in a sing-a-long of the Silver Shamrock jingle. That would have made my life complete.
 

Dave MJ

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Absolutely hated it when I first saw it, but a lot of that was wrapped up in expectations. The studio didn't market it correctly and people were confused about the intent. I have to come to enjoy it over the years along with 4 and 5. I'll probably stick with my blu-ray but glad to hear it's a good 4K release.
 

WillG

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Absolutely hated it when I first saw it, but a lot of that was wrapped up in expectations. The studio didn't market it correctly and people were confused about the intent. I have to come to enjoy it over the years along with 4 and 5. I'll probably stick with my blu-ray but glad to hear it's a good 4K release.

I understand it wasn’t clear what the movie was supposed to be and there was no internet back then but how was anyone who watched the trailer fooled into thinking it was a MM story?

Also no AFWA for HII. Seems unusual to do the first and then skip to III
 

Colin Jacobson

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I understand it wasn’t clear what the movie was supposed to be and there was no internet back then but how was anyone who watched the trailer fooled into thinking it was a MM story?

Also no AFWA for HII. Seems unusual to do the first and then skip to III

Maybe it's answered earlier in the thread and I forgot, but "AFWA"? What does that mean?
 

TravisR

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I understand it wasn’t clear what the movie was supposed to be and there was no internet back then but how was anyone who watched the trailer fooled into thinking it was a MM story?
I understand what you're saying but I think if I saw that trailer in 1982, I'd have just wondered why it didn't show Michael Myers getting ready to stab people and not that it was a different story. Then or now, calling it Halloween automatically creates the expectation of Michael Myers. I think the trailer needed to flat out say that it was an entirely new storyline if Universal had wanted to avoid audience confusion and disappointment.
 

Malcolm R

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Not to mention if someone didn't regularly see trailers. Just deciding to go to the movies and picking from the marquee or a newspaper listing, they may have seen the title Halloween III and just expected it was a Myers sequel.
 

Kent K H

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Though I’ve seen the original more, SotW is probably my favorite of the series for a few reasons, and not just due to my contrarian nature.

First, you’ve got Tom Atkins, who is every bit as entertaining as Donald Pleasance, if not more so. Whether it’s this, or The Fog, or Night of the Creeps, he always enhanced these films.

Second, I love the atmosphere of the whole thing. If John Carpenter had used his original title, The Babysitter Murders, it wouldn’t have made a difference in the content of the film. The decision to set it at Halloween was a great one, in the “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” mold that adds to the flavor, but Witch is immersed and reveling in the holiday, it’s history, and it’s ancient meaning. It feels like a mean holiday prank on the audience in a way, all the way to sudden and dour ending. I love that.

Third, before the end result, legendary British scribe Nigel Kneale, creator of Quatermass, took a run at the screenplay because Carpenter was a big fan. He had his name removed, but I still think his fingerprints are all over the finished product, and not just in how Atkins’s performance reminds me of Brian Donlevy’s gruff American version of Quatermass, but with the socially unacceptable behavior that kind of personality would probably foster in his younger years intact.
 

DFurr

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I've screened this movie at least a dozen times and it's still my least favorite of the franchise. No thanks.
 

TravisR

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Took you awhile to figure that out, huh? ;)
You don't want to know how many times I've seen or, god help me, bought Halloween 5 then.

To each their own but while Halloween III is not perfect, its cinematography and score are so clearly better than any of the movies that followed it in the original series that those elements alone immediately put it above Halloween 5 or Resurrection.
 

Tommy R

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those elements alone immediately put it above Halloween 5 or Resurrection.
I’m not gonna defend Halloween 5 at all, but Resurrection makes 5 look REALLY good.

I really need to watch III all the way through this month. I think I may enjoy it.
 

Malcolm R

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I really need to watch III all the way through this month. I think I may enjoy it.
With all this discussion, I need to watch it too. I'm not sure I've ever actually watched it before. I've had multiple copies over the years as part of the collectors sets, but usually always defer in favor of one of the Myers films when I pull out the Halloween set.
 

TravisR

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I’m not gonna defend Halloween 5 at all, but Resurrection makes 5 look REALLY good.
It's a close call in my mind. 5 at least has some characters that you like and it is a better movie but a lot of Resurrection ends up being inadvertently funny so I'd see an argument that Resurrection has more entertainment value than 5.
 

WillG

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You don't want to know how many times I've seen or, god help me, bought Halloween 5 then.

To each their own but while Halloween III is not perfect, its cinematography and score are so clearly better than any of the movies that followed it in the original series that those elements alone immediately put it above Halloween 5 or Resurrection.

HIII was the last creepy movie of the series. H4 was not bad, but would have been so much better if the mask looked better and was filmed in widescreen (even Super 35 would have been better than just flat 1.85)

I was watching The Fog last night, hadn’t seen it in awhile and noticed a couple of similar things between that and HIII, well it’s really just kind of two things in one. There a part where we see shots of Adrienne Barbeau’s character driving to her radio station. The stretch of road she’s driving on looks very similar to the stretch of road we see in HIII en route to Santa Mira. Filmed in the same location? Also during those shots she’s listening to a piece of classical music that I believe is the same music played in HIII right before the woman gets the laser blast in her face.
 

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