Halloween III: Season of The Witch - Reception

Reception

Critical response to Halloween III: Season of the Witch proved to be mixed. New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby struggled to apply a definite label to the film's content. He remarks, "'Halloween III' manages the not easy feat of being anti-children, anti-capitalism, anti-television and anti-Irish all at the same time." On the other hand, he says that the film "is probably as good as any cheerful ghoul could ask for." Other critics were far more decisive in their assessments. Roger Ebert wrote that the film was "a low-rent thriller from the first frame. This is one of those Identikit movies, assembled out of familiar parts from other, better movies." Cinefantastique magazine called the film a "hopelessly jumbled mess." Jason Paul Collum points to the absence of Michael Myers and the film's nihilistic ending as reasons why the film dissatisfied reviewers and audiences alike. Halloween III remains the only film in the Halloween series in which the villain is not defeated and evil plan foiled.

Tom Milne of Time Out, a British magazine, offered a more positive review, calling the title "a bit of a cheat, since the indestructible psycho of the first two films plays no part here." Unlike other critics, Milne thought the new plot was refreshing: "With the possibilities of the characters well and truly exhausted, Season of the Witch turns more profitably to a marvellously ingenious Nigel Kneale tale of a toymaker and his fiendish plan to restore Halloween to its witch cult origins." Although Milne was unhappy that Kneale's original script was reduced to "a bit of a mess," he still believed the end result was "hugely enjoyable." The film currently holds a 38% rating on review aggragator Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews.

Academics find the film full of critiques of late 20th-century American society. Historian Nicholas Rogers points to an anti-corporate message where an otherwise successful businessman turns "oddly irrational" and seeks to "promote a more robotic future for commerce and manufacture." Cochran's "astrological obsessions or psychotic hatred of children overrode his business sense." Tony Williams argues that the film's plot signified the results of the "victory of patriarchal corporate control." In a similar vein, Martin Harris writes that Halloween III contains "an ongoing, cynical commentary on American consumer culture." Upset over the commercialization of the Halloween holiday, Cochran uses "the very medium he abhors as a weapon against itself." Harris also references other big business critiques in the film, including the unemployment of local workers and the declining quality of mass produced products.