Halloween III: Season of the Witch is something of a red-headed stepchild in the vaunted franchise. It’s the only Halloween movie not focused on Michael Myers, which became a part of its odd appeal that led to its eventual status as a cult classic. It was part of an aborted attempt to shift the franchise away from one story and went out of its way to demonstrate that it was unconnected to Myers in any way. In so doing, it delivered an equally odd irony: Myers is still in the film, even if he isn’t in the action.
The trickery involves the original movie playing on a television that the characters in Halloween III watch. It’s a great moment of meta-commentary, and the brief glimpse of Myers’ signature white mask on the screen keeps his record of Halloween movie appearances perfect. But the reasons why he appears here run deeper than just a clever bit of commentary. The television commercial signaled the direction the franchise was trying to go in.
Halloween’s director John Carpenter and its producer and co-screenwriter Sandy King were skeptical of continuing with the franchise after Halloween II. According to an article published in Fangoria at the time of Halloween III’s release, they felt that Myers’ story was played out — Carpenter described the second film as “half a movie” — and wasn’t interested in continuing if it devolved into their iconic killer simply hacking through victims every time. They agreed to be a part of Halloween III only if the franchise shifted gears.
The concept was to make the franchise an anthology series, with each successive “sequel” telling a new and completely separate story based around the spooky holiday. That informed the plot of the third film, which involved a popular series of Halloween masks designed to kill the wearer when exposed to a special signal. The masks’ creator designed the entire thing as a horrific prank and intended to kill millions of mask-wearing children on Halloween night by broadcasting the signal as part of a TV special broadcast on all three networks.
Television plays a central role in the build-up, with the masks’ insane ear-worm of a jiggle playing seemingly at every commercial break. It helps convey their faddish popularity quickly and effectively, which is vital since the entire plot hinges on it, and there is little about the masks themselves to suggest why an entire nation of youths might go nuts over them. It also provides a subtle way to slip the Halloween commercial in, giving it a chance to acknowledge fans of the earlier films without disrupting its own continuity. The film’s protagonist is watching television in a bar one night and a promo for the first Halloween. When it finishes, the commercial for the mask runs again, and he asks for the channel to be turned.
The moment separates the third film from the first two in an unbreakable way, ensuring that a future sequel doesn’t find a way to tie them together as a means of generating a story. 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills both featured the masks from Halloween III, though strictly as an homage and without any further reference to Halloween III. The separation gave the anthology idea room to breathe, and had the third film done better financially, the franchise might have proceeded with different stories each time instead of a perennial return to Haddonfield’s most infamous resident.
Things didn’t turn out that way. Halloween III did poorly at the box office, and the series returned to Myers with the next film. It has yet to leave him, and the franchise is now wedded to his story indefinitely. But his odd cameo in the oddest film in the series spoke to a moment when the creators had something different in mind. It’s part of Season of the Witch‘s weird charm and a reminder that — as different as it is — it’s still very much a part of Halloween.
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