An evil Irish toymaker is plotting a mass child sacrifice using his Halloween masks, and it’s up to one alcoholic doctor to stop him. There’s no Michael Myers, but there is a pretty baroque and silly plot here under a lot of early 1980s grime.
Starring Tom Atkins, Stacy Nelkin, and Dan O’Herlihy. Written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace.
Welcome to the Mary Versus the Movies newsletter! Be sure to put on your masks before nine o’clock.
This week: 10/31/2024
EPISODE 164 – HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)
An evil Irish toymaker has stolen part of Stonehenge, and is plotting a mass child sacrifice using novelty Halloween masks and subliminal messages on tv. It’s all up to one alcoholic doctor to stop him. There’s no Michael Myers, but there is a pretty baroque and silly plot here under a lot of early 1980s grime.
This movie’s grown a cult following since its original, disastrous release. Getting away from the Michael Myers story in order to turn the series into an anthology would’ve been a good idea for the second film, but of course, the studios weren’t going to greenlight that. Doing it with the third movie? That’s just going to annoy audiences.
And the film itself, while having a lot of sleazy charm, isn’t really anything special—the dialogue is perfunctory, and the performances not nearly unhinged enough. The cinematography is mostly on par with of an episode of C.H.I.P.S., and the pacing has no patch on any of Carpenter’s own work. Having said all that, this movie is frequently fun, if nonsensical.
Starring Tom Atkins, Stacy Nelkin, and Dan O’Herlihy. Written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace.
HOLLWOOD AVALON – ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992)
The evil grimoire the Necronomicon sends Ash Williams—chainsaw hand all—back to the Dark Ages where he helps King Arthur battle the forces of the Undead.
The third film in the Evil Dead series gets even further away from the original film’s horror, being more firmly rooted in fantasy and comedy. There are no trees sexually assaulting young women, no dead wives in the basement, possessed by the forces of evil—this is purely a fantasy, combining A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Gulliver’s Travelswith an Iron Maiden album cover. Unlike the pure horror of the first Evil Dead, this is more along lines of classic adventure films like the Ray Harryhausan-designed Jason and the Argonauts, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and cockeyed references to Spartacus and Ben Hur, not to mention The Day the Earth Stood Still, all filtered through Three Stooges slapstick.
Starring Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert, and Ian Ambercrombie. Written by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi. Directed by Sam Raimi.
What else are we up to this week?
Mary: Like a lot of people, I’ve been very, very stressed out. I mean, sure, it’s probably just a mixture of The Election, the drought, general climate terror, and my department at work being reorganized in ways that are making me nervous, or maybe I just exist with a baseline of anxiety and always have. Probably a bit of all of that. Either way, I haven’t really been able to concentrate on much other than the World Series and our upcoming trip to Italy. (Yes, I’m part of the problem by flying somewhere. I legitimately do feel guilty about this.) I haven’t finished a book since… August? And I haven’t been watching too many films or kept up with tv. If anything, I’m mostly watching commercial compilations and “whatever happened to these defunct food chains?” videos on YouTube. I suppose a retreat into nostalgia when one is anxious isn’t very surprising—who doesn’t want to zone out watching an ad for AT&T from 1987? Or wonder whatever happened to Ground Round? Or just old city-specific department stores (that’s right, let’s watch a bunch of videos that mention Wanamaker’s)?
Anyway, next week, Dennis and I will be on a brief tour of Italy, a trip we were supposed to do for Dennis’s fiftieth birthday, before Covid intervened. Naturally, in preparation, we watched William Wyler’s 1953 comedy Roman Holiday, which was filmed entirely in the Eternal City. If you haven’t seen it, Audrey Hepburn is a princess who runs away from her royal tour, taking up with a down-and-out Gregory Peck, a tabloid reporter who knows her secret identity. Over the course of twenty-four hours, they have a brief romance as she tastes freedom, and he fights with his tabloid instincts (and gambling debts). I won’t say how it ends, but it’s fascinating for a comedy whose ending ultimately upends the classical definition of the form (talk to me later about that if you’re curious what I mean).
It’s a fascinating film that balances a kind of fairy tale or folk tale story—the monarch who goes among the people—with an undercurrent of post-World War Two fears about another world war (part of her goodwill tour is promoting a nascent European Union), balancing the hierarchies of the Old World that brought about two world wars with an American disregard for such things. I suppose it’s no surprise that the film’s production is in part a reaction to the McCarthy Red Scare—screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and costar Eddie Albert (unrecognizable here as a quasi-beatnik photographer) were both blacklisted, and Wyler formed the Committee For the First Amendment with John Huston and a raft of liberal and left-wing Hollywood figures. (Peck and Hepburn, of course, were both famous for humanitarian work). There’s a fascinating optimism and joy that pulses through the film, so much so that the inevitable ending is inherently tragic.
It’s a deeply American film, of course, for all the reasons outlined; in contrast, it’s worth watching the neo-realist 1947 Italian film Ladri di biciclette, Vittorio De Sica’s drama about a destitute Roman searching for his stolen bicycle, which he needs for his job. A beautiful, at times heartbreaking parable about desperation and pride in the aftermath of calamity, filmed entirely in Rome just a few years before Roman Holiday; here we see the city with its mix of ancient and modern ruins, bringing home the millennia of war that surrounds and strangles common people. It’s a livewire of a film.
Dennis: My last Halloween: I guess I was 12 or 13, some borderline trick-or-treating age. I had an even more last minute costume then usual (disheveled teenager with slightly different shirt than usual or something) I went with a friend I didn’t really see much at the time and it may have been the last time we hung out till I saw him in our 20s. My memories of the night are very confused. After hitting a few houses, we ended up at an empty house he claimed was owned by someone he knew. It was way back in the woods, no lights or anything. I don’t think there was even a road to it. We raided the fridge. Then we went to a housing development that was being built and honked the horn of a tractor. Afterwards we went to his cousin’s house around the corner from mine (I had just moved into the neighborhood) and I sat on the couch with her watching the end of Halloween and the beginning of Halloween 2. It was a mix of teenage thrills and embarrassed Halloween kid stuff. It was an odd time for me, I didn’t like moving to a new neighborhood and didn’t get along with kids at middle school and just felt weird all around.
Pizza: It’s election season and we’re being bombarded by political ads in our battleground state because middle aged upper middle class Bucks County moms could go either way according to AI models, probably. The vote is tomorrow (Kamala and her friends texted me) and it’s a tense time. It’s 4 in the afternoon and I stepped by nino’s for a comfort slice of pizza. Phrases like “Open borders” “rape” “safety” “extremist allies” “laser focussed” “approve this message” is spilling out of the tv for the entire commercial break during the news. The slice was good, I forgot to say not too hot, but it wasn’t too hot. Crust was maybe too sturdy, but a good cheese covering. 3/5.
NEXT EPISODE: We are on a short hiatus, but will be back soon.
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