everyday is halloween

 halloween iii: season of the witch [1982]

so for the third installment why not try something different.  why not go for something unique.  why don't we get rid of the main antagonist, slasher & one fucked up dude, michael myers.  let's try to get to the essence of halloween.  so director john carpenter & producer debra hill tried something different.  they enlisted director tommy lee wallace to make a film about the killing side of halloween.  wow!  did they ever.  conal cochran, played by dan o'herlihy, owns Silver Shamrock Novelties.  he has pieces of stonehenge that he made into tiny medallions.  he inserted those medallions in children's halloween masks which have sold like hot cakes.  furthermore, cochran, that little devil, has bought up airtime on the three main TV networks so that when the kids, who are wearing Silver Shamrock masks, watching a halloween special, at a specific appointed time, will die in the most goofy manner possible.  the masks kill their victims by, well i dunno how, but bugs & snakes crawl out from the masks leaving their victims deader than a door nail.  why does cochran do this?  cuz he wants to return to the ancient pagan rites of samhain of which children sacrifices were made.  does cochran get away with it?  not if character actor, & all-round bad ass, tom atkins, has anything to do with it.  oh my!  there are killer robots [i shit you not] & an awesome TV countdown for the Silver Shamrock TV horrorathon that i've used on this blog to announce the high holiday of halloween.  this flick flopped.  the next movie in the halloween franchise saw the return of our favorite The Shape, michael myers.  but for a glorious moment carpenter & hill had envisioned an anthology film series dedicated to halloween.  oh yeah, the late, great dark fiction writer, & resident of nearby stockton, dennis etchison wrote the novelization.  i've not read the novel but i bet it is even weirder than this pic.

boo!