The only thing shameful about this movie is that it didn't work. I think that's it's unfair that Michael Meyers has a monopoly on Halloween. Halloween III was an attempt to take the franchise and make it into a series involving different stories taking place on Halloween night.

Now the story of Halloween III isn't that great, but the movie works because it's very creepy. Produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, scored by Carpenter, and directing by his protégé Tommy Lee Wallace, Halloween III has the same look and feel of the previous Halloween films.

It's sad that this movie didn't work. It was a great idea to take the Halloween films in another direction. I would have loved to see what other stories might have come out it. I'm sure they would been a lot better than the sequels that followed.

Halloween III deserves credit for attempting to take the franchise in a fresh direction, moving away from the conventional slasher formula of its predecessors. Instead, it presents a Halloween-themed mystery with a brand-new cast of characters. It's worth noting that this is the only film in the Halloween series that doesn't feature Michael Myers, apart from a brief cameo where John Carpenter's original movie is playing on a TV.

However, the major drawback of Halloween III lies in its lacklustre central characters, Daniel and Ellie, portrayed by Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin. Both performances are subpar, and their romantic subplot feels so misjudged. The significant age gap of 24 years between the two leads makes their relationship feel very uncomfortable. Furthermore, Daniel's motivations are unclear throughout the film. We are left wondering why he is so determined to investigate the murder of Ellie's father, considering he has no personal connection to the victim and is a doctor, not a detective.

Despite these shortcomings, Season of the Witch does have its merits. The entire storyline revolving around the Silver Shamrock company is utterly absurd, yet I found its unpredictability enjoyable. Never did I expect Halloween III to feature an army of robots. The film's strongest moments occur in the last half hour, resembling an early James Bond movie, with the protagonist trapped in the villain's lair and fighting to escape. It's worth mentioning that John Carpenter's score is exceptional, evoking a sense of dread that the visuals sometimes lack.

I was looking forward to this, if nothing else than just context for that "Silver Shamrock" ad that popped up on YouTube. How the hell does that fit into a "Halloween" film?

"Season of the Witch" is a bizarre exercise in creepiness that eschews Michael Myers in favor of . . . jeez, where do we start: lasers, humanoid drones, witchcraft, the Old Man from "RoboCop" as the villain. And then there's the protagonist, a sex-hungry physician (Tom Atkins) who gets caught up in this conspiracy because of . . . I think the writer forgot to add in a reason.

On the one hand, this was enjoyable because I wanted to see how it ended; and the good thing here is that they really went for the John Carpenter mood and ambiguous ending. But the script takes way too long in revealing the evil plot, and that's characteristic of larger pacing issues.

I tend to fall somewhere in the middle on this; it doesn't deserve the hate it received in '82, but it doesn't hold the rewatchable allure for me that would put me in the cult following crowd.