The Case for Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Spoilers for Halloween 2 and 3)

Stop lying to yourself if you hate this movie. You've never seen it. First, a little history and context are needed for this rant: 

Halloween (1978) and its sequel were supposed to be the saga of Michael Myers. Taking place on the same night as the original film, Halloween II is basically the same romp as the original, with Michael Myers killing people with a knife. You know, business as usual. 

At the end, he's trapped in a room full of gas and lit on fire. That's more dead than he's ever been, and originally, that's where it should have ended. However, it wouldn't be the end of Michael Myers, as we'd come to see with all of the bad, bad sequels. Trust me. Halloween 4, 5, and 6 are really, really, really bad. Not even fun bad. Stupid bad.

Where this all started was Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which (no pun intended) drastically changed the series. First off, no Michael Myers. "How can you have a Halloween movie without Michael Myers?" you ask. Well, he was supposed to be dead due to the events of the last movie, that's why! He got blown up and burnt to a crisp. That's deader than he's ever been (wink wink).

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is instead about a cult that makes masks that kill children. See? That's an original idea. You know how many times a masked killer with a signature weapon has been done? A lot. You know how many times a cult that kills children to appease their pagan god has been done? Significantly less. 

But no, this film was panned for being nothing like the original. It wasn't meant to be like the original, which is one of the strongest things it has going for it. 

Usually, children are safe in slasher movies. In Halloween III, they are not. In fact, at the end of the movie (SPOILERS) there's a cliffhanger ending that implies that thousands of children die, with the hero shouting "Stop it!" repeatedly, trying in vain to stop the broadcast that kills the children wearing masks made by the bad guys.

You won't get that with the other Halloween movies. In fact, the series was worse off going back to Michael Myers, and the whole "cult of the thorn" story line. Trust me, it's stupid. Really stupid. Now, which would you rather have? Something original that breaks new ground, or another slow masked killer story? Yeah, thought so.