Halloween III: Season of the Witch

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH

The only film in the Halloween franchise that does not revolve around the masked killer Michael Myers, Season of the Witch follows a doctor (Dan Challis) as he investigates the murder of one of his patients alongside the victim’s daughter (Ellie).  A gas station attendant brings a rattled individual (Ellie’s father Harry, who clutches a Silver Shamrock brand Halloween mask) to the hospital.  Challis hears the man say “they’re going to kill us all,” and later that night a robotic individual in a business suit shows up and murders him.  A nurse’s screams awaken Challis (who by then is napping in the staff lounge), and he pursues the assassin to the parking lot (where the killer gets into a car, douses himself with gasoline, and sets himself on fire).  Challis encounters Ellie first at the hospital (when she shows up to identify Harry’s body) and later in a bar.  Together they set out to figure out who killed Ellie’s dad and why.  Following their only lead, they head to the Silver Shamrock factory in a small community known as Santa Mira and check into the local motel.  Posing as bulk buyers of masks, they end up on a guided tour of the factory in the company of the Silver Shamrock CEO (Conal Cochran).  Ultimately Challis uncovers a nasty conspiracy involving ancient Celtic magic melded with modern technology and a plan to murder millions of children on Halloween night.  To describe the plot in any greater detail would mean getting into spoilers best experienced by actually watching the film.

Featuring an outstanding score composed and performed by John Carpenter & Alan Howarth, Halloween III (written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace) is an under-appreciated dark tale with a disturbing finale and some gruesome death scenes peppered throughout.  There’s a tense prologue that runs about nine minutes before the audience meets the protagonist, and in this opening Harry runs for his life while pursued by Silver Shamrock operatives.  While Challis is not an especially memorable lead character, the story itself is quite chilling despite a few flaws (I’m not sure why the antagonist opts to explain much of his plan to Challis instead of just killing him outright).  Season of the Witch (released in 1982) does not feel dated except when characters use pay phones instead of cells.  Frightening and well-shot by director of photography Dean Cundey (who also worked on the first two films in the franchise), Halloween III deserves a serious critical reappraisal in the present day (apparently fans were outraged upon its initial release by the absence of Michael Myers).  It’s a singular and original movie that boldly jeopardizes children (one kid even dies in a disturbing scene), a taboo in modern filmmaking.  I’m delighted that this project is now available on a Blu-ray packed with bonus features (including two commentary tracks), and I’ll likely watch it at least once more this fall.  If you can overlook the “trick” of a Halloween film with no Michael Myers, you’ll be in for a treat.

The Sleeper

THE SLEEPER

A recently-produced movie that was released in 2012, The Sleeper is a period slasher film set mostly in 1981 (aside from a brief prologue in 1979).  The plot follows Amy, a sophomore in college who gets invited to a party at a sorority house that is plagued by weird phone calls from a whispering fellow who sometimes giggles and cries.  The caller manages to systematically pick off the sorority sisters throughout the course of the film via various methods (hammer to the face, gouging out eyes, and such).  Amy, the ostensible lead character, vanishes through much of the middle of the plot (she’s hanging out at a bar) while the killer does his thing.  Amy ultimately comes face-to-face with the antagonist, who chases her across a strangely deserted campus (apparently the filmmakers couldn’t afford to have extras in the background).  Amy coincidentally winds up in the murderer’s lair (an old storm basement in a campus building), where she finally takes some action by stabbing the guy.  An epilogue suggests that her ordeal might not be over.

The Sleeper features an excellent soundtrack that evokes the spirit of John Carpenter’s early scores, but unfortunately the script features bland and largely interchangeable characters, a boring protagonist, and a prolonged dance scene that does nothing but kill time.  The auteur behind this project (Justin Russell) does a fine job capturing the look and feel of an early eighties slasher (if I had watched the movie without knowing anything about its production history, I could easily have been fooled into believing it was an actual lost stalk-and-slash film from thirty years ago).  It’s a shame that the heroine is so passive (while the killer uses a hammer to smash open the door of a room she’s in, she cowers and cries instead of actively searching for a weapon).  The dialogue is plain and expositional, and there’s no explanation about the killer’s identity or motivation.  For a much more engrossing story about sorority girls in jeopardy, check out the original Black Christmas from 1974 (not to be confused with its 2006 remake). 

Lost Boys: The Thirst

LOST BOYS: THE THIRST

Released in 2010, this third entry in the Lost Boys franchise finds vampire hunter Edgar Frog facing eviction from his modest trailer in California.  A best-selling author (Gwen) offers him a high-paying gig rescuing her brother (Peter) from a vampire pack led by a rave-thrower named DJ X.  She claims that DJ X is the true “head” vampire, the original Alpha bloodsucker.  She also says that DJ X has been distributing an alleged drug (actually vampire blood) called The Thirst at his raves in order to create a massive army of vampires.  With the help of an ally named Zoe and a reality TV star known for wrestling a grizzly bear, Edgar sets out to crash the latest rave thrown by DJ X in an abandoned slaughterhouse.  Edgar hopes that slaying the Alpha vampire will turn his brother Alan back into a normal human (in a prologue set five years before the main action, Alan becomes one of the undead).  This rather short movie runs 77 minutes before the end credits roll.

In terms of special effects, plotting, and overall quality, this film is the best entry in the Lost Boys series thus far.  There are a couple of leaps in logic (Edgar somehow jumps to the conclusion that the vampires plan a sacrifice under a blood moon without any real clues indicating that this is the case).  Despite some minor flaws, The Thirst is a rollicking fun ride with innovative vampire death scenes, plenty of dry humor (the reality TV star continuously refers to Edgar as Toad rather than Frog), and a couple of fight scenes in the climax that rival the best action fare generated by Hollywood in recent years.  My main complaint is that the tale has one twist ending too many, but this is a minor quibble.  I recommend skipping over the first two films in the series and checking out Lost Boys: The Thirst at once.  It’s a stand-alone story with some passing references to incidents and characters from the first two films, but you really don’t need to understand the backstory to enjoy this fine adventure in which a band of eccentric vampire hunters triumph against all odds.  Here’s hoping that future sequels equal or surpass the quality of this movie.

Lost Boys: The Tribe

LOST BOYS: THE TRIBE

A direct-to-video sequel that was released in 2008, Lost Boys: The Tribe follows a former pro-surfer named Chris Emerson who moves with his sister Nicole to a community called Luna Bay near the ocean.  There the siblings cross paths with another ex-surfer named Shane who dropped off the grid awhile back (turns out he’s the head of a vampire pack).  Shane tricks Nicole into drinking his blood from a flask, thereby turning her into a half-vampire (per the lore established in the first film, she won’t fully turn until she makes her first kill).  Chris stumbles upon intrepid vampire hunter Edgar Frog, and together they set out to locate the vampire nest and kill Shane before Nicole becomes a full-blown member of the pack.

A flawed but watchable movie, Lost Boys: The Tribe features one plot point that left me scratching my head.  After Chris learns where the vampire nest is, he goes home and sleeps the day away until the sun goes down.  Wouldn’t he want to storm the headquarters of the bloodsuckers during the day when they are sleeping and vulnerable?  Instead he moves forward with an odd plan to infiltrate the pack and become a half-vampire himself.  The film includes one brutal scene in which most of the vampires (minus Shane) feed on some girls at a beach, and the gore quotient here is quite high.  Neither as awful as I’d been expecting based on comments at the Internet Movie Database nor as entertaining as I had hoped, this sequel may be of interest to fans of the first film.  It ain’t a bad little vampire flick, but nor is it a masterpiece.

The Lost Boys

THE LOST BOYS

A vampire film from 1987 that’s inexplicably well-loved (as evidenced by its high rating on the Internet Movie Database), The Lost Boys follows a kid named Sam and his older brother Michael as they acclimate to their new home in California with their divorced mother and her eccentric father.  A young lady named Star catches Michael’s eye on the local boardwalk, and he follows her through the crowd until she gets on a motorcycle with a guy named David and rides off into the night.  Sam befriends a couple of other kids (the Frog brothers) who work at a comic book shop and tell him that the area crawls with vampires.  Michael encounters Star and David (along with three other motorcycle-riding dudes) again, and David challenges Michael to follow him.  They end up in an underground hangout (the remains of a hotel that fell into the ground around the turn of the century due to an earthquake) where Michael swills from a bottle of red liquid despite Star’s warning that it is blood.  Turns out that David and his buddies are vampires, and they want Michael to join their pack.  Sam realizes that Michael has begun to transform into a vampire when he notices his brother’s transparent reflection in a mirror.  According to the lore provided by the Frog brothers, Michael (and Star, who is also transforming) can be saved if the head vampire dies before the half-vampires make their first kills.  Sam and the Frogs set out to destroy the pack of vampires.  A subplot follows the mother of Sam and Michael as she gets involved in a relationship with her new boss (Max).  In the finale, the vampires assault the house where Sam and Michael live.  Ultimately the family vanquishes the head vampire (who turns out to be Max and not David), and Star & Michael (and a little kid named Laddie who was also turning into a bloodsucker) become human again.

I’m stumped by the appeal of this film, which has quite a few rabid fans.  There’s a scene where Michael (distraught by the fact that he’s changing into a monster and looking for a way to save himself) abruptly has sex with Star, who he barely knows, and the moment felt horribly forced and shoehorned into the narrative.  I enjoyed parts of act three (there’s a particularly cool vampire death when a dog knocks one of the undead bikers into a bathtub full of holy water), but I was unengaged throughout most of the movie.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what I’m missing.