by: -RoG-

...CONTINUED

The next day the Kupfer family shows up at the Silver Shamrock factory to go on a tour of the whole joint. Buddy Kupfer was the #1 Silver Shamrock mask salesman this year and that's why he and his whole family are being treated to this tour by Conal Cochran. Buddy, being the nice guy that he is, asks if his friends (Dr. Challis and Ellie) can come along for the tour too. Cochran is happy to oblige and we then get to see some cool footage of the actual Halloween masks being made. Plaster being poured into molds, masks being removed, trimmed and painted... the works.

Buddy's son, Little Buddy (and no, I don't mean Gilligan) is extremely excited about all of the Halloween masks and decides that he wants a pumpkin one. He goes to pick out one on the table but Cochran quickly stops him and says "that mask hasn't been through final processing yet." He goes on to explain that final processing is just their form of quality insurance, but he won't show them the final processing room claiming that he wouldn't want to expose anybody to the volatile chemicals. Buddy and his family just go along with it without even questioning why such extensive testing would need to be done on simple, rubber Halloween masks. Only in the movies I tell ya...

As they walk outside, Challis and Ellie notice a lot of those creepy guys in suits just standing around the factory. Not moving, just waiting there as if there on guard. Does a novelty mask factory really need this much heavy security? Hell, there's probably more security on staff here than there are people in all of Santa Mira. Well I guess those security guys were are little careless, because they didn't cover up a car completely. And who's car was it? Ellie's father's car! She notices it and runs to check out out, but the suit men walk over and get in her way. Challis and Ellie are now positive that evil is afoot at the Silver Shamrock factory. Problem is, Cochran knows they're suspicious.

Later that night, after making a phone call, Challis returns to the motel room to find the door open and Ellie missing. When he turns around, he sees not one but five of those creepy-assed suit guys staring at him. They start walking towards him slowly and he makes a run for it and escapes out the back window of his motel room. It's past curfew so nobody is outside, nobody except for those creepy guys who are now driving some zippy economy cars with the Silver Shamrock logo painted on 'em in hopes of finding Challis.

Challis, being part doctor and part ninja, decides to break into the Silver Shamrock factory to see if he can find what happened to Ellie. Instead, he finds a suit guy who wants to choke the life out of him. Challis punches the suit guy in the face twice and it doesn't even appear to phase him. The suit guy starts to strangle him, but the doctor rolls over on him and starts punching him in the stomach. His hand eventually goes through the stomach and he pulls out a bunch of wires and yellow goo. The same yellow goo that is now pouring out of the dead suit guy's face.

Say! Wait a minute! Those suit guys aren't humans... THEY'RE ROBOTS! If you realized this long ago, give yourself 2 extra credits points for "noticing the obvious".

Too bad for the Doc, he made a lot of noise fighting with that one robot and now he's been taken hostage by Conal. I keep wanting to call Conal "Colonel" because it's basically pronounced the same. Besides, he and Colonel Sanders both have white hair, and I wouldn't be surprised if Cochran can make some tasty fried chicken. Well, it might be robotic chicken, but it'd be tasty nonetheless.

Anyway, Conal takes Dr. Challis deep into the secret computing area of the Silver Shamrock factory. Oh and that big stone in the middle there? That's a monolith from Stonehenge that they stole! Now, one would think you don't just waltz in and steal a monolith from Stonehenge and go unnoticed. So how does Cochran explain how they got the rock? "Ha ha. We had a TIME getting it here. You wouldn't believe how we did it!" And that's it... no other explanation whatsoever. Now that's what I call brilliant writing; when an idea is so absurd that even you, the writer, can't explain it, simply have one of your lead characters make a joke about it and then move on.

Cochran goes onto explain that Stonehenge was an ancient sacrificial circle and the stone has a power in it. And what better way to show off that power than with a demonstration? He points to one of the monitors where we see Buddy Kupfer and his family in a test room. The Kupfer's think they're there just to give their opinions on some new Silver Shamrock commercials. Oh how wrong they are. And now we come to what is easily my favorite moment of Halloween III...

Little Buddy Kupfer sits right up next to the TV like all children who want to rot out their eyes by age 15 want to do. The Silver Shamrock commercial appears on the screen and then a computerize pumpkin graphic starts flashing on and off and appears to be interacting with the "seal of approval" on the back of Little Buddy's mask.

Little Buddy Kupfer being clutching the mask which appears to be melting and something is obviously wrong. He soon collapses to the ground and a ton of bugs start pouring out from what used to be his head. There's even a few snakes crawling out of there! The Buddy Kupfer and his wife start screaming, the wife passes out and Buddy gets bit by a rattlesnake that just came out of his sons face. So that's the reward for being the #1 Silver Shamrock salesman? Sheesh, I'd hate to see what they do to those who well poorly!

So that's the evil plan of Conal Cochran. He's going to kill a ton of his across the nation this Halloween with his Silver Shamrock masks by melting their faces and turning them into a pile of insects 'n snakes. Again, any movie that's willing to ignore the taboo subject of killing children and just go with it is AOK in my book.

And how does Dr. Challis react to this horrific sight?
I swear this is a fucking classic moment!

Only after countless years of training in the theater and studying his craft can an actor summon such raging emotions at any given moment. How the hell was he overlooked for an Oscar? Can somebody please tell me? This guy should be a fucking STAR!

Then they haul off the doctor so he can settle down after letting out all that seething rage. In the meantime, the robots keep chipping away at Stonehenge monolith so they can add little bits of it to the Silver Shamrock seals. After all, it's almost Halloween and they want to make sure every mask on the market has that deadly Stonehenge element ready to kill all o' them kiddies. We're then treated to children in various towns across the nation running around in their Halloween masks. I guess most of them are doing their trick-or-treating early this year so they can make it home in-time for the big Silver Shamrock special TV event.

Back at the hospital, Dr. Challis' friend is examining the parts from the car that was burned up from when Ellie's father was killed. Somehow she's discovered that those parts were from a robot. Don't ask me how, but she's apparently "onto it" and therefore needs to die. So a robot suit guy comes in and finds a power drill to shove into her cranium. For some reason the camera cuts away to an angle where we can't see this actually happening. So for those of you wondering, let's break it down:

1. Guy getting his nose crushed: AOK!
2. Guy getting his head torn off: AOK!
3. Woman having her face melted: AOK!
4. Kid having his face turned into a pile of bugs: AOK!

5. Woman getting a drill in her skull: NOT OK!

Either they had some weird issue with the ratings board, or they just ran out of money to make a convincing human head to drill into. Ah well, it was a pointless death anyway. I mean really, what was she gonna do... call the police and say, "There's a bunch of evil robots working at this novelty mask factory! You've got to do something!"

I don't think so.

Cut back to the Silver Shamrock factory and Conal Cochran explains to the restrained doctor why he is trying to kill all the children this Halloween:

"Do I need a reason? Mr. Kupfer was right, you know ... I do love a good joke and this is the best ever, a joke on the children. But there's a better reason ... you don't really know much about Halloween ... you thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy. It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting ... in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in ... to sit by our fires of turf. Halloween ... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red ... with the blood of animals and children. To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now ... it's time again. In the end ... we don't decide these things, you know ... the planets do. They're in alignment, and it's time again. The world's going to change tonight, doctor, I'm glad you'll be able to watch it. And ... Happy Halloween."

He places one of the masks on the Doc and turns on the TV so that he too can experience the face-turning-into-bugs-n-snakes holiday joy later that night. Of course, they pay tribute to the original Halloween movie by having it playing on the TV at the time. For some reason, however, they didn't restrain Challis' legs and they put the TV on a low stand so that he could easily kick it. He then uses a shard of glass from the TV screen to cut through his restraints.

After he escapes, he finds Ellie lying down on a table in some restraints, so he frees her and then sneaks back into the main control room where all the evil is set to take place. I don't know how he does it, but the doctor walks up to one of the control panels and presses a bunch of unmarked buttons which magically start the flashing pumpkin program that's used to make the masks kill the children. How did he know which buttons to push? How did he sneak in there unnoticed? I'm sure if we asked Cochran he would again make a joke about it and say, "Ha ha. He had a TIME sneaking in there. You wouldn't believe how he did it!" and then change the subject. So we'll just leave it at that.

Challis then finds a box filled with those seals of approval that contain the evil Stonehenge-laced microchips in them. So he climbs up to the ceiling and then dumps them down onto the robots and the computers while the flashing pumpkin program is running. The seals start zapping everyone and everything in site, and soon all the robots have been destroyed.

Even Cochran himself is amused by how badly he screwed up and gives a nice little golf clap to Dr. Challis before he too gets killed. But here's the weird thing...

Rather than having his face melted and turned into a bunch of bugs 'n snakes, when Cochran gets zapped by the laser it looks more like he's been frozen in carbonite or dipped in confectionary sugar. He then simply fades away. Kind of a disappointing death for the main bad guy of the movie. A guy with such an amusingly evil charisma definitely deserved something more than merely vanishing.

From there, the rest of the masks catch fire followed by the entire factory itself. Looks like Dr. Challis has saved the day and now he 'n Ellie can go home and he can try to explain to his wife what he was doing with Ellie. Or not.

They start driving the car home when, all of a sudden, Ellie attacks the Doc. It turns out Ellie was murdered and replaced with a robot that looked exactly like her. Oh Cochran, you old prankster you! Challis crashes the car and then bashes robo-Ellie in the face with a tire iron, taking her head clean off. She still manages to attack him with a severed arm in a hilarious bad arm vs. man sequence. After he does away with the arm, he runs off to that same gas station from the beginning of the movie... 

Challis quickly uses the phone as the attendant hands out Halloween candies to all of the trick-or-treaters who are of course wearing Silver Shamrock masks.

One of the kids runs over to the TV so he can catch the Silver Shamrock Halloween special. Challis calls the TV station and tells them that they have to turn it off because it's gonna kill all the children. Apparently there's just one number (that he knows off the top of his head???) that a person can call in order to get anything playing on all TV channels shut down. Well they shut down two of the Silver Shamrock commercials quickly. Call me crazy, but if some guy called a TV station saying a bunch of children would die if they air a certain evil commercial, they'd hang up on his ass faster than you can say trick-or-treat. But no, they actually shut down two of the commercials.

The kid keeps changing the channels though and he finds one more channel that is still running the Silver Shamrock flashing pumpkin commercial with the insanely repetitive carnival music. Challis screams on the phone but they're not shutting that last one down. Oh no! It's too late! All the children are gonna die.

Yeah uh, Challis ol' buddy ol' pal? How about you tell those three kids that are STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU to take off the masks for chrissakes. Ah well, I suppose a doctor can't be bothered with little details like these. And furthermore, neither can horror fans like us, right? RIGHT. So that's it for Halloween III: Season of the Witch... Cochran may have kicked the bucket and faded into oblivion, but it appears that he did have the last laugh.

AND NOW FOR AN EXTRA SURPRISE FOR ALL YOU GOOD KIDDIES!
PUT ON YOUR SILVER SHAMROCK HALLOWEEN MASKS AND CLICK BELOW!

HAPPY, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! SILVER SHAMROCK!

Have any questions or comments about this piece?
Email -RoG-