In Defense of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (AKA "The one that doesn't have Michael Myers in it")

Yes, yes I know the followup to Halloween 2 has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the slasher series and the ensuing hating that occurs when compared as such. As a kid rifling through the October channel guide I would make it a point to clearly miss that flick simply on those grounds and hated it solely based upon it, no questions asked. When I finally did see it albeit, much later in life (as in within the last 3 years) I could appreciate it for what it was, a good horror movie centered around my favorite holiday. So here are 5 reasons I do hereby defend Season of the Witch:

Reason #1: (Tie) Tom Atkins and his moustache)

At the time little did I know that Tom "Thrill Me" Atkins was the star in this one. I grew up on Lethal Weapon seeing him as a revenge filled father involved in the heroin trade. I loved him most though in Night of the Creeps (I'll get to Fred Dekker's masterpieces here soon...).

Reason #2: Awesome Death Scenes

Ouch

 The best death scene happens to be the first and not even 15 minutes into the movie and what gets Tom's attention in the first place. This poor old man literally has his skull pulled apart by Dick Warlock (who happened to play Michael Myers in Halloween 2).

Reason #3 Irish Halloween

Seriously, at this point of the 1980's everyone had pretty much forgotten that Halloween started off as an Irish celebration known as Samhain. There's actually a great explanation of it by a character in another new Halloween classic Trick 'r Treat.

Which makes a lot of sense now if you think about the intents of Silver Shamrock now.

Reason #4 Nihilistic as fuck when you think about it
Kill the kids, kill the parents, kill everyone irregardless. Now that's just plain mean.

Reason #5 It has an evil plan with good marketing skills behind it

As Bill Hicks so wisely phrased it: By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing … kill yourself. But the marketing execs just decided to wipe everyone else out instead by absolutely saturating the airwaves with ads for their masks making them the absolute must-have for every kid this season. The ending itself leaves you wondering if whether or not that last ad got yanked in time or not...
All in all it's a great fucking movie and deserves a good viewing of you haven't already!

Tom Atkins and his mustache demand:
"Turn it on, Turn It On, TURN IT ONNNN!!!!"