[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

HALLOWEEN 3 – No MM in sight, but IMO easily the best of the Halloween sequels. OK, we could have endless debates about that, but let's not. It's such a great film though, I almost prefer it to the original in some ways. You could stick it in the dictionary as the definition of “Eighties Horror”. Just the mood, the way it's shot, the atmosphere. So ironic that it feels quintessentially Carpenterian when the latter didn't direct. His stamp is all over it though, from the bass heavy synth growl to Cundy's compositions. I always feel there's a really downer vibe to it, a suffocating sense of time collapsing, something dark on the horizon... well, that was the eighties for you. In fairness, it's also the film, with its bizarre conspiracy to bring about mass child sacrifice via deadly Halloween masks when the clock strikes midnight on the big day. 'Halloween 3', along with being oppressively dour and humourless and bleak, is also incredibly mean spirited – that bit where the kid's head implodes under the mask as snakes and bugs do their work still disturbs me to this day, as does the scene where that retailer fiddles with the device on one of the masks and gets her face blown open by an unholy laser blast. Creepy. A film I return to endlessly.

It's the end of August... i mean, really, couldn't you have waited another month?