Horror Threequels

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors

This week brought cooler temperatures and inexplicably weird vibes which means two things: it’s almost time for early voting, and it’s time to watch more scary movies. While there have been a multitude of iconic horror films that have inspired several iconic franchises, I often find myself returning to the original films of a series far more often than I give their sequels a spin. But as I learned with my horror sequel viewership last year, sometimes the best films of a series come second, or third. If horror movie sequels have a bad rep, then their threequels (the third film of a series) are outright ignored—except by the fans on the fringe, those who are so obsessed with the intellectual property that they’ll follow its story into whatever outlandish depths they may be stooping to. By the time the third film of a series comes along, the story and characters are so well known that concocting any original or unique premise for them is almost impossible. Both of tonight’s films really deviated from their original stories, and took some major swings to stand out from their predecessors—but I wouldn’t say that both hit a grand slam. Up first was Tommy Lee Wallace’s 1982 film Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which, out of every sequel and threequel I’ve ever seen, is the most disparate from its original source material. You see, when Halloween and Halloween II creators John Carpenter and Debra Hill were approached to make a threequel for their very popular series, they were over Michael Myers and were adamantly uninterested in continuing his and Laurie Strode’s story. So they had another idea: why not start a new series of films centered around Halloween, the holiday, and have a Twilight Zone-esque set up where multiple horror stories could take place? Not a bad idea, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, Halloween III became a standalone, completely unrelated film among a series where literally every other film features Michael Myers. I understand why Carpenter and Hill wanted to do something different, but I also understand that if something’s not broke, you shouldn’t fix it, and ultimately I missed Michael Myers, and Laurie Strode in this film! Halloween III is one of the lowest-grossing, and least-acclaimed Halloween films of all time, despite it being released after the first films’ critical and commercial successes. And while Halloween III has its own, standalone cult following, this film makes very little sense, in general, and in the scope of this otherwise successful franchise. Halloween III follows Dr. Daniel Challis, who becomes enmeshed in a deadly Halloween conspiracy riddled with witchcraft and science fiction and dirty business practices after a mysterious business man arrives at the hospital. Dr. Challis is married to his work and has a loving relationship with alcohol, instead of with his children or his ex-wife, oddly played by Nancy Kyes—who plays Laurie’s friend Annie in the original Halloween. Seeing her really threw me off, as if the lack of Laurie and Michael didn’t throw me off enough—but later on when they show Dr. Challis at a bar that’s playing a commercial for Halloween (1978), I became resigned to the fact that not only is this not the Halloween movie that I want, but it’s gonna keep reminding me of the fact that it’s not the Halloween movie that I want. I could tell you more about Halloween III’s story, about how this bitter older man protagonist didn’t even have one-sixteenth of the charm Jamie Lee Curtis has, about how bad the acting is, about how weird the script is, and about how there’s actually like three stories going on at once here and none are particularly fleshed-out, but instead I’ll let you watch this one for yourself—because you really don’t need any prior knowledge of the Halloween movies to watch this bizarre outlier. I do think there’s a really decent concept at the center of Halloween III, that is hardly fully-realized, and for that I am the most annoyed. The film’s main focus should’ve been upon the evil plot that the bad guys of this film planned to carry out, but instead it spent a good hour incessantly playing a creepy commercial and establishing the budding romance between Dr. Challis and the daughter of the mysterious businessman who died as a result of this Halloween conspiracy. Randomly enough, the one truly scary and unexpected moment of this film occurs directly after the most forced and un-sexy sex scene between these two noticeably disconnected protagonists. When some poor, unnamed character gets her face blown off by the tag of a scary mask, and some of the coolest makeup and effects I’ve seen in this franchise appear, I thought for a second that maybe this movie would be redeemable. But alas, this was the only startling scene to this viewer, and apart from some insects and snakes that appear later on, I wasn’t particularly spooked. There were some cool shots in this film, and some even cooler ideas, but most of it just felt really weird—and not just unrelated to the Halloween series, but unrelated to Halloween the holiday, too. I really don’t understand why this film is called Halloween III, and why it had to be part of the Halloween franchise at all, because honestly if it were just its own, weird thing, I probably wouldn’t judge it so harshly. The original Halloween is one of my favorite horror films of all time, and while I know every sequel since has gone off the rails a bit, at least they are all anchored by Michael Myers, and at least they satisfy, in some way. To deviate so much from the original source material is a bold move, and one that shouldn’t be made unless the concept is incredibly solid. Thankfully, Chuck Russell’s 1987 film A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors, had a concept that was solid, a cast that was impeccable, and a version of Freddy Krueger that was horrifically enhanced. As with all Wes Craven projects, Dream Warriors has a beautiful mix of both self-awareness and unintended camp value, which makes it all the more confusing why he wasn’t at all involved with the making of A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge—the gloriously gay sequel that was all accidental camp. Despite its now-iconic status, NOES2 flopped so fiercely that Wes Craven felt obligated to write the next film: Dream Warriors. Dream Warriors was written to be the final film of the series, but it was such a hit that Wes Craven made a few more films after it. As this series progressed, Freddy Kreuger obtained more and more victims and his power grew stronger, thus creating the need for more than just one willing and able protagonist. Dream Warriors takes place six years after the events of the first film, where our protagonist Nancy is tormented by dream menace Freddy Krueger, which results in the deaths of her friends, her boyfriend, and her mother. Dream Warriors begins in a bedroom, where Kirsten (Patricia Arquette) desperately tries to stay awake by creating a paper-mache model of Nancy’s old house on Elm Street, which is now sealed up. But because Freddy’s such a stinker, he preys upon Kirsten and cuts her wrists as she sleeps—making it look like she’s suicidal. Kirsten is then placed into a psych ward, where her and other dream-troubled youths struggle to fight their sleep while under the care of Dr. Gordon (Neil Wasson). There’s Phillip, the sleepwalker; Kincaid, the tough kid; Jennifer, the aspiring actress; Will, the nerd; Taryn, a recovering drug addict; and Joey, the youngest, who is too traumatized to speak. All of these kids refuse to sleep, and all of the doctors (and hot orderly Lawrence Fishburne) believe that these suspiciously similar cases of severe sleep issues are just a coincidence—until a grad student named Nancy shows up with her expertise, and experience. Now Nancy is all grown up, she’s a therapist in training, she’s got some great meds that fend off her dreams, and she’s the only one who can help these kids survive Freddy Krueger. Dreams and nightmares have endless possibilities, and while all of the Nightmare on Elm Street films take advantage of this fact, Dream Warriors seemed to have the most fun deploying delightfully creepy concepts. The original A Nightmare on Elm Street delivered plenty of fear with its introduction of Freddy Krueger, but Dream Warriors just elevated this character, and all of the other characters even more. Here, Freddy is just as funny, but he’s even scarier—with truly inspiring technical, practical, and claymation effects that allowed this villain to achieve even more terrifying levels of torment. So, naturally, our protagonist Nancy was given even more capabilities than before, too. Her prior experience with Freddy, combined with the power of these other dream targets, allows this team of distressed, sleepy soldiers to accomplish so much more. I won’t give away details, but each of the protagonists in this film have dream versions of themselves that were as ridiculous as they were legitimately cool—finally offering up what felt like a fair fight with the dreaded Mr. Krueger. There are some unnecessary parts to this film, including, but not limited to another forced relationship that came out of nowhere between Nancy and Dr. Gordon, but the majority of this film was so much fun—and I’m not just referring to the moment where Zsa Zsa Gabor appears. My only real grievance with this film is the fact that, despite Wes Craven’s unique ability to combine satire and sincerity, he somehow couldn’t work in Jesse from NOES2 at all. Jesse was just as viable of a scream queen, and I think he would’ve fit in just fine among the Dream Warriors, but I digress. Both of tonight’s films may not be perfect, and they may have included unnecessary relationships between people with no chemistry or discernible charisma, but they’re both too wild to go unseen and unappreciated. By the time you’ve made it to the third film in a series, you’re probably willing to overlook some of its shortcomings, and by the time you’ve read all of this, you must be able to overlook all of mine! There’s only one more set of scary films left this month so be like a Dream Warrior, and don’t sleep on me! 🎃