Nominated for the 2023 Rondo Award
A definitive history of horror’s most misunderstood film
by Tommy Lee Wallace
COLOR
THE LITTLE SEQUEL THAT WASN’T
OK so first off, the movie was never, ever going to be a true sequel, yet the title was Halloween III from the start. Makes no sense, yet there it is, a baked-in paradox. See, H3 didn’t get made because the backers wanted something different, it got made because they wanted John and Debra, wanted them badly enough to accept the fact that our two were all done with babysitters, Michael Myers, the mask, and the knife, and if they were to be involved, it would hafta be something completely different on the subject of Halloween. That’s the whole story, and therein lies the contradiction. Looking back, it seems clear to me that had fans of Halloween I & 2 been fully aware of this simple fact, they might’ve gone along with the new direction, might’ve even enjoyed what they saw, and we might’ve made it through OK. Who knows? Without the backlash — “Where the hell’s Michael Myers?” — and given H3’s late-blooming but evergreen popularity, we might still be cranking out new movies on the “spooky season” year after year, even after all this time.
But that’s not what happened...
BOOK REVIEW BY Robert Ziegler
https://www.horrordna.com/books/halloween-3-where-the-hell-is-michael-myers-tommy-lee-wallace-book-review
-- Terry Wickham
BOOK REVIEW IN SHOCK REVIEW: HALLOWEEN 3 - "WHERE THE HELL IS MICHAEL MYERS?": A Definitive History of Horror's Most Misunderstood Film by Tommy Lee Wallace (BearManor Media; bearmanormedia.com; $52.00). I saw the first two HALLOWEEN films during their initial theatrical runs, and upon learning that the third entry would take a radically different direction, I didn't see any problem. Because who'd want to simply watch Michael Myers slaughtering people over and over again? That would get pretty fucking tedious, right? So I thoroughly enjoyed my first viewing of HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH. Of course, my opinion was also in the minority. Thankfully, forty years after its release, this initially-despised film has amassed a sizable cult following, with director Tommy Lee Wallace providing us with a behind-the-scenes account - from his longtime friendship with John Carpenter and stint at USC film school; working in various capacities on Carpenter's early films; turning down the chance to direct HALLOWEEN II; but embracing the opportunity to create something unique for its third installment. He touches upon preproduction, casting, crew members, scouting locations, the design of its masks, hiring Nigel Kneale to write the screeplay (with the cranky Quartermass creator ultimately having his name removed from the credits), plus the actual shoot. Wallace also gets a chance to clear up past misconceptions and express long-overdue relief that his misunderstood film is finally being appreciated. At 282 pages, this is an entertaining yet relatively brief read, with a lengthy foreward by the film's star, Tom Atkins, and more than half of the book devoted to its "Afterward" assortment of production stills, storyboards, excerpts from Kneale's script, fan art, and additonal minutia.