"Watch the magic pumpkin!"

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
Stars: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy
Plot: Conal Cochran uses his Silver Shamrock mask making company to try to kill children by the masses on Halloween.


The Silver Shamrock Novelties company mass-produces three Halloween masks--a witch, skull, and pumpkin--for children to wear as they watch a special Silver Shamrock show on Halloween. The idea is that, as the show flashes an image of a pumpkin to extremely annoying music, the children are suddenly killed by bugs and snakes coming out of the mask. Here's an example:

This is possible thanks to a piece of rock from Stonehenge that the company has inserted into the mask.

You may be wondering, "Why isn't Michael Myers mentioned here? What does Michael have to do with this story?" Luckily, I can answer these questions. Michael Myers isn't in this film whatsoever. Halloween III was an attempt to spawn a series of movies centered around Halloween--without Michael Myers. The first two Halloween movies were slashers, this one deals with witchcraft, and apparently the fourth one would have involved ghosts. I've heard about many Halloween fans being pretty upset with this, which is understandable; however, if this movie is viewed as its own entity, separate from the famous franchise, it really is a good Halloween movie. Personally, I would have preferred the series take that route over beating the Michael Myers story to death. But, if you're going to miss Michael, good news! I found him for you in this tree:

Hooray!

AMC Fearfest

The schedule for AMC's Fearfest is up. Check it out: http://www.amctv.com/movie-event/amc-fearfest

It's about the same as it was last year, with the addition of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street and the exclusion of Hellraiser. I have no idea why they would play the remake instead of the original, and I don't understand why they're playing Hellraiser III instead of the first one. The first time I saw Hellraiser was on AMC, and I got Doug Bradley (Pinhead) to sign my recorded VHS of it for free, so I have fond memories of watching it during Fearfest.
They also don't always have correct thumbnail pictures to the movies listed next to it (they show an image from the Halloween remake next to Halloween 5, for example). So they're slightly failing this year, in my opinion. But it's still exciting!

Oh, and I found this:

Ha!