Halloween III: Season of the Witch [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray]

The only installment of the Halloween series to abandon the Michael Myers story line, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is an intricate sci-fi horror hybrid. A week before Halloween, an older man named Harry Grimbridge ({|Al Berry|}) is wounded by a mysteriously dispassionate group of assailants in an industrial parking lot. After receiving treatment at a local hospital from Dr. Dan Challis ({|Tom Atkins|}) -- a hard-drinking divorced father of two -- Grimbridge is killed by an assassin who later sets himself on fire. Blowing off his own kids, Challis teams up with Grimbridge's daughter, Ellie ({|Stacey Nelkin|}), to find out why the middle-aged toy salesman was murdered. The duo's search soon leads them to a Halloween-mask factory run by inventor and practical joker Conal Cochran ({|Dan O'Herlihy|}). In between bouts of passionate lovemaking, Ellie and Challis begin to realize that the sinister old businessman has something other than treats in mind for America's kids -- something to do with the Silver Shamrock masks that Challis' children and thousands of other youngsters have bought for the holiday. Original screenwriter {|Nigel Kneale|}, whose scripts for Britain's Quatermass TV series made him a beloved science fiction fixture, sued the producers of Halloween III to have his name removed from the credits after seeing the gory finished product; director {|Tommy Lee Wallace|} ultimately received screenplay credit. John Carpenter, director of the first Halloween film, co-produced the third installment with {|Debra Hill|}, who would later soldier on without Carpenter for additional, belated sequels.