Special Series · The Art of the Tease(rs)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
I have a serious problem with movie trailers lately. It seems like nearly every preview that’s released is about 2:30 minutes long and gives away almost every aspect of the movie, acting more like a CliffsNotes version of the movie being advertised rather than something to entice an audience into coming back and seeing the full product.
In this day and age where all aspects of a movie are fairly well known before an inch of footage is seen, the subtlety of a well-crafted “teaser” trailer is totally gone…and I miss it…I miss it a lot. So I decided to go back to some of the teaser trailers I fondly remember and, in a way, reintroduce them. Whether the actual movie was good or bad is neither here nor there…but pay attention to how each of these teasers work in their own special way to grab the attention of movie-goers.
The One-Sheet
Lobby Card
Plot: As Halloween approaches, a small-town doctor and the daughter of a murdered patient trace a string of strange events to a novelty company whose wildly popular Halloween masks are being sold to children across the country.
Released: October 22, 1982
Directed by: Tommy Lee Wallace
Starring: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlihy, Michael Currie, Ralph Strait
Studio: Universal Pictures
Box office: $14.4 million domestic
Trivia:
- The film’s first printed promotion, a trade ad in Universal’s 1982 Variety supplement, read “Witchcraft enters the computer age. A different terror begins.” It left off the Season of the Witch subtitle and still credited Nigel Kneale as the writer.
- The computer-generated jack-o’-lantern in the opening titles was made by John Wash on a Cromemco Z-2D, using a Fortran program that had to fit into 48K of memory.
The Taglines
The night no one comes home.
Also on the campaign: “Witchcraft enters the computer age. A different terror begins.”
Why It Works
I still feel that Halloween III: Season of the Witch gets a bum rap. Look, it’s no classic and is pretty silly overall but most of the ire directed toward the film is because it doesn’t feature Michael Myers, the masked killer who stalked Jamie Lee Curtis through two previous films. Original writer/director John Carpenter originally thought about making the Halloween series an anthology…but the audience reaction to this one and the overall popularity of Myers effectively killed that dream.
This teaser for Halloween III: Season of the Witch is pretty creepy, not giving any indication the series was about to take a step in a different direction. Probably a good idea considering I’m not sure how many people would have gone to see it had they known in advance Michael wasn’t stopping by. Also included at the end is the final trailer that incorporates parts of the early teaser in it as well.
Like Halloween? Check out my reviews of the Halloween films from my 31 Days to Scare last year:
Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween: Resurrection
Written by Joe Botten
Joe Botten is The MN Movie Man, a Twin Cities film critic writing spoiler-free reviews since 2012. He also writes for Loud and Clear Reviews, a Rotten Tomatoes approved site. Find him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
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