As Halloween pranks go, the Season of the Witch ranks somewhere between a smashed pumpkin and a flaming bag of feces on your doorstep. In 1982, millions of Americans were shanghaied into buying tickets to this movie, looking forward to being underwhelmed by a derivative, dull-as-dishwater slasher sequel featuring the revenant Michael Myers. In hindsight, this was not an unreasonable expectation. If you unpack the film's title, you are left with word "Halloween" and the Roman numeral "III". To your average box office consumer, this title is not merely a word and a number in random, alien juxtaposition but an actual brand resonating with a certain meaning -- i.e. that this will be the third installment in a trilogy of horror movies about a masked, reticent psychopath who sews mayhem throughout the film only to die a grisly, albeit temporary, death before the credits roll. One need not understand the finer points of semiotics to make this connection. That was the bait, now here's the switch -- Halloween III, in fact, has absolutely nothing to do with its two Halloween predecessors. It is the non-sequitor of sequels. Rather than tracking the exploits Myers, this clunker focuses the sinister plot of a Celtic warlock qua toy baron, named Conal Cochran. As owner of the Silver Shamrock Corporation -- the Microsoft of the niche Halloween mask market-Cochran intends to bring this Hallmark holiday back to its darker, druidic roots by reviving the long-forgotten Hibernian ritual of selling children masks that will melt their faces off with implanted silicon computer chips that have been hardwired with pieces of Stonehenge. Um, ok, I don't think I have to make a joke here. It also doesn’t help the movie that despite the fact that the villain is a child killer, he somehow comes off as less detestable then the "hero": a 40 year old functioning alcoholic and absentee parent, prone to wearing Members Only jackets, tight cords, and sleeping in his clothing.

Can't miss scene: Halloween III's only pop culture legacy is Silver Shamrock's laughable, but catchy, jingle that is droned in a tinny, robotic voice over maddening carnival music -- "Six [five, four, etc.] days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, six more days to Halloween -- Silver Shamrock." This was apparently meant to condition unwitting kiddies into buying the melt-your-face-off-masks and act as some sort of trenchant social commentary on our society's Pavlovian response to Madison Avenue-engineered marketing blitzes. Unfortunately, the efficacy of the satire is undermined by the grinding stupidity of the film. Nevertheless, four days after you've suffered through this fiasco, you'll be puttering around the house and will find yourself mumbling this jingle -- and you'll hate yourself for it. At least your face isn't melting. Silver Shamrock.