"It's time. It's time. Time for the big giveaway. Halloween has come. All you lucky kids with Silver Shamrock masks, gather 'round your TV set, put on your masks and watch. All witches, all skeletons, all Jack-O-Lanterns, gather 'round and watch. Watch the magic pumpkin. Watch..."And so another Halloween season comes grindingly to a halt.You're halfway to sugar shock from all the leftover trick or treaters candy you've been eating all day,you don't know how to tell the drunken sexy witch who's passed out on your bedroom floor that you have zero recollection of picking her up at the bar last night...or the massive handprints you left all over her ass shortly afterwards(does the naughty witch want daddy to raise welts this time,hmmm?),and you're probably surfing through the mixed bag of horror the idiot box has to offer on this sacred night.Step onto the drawbridge here at Castle Wop,creeps,your uncle thinks he's got one more appropox and underrated genre film for you little bastards to sink your joke teeth into,before we bid adieu to WOP-tober,one more time.
I remember all the flak this movie caught upon release from the mindless masses who felt cheated out of their folding money,forced to endure an interesting and original horror premise,instead of what they wanted to see,yet one more crap sequel where the strong,silent type in the whited out Shatner mask methodically stalks and kills more sex-crazed bimbos and their idiotic boyfriends.Curse the producers for not feeding the crybabies the pabulum they long for!I can still hear the fucking boo's as the credits rolled and we vacated our seats,and I thought to myself:Why the fuck are these morons booing a decent movie and decided anthological turn for the series by Carpenter and Hill?As I grew older,I came to the realization that waterheads like the ones yelling at the screen that night make up the vast majority of the movie-going public.Don't make 'em think.Don't throw 'em a curve ball.And most importantly,don't put the Halloween franchise tag on a film that essentially has no Michael Myers in it(apart from two clever inserts in television broadcasts).As the years have gone by,more and more people have finally given this movie a chance,and to their dismay,they actually like it!And even the sheep got their wish six years later,when Michael Myers was resurrected for the fourth movie,the imaginatively-titled hunk of bowel-bilge "Return of Michael Myers",which in comparison,makes tonight's entry look like Raging Bull.
Guttman learns the hard way:Mess with the Irish trademark,get your yap zapped.
Eight days from Halloween,Harry Grimbridge finds himself running for his life from silent assassins in business suits.At a gas station,he collapses,clutching a latex Halloween mask,and repeating "They're coming." over and over.The attendant takes him to the local hospital,where a commercial for Silver Shamrock masks spurs the exhausted new patient to grab at Dr.Challis(Atkins)and proclaim,"They're going to kill all of us."After admittance,another suited killer pays Grimbridge a visit,separating his skull and driving his nose into his brain with his bare hands before returning calmly to his car,dousing himself in gasoline and exploding before the eyes of the shocked staff.When Grimbridge's daughter Ellie(Nelkin) arrives,Challis selflessly puts his family on hold yet one more time,buys a six pack of beer and drives off with her towards Santa Mira,where the shop owner was headed before his murder,and answers.Santa Mira is the predominantly Irish(shudder!) home of Silver Shamrock Novelties,run by Conal Cochran(O'Herlihy),whose keen business sense returned prosperity to the community.The closed circuit cameras on every telephone pole,the six o'clock curfew,and the mysterious goings on at the factory,yeah,he's responsible for all of those things as well.Upon checking in to a local motel,the pair meets Buddy Kupfer and his annoying family,and Marge Guttman,shop owners from out of town who also have business at the factory.That night,while Challis does a little gynaecological exam on Ellie,free of charge,Mrs. Guttman notices a computer chip in the back of the trademark of one of the Shamrock masks,while reading in bed.She monkeys with it,and eats fatal laserbeam that fries the bottom half of her face,causing buggies to crawl out of her flame-broiled yap.
As Marge gets laserblasted,Challis,the teat-suckling bastard,shows Ellie his phallus.
After touring the factory with the Kupfers,Ellie notices her father's car being guarded by more suits,but when she and Challis return to the motel room,they discover they can't contact anyone outside of Santa Mira by telephone.Suits make the scene and kidnap Ellie,causing Challis to break into the factory for an attempted rescue.He incapacitates one of Cochran's well-dressed cronies,discovering that he's not human,in fact,but a mechanical android,when a well-placed labonza punch yields yellow goop and wires.Cochran then gives Challis the classified version of the factory tour,revealing that in an effort to return the upcoming holiday to its pagan Celtic origins(take a deep breath here,folks),he's stolen a five ton Stonehenge monolith,hidden it in the factory,where tiny pieces of the mystical stone are placed into the company trademark in the back of the Halloween masks,which,when a computer-born pattern of flashing jack o'lanterns triggers them,they cause the mask wearer's head to fry,and rattlesnakes and crickets to pour out of the smouldering faceholes,as evidenced by the test-slaying of the Kupfer family before Challis' very eyes.Challis later breaks his bindings,frees Ellie,and initiates the computer sequence in the control room while dumping a case of trademarks on the workers below,resulting in spectacular laser beam-death for all of them,and Cochran being absorbed by the energy generated between the monolith and computers.The couple flee the factory as it catches fire,but discovers that Ellie is nothing more than one of Cochran's robots,and dispatches it,piece by piece.He makes his way to the filling station from the beginning of the movie,desperately trying to get the television networks not to play the Silver Shamrock 9 o'clock giveaway spot,that would signal the deaths of millions of kids across the country.Some trick or treaters gather to watch the flashing jack o'lantern on the gas station tv set,as Challis screams "Stop it!" into the telephone receiver.Oh,those Irish and their practical jokes.
Hey kid,what part of "Store your mask in a cool,dry place" didn't you understand?
Fans know genre fave Tom Atkins(and his moustache)well,as he's put in several horror shifts under John Carpenter(The Fog,Escape From New York,etc),cult favorites like Night of the Creeps,Maniac Cop,Due occhi diabolici,as well as turning up in the My Bloody Valentine 3D remake,and is always gracious to fans at horror cons,so go get a pic of your wife kissing his moustache already.Delectable cupcake Stacey Nelkin works steadily in movies and television to this day,her most memorable roles to woprophiles out there(besides tonight's review,of course)would probably be in Mad's Up The Academy,Yellowbeard,or opposite "Dangerous" Tony Danza in Going Ape.The late O'Herlihy had a long and admirable career in movies and television,most notably appearing in Invasion USA,The Last Starfighter,and the Twin Peaks tv series.Stuntman Dick Warlock,who portrayed Michael Myers in Halloween II,is on hand here as Cochran's mechanical assassin.Nancy Loomis,another long-time favorite of Carpenter,acts under her birthname of Kyes here,as Challis' wife.Last on the list of Halloween all-stars to work in this movie,the one and only Jamie Lee Curtis lent her voice,uncredited,as the Santa Mira curfew announcer.Well,there you have it.When next we meet up,it'll be November.A different season,but the same source materials here at the Wop,as you like it(especially your mothers).As for tonight's entry,it has its share of shortcomings(the factory control room resembling an empty warehouse with six Commodore computers set up in a circle leaves a lot to be desired),and plot holes(No,really,Conal,tell us how your sixty-something year old ass,and your team of robots-in-suits managed to steal a five ton monolith from one of the most visited sites in the world,and get it into California with nobody noticing?),but overall,it's not a bad movie.Well-deserving of two wops on the scale.
Happy, happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. Happy, happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock.
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