My Week With Halloween Films in 2016 - Day 5

Maniac Cop (1988)

A New York waitress makes her way home and along the way gets accosted by a pair of muggers. She manages to evade them and starts running, the muggers giving chase. On the way she spots a tall, dark silhouetted figure in a police uniform, who she runs towards asking for help. Instead of helping her, the silhouetted officer lifts her off her feet by her neck and kills her. Over the next few nights, the silhouetted officer goes on a murderous rampage causing panic in the city, after information was leaked to the press. An investigation is launched, but who is this "officer"? Is it one of New York's finest or is it an imposter?

This is a film that kind of breaks my "rule" of this series, to watch horror films that I haven't seen but to be fair, this is one that I haven't seen in a long time. It does suffer from a bit of disjointedness but is still an overall fun film. It's great to see Bruce Campbell in a horror film that isn't The Evil Dead. It's also great to see a film that isn't afraid to do the unexpected with a lead character.

Usually this is the part where I do a moment but the film doesn't have that much in the way of gore and the standout moment gives a great aspect of the film away!

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)

A man, holding a halloween mask, is running from suited assailants in a car. After a couple of close shaves with death he manages to find help from a local petrol station assistant, who takes him to hospital. In the hospital the man, looking exhausted, springs to life when he sees the Silver Shamrock advert on TV and tells Dr Challis "They're going to kill us". Unsure of what the man means by this, Dr Challis leaves the man to rest, however, the man is later gruesomely killed by a suited man, who then sets himself on fire in his car by dousing himself with petrol.

Much like Maniac Cop, this is a film I haven't seen in a while. I feel that it gets an necessary bad rep mainly as it is part of the Halloween films which doesn't have Michael Myers in it. There is a good reason for this as John Carpenter wanted Halloween to be an anthology series. But I think what killed it was the Halloween sequel, Halloween II, that continued the Michael Myers story. At that point Halloween became synonymous with Michael Myers and film goers felt cheated when he didn't show up for this film. The other aspect of this film I enjoy is that unlike most other horror films, in this one you don't get that feel-good ending.

Most Gruesome Moment: After being captured by Cochran, Dr Challis is given a demonstration of what the masks do when activated, by using the Kupfer family as test subjects.

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