Season of the Witch<\/em>\u2019s status as the red-headed stepchild of the Halloween<\/em> franchise is well established. Arriving one year after Halloween II<\/em>, which wrapped up the Michael Myers\/Laurie Strode saga to the satisfaction of producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill, 1982\u2019s Halloween III<\/em> was to be the start of an anthology of standalone horror films set around the holiday. Disappointing box office spelled the end of those plans, but the cult that has since grown up around the film is doing Samhain\u2019s work by drawing attention to the best performance in any Halloween<\/em> movie: Dan O\u2019Herlihy\u2019s turn as malevolent mask-maker Conal Cochran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some might bristle at the comparison, but Conal Cochran is very much the Harry Lime of Halloween III<\/em>. True, he hasn\u2019t been declared dead, as Lime is in The Third Man<\/em>, but Cochran is talked about a great deal before making his dramatic entrance at the film\u2019s midpoint. (This is what Orson Welles, with whom O\u2019Herlihy worked on his 1948 screen adaptation of Macbeth<\/em>, referred to as the \u201cstar part.\u201d) Some of that talk is by a Santa Mira resident who, unprompted, calls Cochran \u201ca great man\u201d and \u201ca true genius.\u201d In fact, the first mention of the wealthy Irishman who bought up the town after World War II and turned it into the world\u2019s largest manufacturer of Halloween masks comes while protagonists Dr. Dan Challis (Tom Atkins) and Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin) are driving there to investigate her father\u2019s mysterious death and find out what it has to do with Cochran\u2019s Silver Shamrock Novelties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The definition of a company town, Santa Mira has been remade in Cochran\u2019s image. All of the businesses are Irish-themed and the factory workers brought over from the Emerald Isle. This doesn\u2019t sit well with some of the locals, including an angry drunk who tells Dan it\u2019s \u201cthe last Halloween\u201d for Silver Shamrock and that he\u2019s heard rumors of \u201csome pretty wild shit going on in there.\u201d Cochran has the town under surveillance, though, so it isn\u2019t long before the drunk is permanently silenced by his goons. As for Dan, he gets an inkling of just how strange things are later that night when the vendor in the motel room next door has a mishap with a Silver Shamrock mask that brings Cochran out into the open to un-ruffle some feathers. No matter how much he plays up his Irish accent, though, it\u2019s hard to believe his claim that it was \u201cjust a small accident,\u201d especially when he adds they have \u201cthe most marvelous facility\u201d at his factory \u201cfor emergency treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, Dan and Ellie are invited along on a guided tour of the Silver Shamrock factory, during which the jocular Cochran is praised as \u201cthe all-time genius of the practical joke.\u201d It\u2019s only after a snooping Ellie is kidnapped and Dan fails to evade Cochran\u2019s robotic bodyguards that the mask slips. Dan leads them on a long enough chase, though, that Cochran is able to note \u201cit will be morning soon, Halloween morning,\u201d wryly adding, \u201cIt\u2019ll be a very busy day for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Halloween III <\/em>enters the home stretch, writer\/director Tommy Lee Wallace includes a wonderful moment where Cochran emerges from the factory and pauses to take a deep breath of morning air. He\u2019ll need it, too, since Wallace and uncredited screenwriter Nigel Kneale give O\u2019Herlihy a ream of exposition to deliver as Cochran explains his plan in detail, starting with the theft nine months earlier of a five-ton piece of Stonehenge. \u201cWe had a time getting it here,\u201d Cochran says, a twinkle in his eye. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t believe how we did it.\u201d The same goes for the two-minute tracking shot cinematographer Dean Cundey pulls off while Cochran shows Dan around his control center, ending with the demonstration of what he has in store for American\u2019s unsuspecting children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jovial as he\u2019s been up to that point, Cochran dispassionately watching while one of his masks causes the gruesome deaths of a boy and his parents is a harbinger of Dan\u2019s potential fate when he\u2019s tied to a chair and sat in front of a television due to receive the same deadly signal. The bare, starkly lit room accentuates Cochran\u2019s sinister nature, which O\u2019Herlihy invests with all the gravity he can muster, recalling how \u201cthe hills ran red with the blood of animals and children\u201d during the last great festival of Samhain 3,000 years ago. (This is his equivalent of Harry Lime\u2019s Ferris wheel speech.) His puckish sense of humor hasn\u2019t deserted him, though, for he uses his parting shot to wish a skull-masked Dan a happy Halloween.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As his moment of triumph draws near, Cochran crows about the projected ratings (\u201ca 43 share\u201d) and urges his caller\u2019s \u201clittle ones\u201d to watch the big giveaway. Cochran\u2019s most endearing moment, though, comes as Dan figures out how to use his technology to defeat him. When Cochran looks up into the rafters and silently applauds his nemesis \u2013 a moment O\u2019Herlihy underplays beautifully \u2013 it\u2019s a sign of respect, tinged with the knowledge that he still has a trick or two up his sleeve. O\u2019Herlihy, meanwhile, had another great villain role ahead of him as \u201cThe Old Man\u201d in RoboCop<\/em> and RoboCop II<\/em>, but Conal Cochran stands as his most delightfully devious creation. \u201cHalloween III: Season of the Witch\u201d is streaming on <\/em>Peacock Premium<\/em><\/a> and is available for <\/em>rent or purchase<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/halloween3b-1024x702.jpg\")
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