The biggest problem with this film, full of problems, is the title.
After seeing this film, I felt the need to read things about it to understand why it is so strange and different from the previous two. The conclusion I reached is the simplest: if there had been another title and no relation to the “Halloween” franchise, I would have had better luck. If we forget the title and put aside our initial expectations, if we try to evaluate it for what it is, it doesn't seem so bad, although it is far from being a film that I would like to see twice.
If you tell me that it is absolutely horrible because it has no relation to its two predecessors, I would have to agree. After two successful films, it was predictable that the public would create expectations, this also happened to me. However, there had to be a logical reason for the film to differ from the others, and the reason is simple: John Carpenter, who at the time owned the rights to the franchise, did not want to make a franchise around the same villain, but a series of totally different movies around Halloween. When being coerced into reusing the villain and continuing the story in “Halloween 2”, he killed him at the end so that he could not be reused, this film being a return to the filmmaker's original plan. What Carpenter failed to understand was what the public wanted, and the dismal failure of this film was solely a result of that lack of understanding.
Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, who wrote the script together with Carpenter, it has the master's inspiration throughout. The story he tells us is quite creative, it is something original, but it is not a good story. The predictability of the plot is a problem right from the start, so that we already know the film long before we reach the end. The quality of the dialogues seems to vary a little, it is not constant, and the added sci-fi elements seem to be there too much, perhaps more due to the enormous popularity that this genre of fiction acquired at the time than for any real benefit to the plot and the final work. Another problem is the poor conception of the characters, without any ability to empathize with the public, without any relationship with each other and with several stupid situations: for example, the bizarre and cold way in which a character behaves after the strange death of her father, going to the point of getting involved with a woman he doesn't know that well. And this becomes even stranger if we consider the terrible performances of an amateur cast, in which only Dan O’Herlihy manages to stand out in the slightest.
Technically, the film has some points in its favor, starting with high quality cinematography and sets, good filming and good props. The sound effects can be a little too intrusive in some scenes, but in compensation we have a good set of special and visual effects, especially the androids and the entire final part, where they are used more abundantly. The soundtrack is also very good and creates a tense atmosphere that the film manages to manage reasonably.
