10 Amazing Scenes In The Halloween Franchise

The misunderstood Halloween III: Season of the Witch gets more belated dues as it makes its second appearance on this list!

With Tom Atkins' Dr. Challis under constant guard, Halloween morning dawns and he is taken to Silver Shamrock Novelties' beating heart, deep within the factory. There, the beautifully sinister Mr. Cochran is waiting and decides to let Challis see what he has in store for millions of Americans watching their TVs that very night. Challis watches as the obnoxious Kupfer family are planted in front of a television set under the guise of "market research."

A merry-jingle we've all become sick of begins to play as a pumpkin strobes on and off upon the screen. Young Buddy Kupfer does as the television says: he puts on his dayglo pumpkin mask and watches. Soon the child reaches for his head in agony and collapses on the floor. Before we have time to comprehend what is happening, an endless spray of bugs and snakes pour from the melting Halloween mask as the child rots away on the floor. His frantic parents scream and cry as snakes bite at them, before falling to the floor dead. All that's left is the pulsing synth of the television commercial as Tom Atkins' Challis looks away in horrified disgust.

This surprisingly brutal scene comes in the middle of what had been a relatively tame film. The sudden violence aimed at children is a ballsy move and leaves the viewer speechless with its sudden brutality and jarring sound design. Knowing time is short, it also serves as a wonderful device in making us root for Tom Atkins' lead. We are willing him to break free of the factory and save millions of innocent children.