10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982)

In a whole lot of ways, Halloween III is one of the most meta sequels ever.

The film is a vehement critique of the capitalist culture that makes up the modern celebration of Halloween and all of the marketing that goes along with it. It's a film in which all of the children literally die because of their over-indulgence in Halloween merchandising.

But by far nuttiest of all is the fact that the film both acknowledges and condemns the prior films in the series for also being a part of this cashing-in on the holiday. The original Halloween is shown on television twice throughout the film, the first time being advertised the exact same way Silver Shamrock's Big Giveaway is, and the last time playing while Cochran delivers his monologue to Challis about Samhain.

It's an insane meta-commentary on not only the way the holiday has evolved over the centuries but also specifically on how the franchise itself is just as guilty of capitalizing on it as anyone else is.

Later sequels may go on to reconnect to the original films in a more direct narrative fashion, but arguably none of them ever come close to getting this thematically intimate with Carpenter's original classic.