The latest trailer for horror sequel Halloween Kills reveals that Silver Shamrock, the evil novelty company from Halloween III: Season of the Witch, is canon in the main Michael Myers timeline. But are Silver Shamrock's spooky Halloween masks just an Easter egg to delight fans of the franchise, or is there something more to them?
Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and released in 1982, Season of the Witch is an oddity nestled within the Halloween movie franchise. At the time, producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill were exploring Halloween's potential as an anthology series with each movie featuring a different scary story set at Halloween. However, after two movies featuring Michael Myers as the main villain, it was somewhat confusing for fans to see a third Halloween movie that had nothing to do with the previous entries. Halloween III: Season of the Witch received largely negative reviews and the lowest box office take of the franchise so far, and thereafter the Halloween movies stuck to stories about Michael Myers.
Despite not being a success at the time, Halloween III has since become something of a cult classic. The movie is about a doctor who investigates a strange murder connected to a company called Silver Shamrock, which manufactures a trio of wildly popular Halloween masks. Too late, he realizes that the masks are designed to inflict a horrible death on anyone who wears them, and are activated by a commercial that's set to play at 9pm on Halloween night. In the new trailer for Halloween Kills, three gruesomely murdered bodies are discovered wearing Silver Shamrock's masks: a jack o' lantern, a witch, and a skeleton. These masks were also seen in 2018's Halloween, but this is the first time that the Silver Shamrock tag (which, in Halloween III, contains the mechanism that kills the wearer) has been shown on them.
The events of Halloween III: Season of the Witch can't be completely canon in the Michael Myers timeline for a couple of reasons. First of all, Season of the Witch firmly establishes itself as separate from the first two Halloween movies by showing those movies playing on TV as part of a Halloween night marathon. Secondly, Halloween III ends with its main character failing to stop Silver Shamrock's commercial from playing, with the implication that millions of children across the United States are killed by the masks. If that happened in the Michael Myers timeline, then no amount of PR wizardry would allow Silver Shamrock branding to be used to sell Halloween masks again - let alone the exact same Halloween masks.
The appearance of the Silver Shamrock masks in the Halloween Kills trailer may well be nothing more than a fun Easter egg that pays tribute to the odd one out in the Halloween franchise. Even if there's nothing more to it than that, however, it will be interesting to see if the upcoming sequel includes more elements from Halloween III: Season of the Witch, such as Silver Shamrock's hellishly catchy commercial jingle, or the "big giveaway" at 9pm on Halloween night.
