Howlingween 3: Red River County

Synopsis

After the nightmares in the Australian outback facing human-organ hunters and trapped on an island off the coast of India with the murderous Clarry the Clown, the Forran family looks forward to an adventure-free holiday in Florida, in a quaint village-like town called “Red River County”.

It is not to be.

The town has a dark secret. In 1769, a beggar was left to starve by a town that didn't care. With self-righteous vengeance and a touch of madness, the beggar goes on a killing spree, occupying houses, killing the residents and eating their food.

On October 31, he is shot on a river's bank and falls in. Ever since, the river's water has taken on a distinct orange hue.

The real problem for the townspeople is when the river takes on a red hue. This only happens on certain Halloween days when the beggar comes back to life and kills exactly the same number of people he killed in 1769: nine.

However, the town’s elders have kept these murders quiet as the town's existence depends on tourism. In this respect the town lives on a paradox: it promotes the legend of Jack O’Beggar to increase tourism but hides his reality to sustain its core industry.

This is the Red River County the Forrans drive into for a care-free, fun-filled break.

The first alarm is sounded by an old man, a beggar himself, who warns the family of a previous appearance by Jack O'Beggar and believes he will reappear this coming Halloween. The parents are not sure if to believe him. Their children, Belle and Tracy, are more inclined to believe, especially when they later learn of three people missing.

At the library, the girls learn that Jack O’Beggar is suspected by some to have appeared twice, on each occasion a murderer (other than Jack) was present, thus suggesting a trigger.

The girls befriend a group of bikers to help them stop Jack fulfilling his quota of deaths. They devise plans.

But life does not always abide by plans. The girls have a hard time convincing their parents and the sheriff of what they know about Jack. Eight deaths later (including two of the bikers) attributable to Jack, it remains for the girls to save the last life destined for Jack's deadly claw-like hands: the mayor.

Tracy saves the mayor, who in turn is saved by her misanthropic wolf-father, who kills Jack apparently once and for all time.

However, the old man recognises Wolf’s paw prints as being those present in the 1989 and 2001 attacks by Jack O’Beggar. Tracy pressures her wolf-father for the truth. To her great dismay, she learns Wolf is one of two killers – not one as previously thought – whose presence is required to bring Jack back to life. Wolf once tells Tracy: “When humans with hatred die, the hatred dies, giving way to a new generation open to love. As a spirit being I live forever, my hatred does not die”. Wolf reminds his daughter of frontiers men who attempted genocide on his species in Montana in 1891 and that he is conflicted because his daughter is human and he has made a promise not himself to kill humans.

Unknown to Tracy but witnessed by the old man, the story ends with Wolf bringing Jack O’Beggar back to life and to the old man commenting quietly “Heaven help Halloween”.