Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

Having been shot and severely wounded in the previous film, the psychotic killer named "Ricky" (Bill Moseley) lies in a comatose state and is being used for scientific research by a man by the name of "Dr. Newbury" (Richard Beymar). To that effect, his main interest consists of using a young woman named "Laura" (Samantha Scully) to attempt to make contact with him using her unique talent in the field of extra sensory perception. Unfortunately, although she does in fact make contact with Ricky, it isn't the positive breakthrough that Dr. Newbury had hoped for as Laura continues to experience nightmares each time she interacts with him. Likewise, Ricky is also affected--and this soon creates problems for all concerned. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this is one of those horror movies which lacked the suspense necessary for a film of this sort. Admittedly, it was slightly better than its immediate predecessor but, even so, that isn't saying much as that particular film was, for the most part, quite dreadful. Be that as it may, I wasn't too impressed with this film either and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

You know things aren't going so well, when you start to think that you rather be watching 'Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2' again and this indeed was running through my head during the very plodding part 3. Sure it's competently produced and slicker than the first two (way ahead in those stakes), but what a total snooze fest with a bunch of niggling characters. I know the shoddy second film has a bad wrap, but at least it was brainlessly cheesy fun, which this entry completely fumbled. Gone is the wicked dark humor (well it does try with less than flattering results) and forcefully graphic carnage, replaced with a leadenly talkative script (which does on to meander in many scenes), uninterestedly indifferent performances (does Robert Culp know what the movie's about?) and plenty of flat build-ups that lead to off-screen kills with a spurt of blood. Lame!

This straight to video effort (which the next two would follow path) pretty much continues on from 'Part 2', but trying to get away from the randomly standard stalk and slash angle where it adds another idea involving the unusual connection between the comatose Ricky (who survived the head shot with his exposed brain being protected by a Plexiglas cap) and a clairvoyant blind girl Laura, which her doctor was using those physic abilities to get into the mind of Ricky (although unknown to her). However in doing so she gets nightmarish images she rather no talk about, but through these experiments Ricky actually awakens from the coma and because of that attachment he heads after Laura.

Credit for trying some different, but it got completely daft and spineless leading to something routine. At the beginning it started using scenes from the first film in what Laura's character was seeing in her visions and I was thinking… "Here we go again?". Gladly it wasn't the case. The only thing that achieved some sort of energy was the hysterical screaming by Samantha Scully as the stubbornly unlikeable blind heroine, but again that wasn't entirely convincing. Moments within the plot actually reminded me of John Carl Buechler's 'Friday the 13th Part 7: New Blood' (1988). Now that one was better. Popping up as the maniac Ricky is Bill Moseley as his robotic manner goes through it with that plastic bowl on top of his head getting most of the attention. Robert Culp gives a batty performance, while Richard Beymer goes for stiltedly serious temperament. Laura Harring and Eric DaRe also appear. The busily echoing score punches out the electronic cues. The man in the director's chair Monte Hellman ('The Shooting', 'Cockfighter' and 'Two-lane Blacktop') does a stylish, but lethargic job which lacked a sinister bite. Bit of atmosphere in some dreamy parts and camera placement showed some inventiveness, but it triggers no tension, no jolts and no fun.

Hoping to rest for the holidays, a blind psychic woman and her friends' trip to a family gathering is interrupted by the reanimated killer that was part of her experiments with and tries to stop him before he kills off her friends.

This was a truly abysmal and near worthless slasher effort. About the only positive this one has is the finale stalking around the house, which is quite effective here at putting her in danger due to the use of her physical condition causing a lot of fumbling and stumbling around in the dark while trying to avoid the killer who's closing in, through several different floors of the house and down into the basement where the real stalking is used and the best bloodletting is all thrown together. By itself, it's a decent enough sequence but is just trapped all throughout here with the rest of the banal attributes that hold it down. Among the numerous flaws here, nothing is bigger than the utterly lame and unimposing killer, who looks so ridiculous with the coma-device still strapped to his head that he gets quite more laughs than scares by his appearance and really settles into this one quite weakly. It's hardly off to a good start when we find ourselves treating the killer as a joke, and the other flaws only enhance that since this one is just interminably boring and lifeless. There's hardly any action at all within this since the first half tends to run through her experiments at the hospital before finally just getting to the house at the forty-minute mark as the useless side-tangents of the killer's stops along the way and the detectives spouting pointless scientific jargon at each other make up the rest of the running time in the first half. This is naturally spurred on by the criminally-low body-count that never really gives this one a chance to let loose with the splatter that would've helped the running time along here and in the end there's just not enough action to really get this one going at all. The last flaw here is the overall cheap-ness of the film, both in regards to the locations and sets but also the overall quality of the rest of the special effects as the kills are all off-screen, the design is pretty bad and overall this one never really had a chance to do much good for itself.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Nudity and Language.

My review was written in September 1989 after watching the film on TWE video cassette.

Direct-to-video sequel to the notorious "Santa Claus" horror series is a competently made but strictly standard fright pic bound to disappoint fans of helmer Monte Hellman.

Widely respected by cineastes, especially in Europe, Hellman has been out of the limelight of late, not getting top drawer assignments as he did back when "Two-Lane Balcktop" became a cult classic. He began his career three decades ago working on horror pics for Roger Coran (a film clip from Corman's "The Terror" is excerpted here as an homage) and now returns full circle.

Film tastefully avoids the objectionable material of its predecessors: there is just a brief setup clip from Part One. Heroine Samantha Scully is a blind girl linked up with the youngster (now grown-up Bill Moseley) responsible for the Santa Claus killings by scientist Richard Beymer. He experimented on Moseley, who's been in a coma for six years since being apprehended and nearly killed; sci-fi element here is mixed with psychic connection phenomena.

Despite this adventurous premise, pic quickly becomes a standard suspenser, as Moseley escapes ade on the rampage, threatening Scully, her brother (Eric Dea Re) and bro's pretty girlfriend (Laura Herring). Climax is out of "Wait Until Dark", with Scully evening up the ods in a darkened basement.

Interesting casting has Scully and Herring the same physical type (both earthy brunettes), and they team up in the final reels to combat the monster. Unfortunately, pic offers little novelty or thematic interest, analogous in underachievement within Hellman's output to Alan J. Pakula's similarly woebegone "Dream Lover".

Tech credits are good, with an eerie droning score by Steven Soles. Carlos Laszlo's script is filled with red herring suspense sequences and dumb dialog.

I enjoyed the original Silent Night, Deadly Night. To the dismay of other internet film critics, i also enjoyed Silent Night, Deadly Night part 2. But when i sat down to watch the 3rd installment in the series, even at the age of 15 i knew the end was near.

My Biggest issue with this film has little to do with the low rent acting. It is the blatant disregard for the previous film that irritates me the most.

Ricky has no need for the science fictional fishbowl on his head in this film, other than to draw attention away from the lack of plot, and place all eyes on a sad gimmick. In the end of Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, Ricky is shot three times, yes – But he was never shot in the head – nor did he have his head blown off as another commentator included in his/her IMDb review of the film. There is No Need for the Fishbowl!