Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

There is a strange connection between some of the actors/actresses in this film; director David Lynch. How did such a typical slasher/B-movie happen to have 3 individuals who all went to work with the intriguing director David Lynch, on various projects. Eric DaRe from SNDN 3 portrayed shady brute "Leo Johnson" in Lynch's TV series "Twin Peaks". Richard Beymer also ended up in the strange town of "Twin Peaks", having played rich and devious "Benjamin Horne". And then certainly, the lovely and mysterious Laura Harring makes her appearance in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive". Perhaps some of the supernatural entities that exist in Lynch's various works, seeped into the world of reality, and pulled these three actors/actresses into the world of David Lynch at an unforeseen future point in their careers... or, maybe David Lynch is just a really big fan of "Silent Night, Deadly Night 3". You be the judge.

So to me right from the start this movie has a really flat and off putting tone that doesn't remotely have the feel of Silent Night Deadly Night, and it's just pretty much dead boring and not very fun at all. For one thing it takes itself too seriously, unlike the second 'movie' it doesn't even have a slight unintentionally hilarious charm going for it, it's way too po-faced to pull that off. They probably should have gone for laughs but it seems they actually thought that they could play a story with a man shuffling along like a snail in a hospital gown and slippers with his exposed brain in a salad bowl in place of his cranium, completely straight! Who the hell was the genius that decided to give him that look anyway? They never even get him in a Santa suit once, and there was a clear point in the story when he could have easily got one too, after Ricky kills the obnoxious drunk Santa who taunts him into waking up from his coma, but no he just inchworms his way out without anyone noticing and proceeds to hitchhike with his dumb fishbowl brain head, and somebody actually gives him a ride!!! It was a decent effort but with that thing stuck on his head the whole time with its antenna and little blinking light Bill Mosley just looked like a silly Frankenstein-esc zombie from a hokey 50s sci-fi B-movie that was more fun! Mosley had virtually nothing to work with here and that was too bad because everyone who knows about him knows that the guy can play manic crazy better than most in the horror movie business. He was stuck in a role that didn't even let him emote here though and he looks like he's ready to nod off in some shots, and for that reason he was nowhere near as much fun as Eric Freeman's version of the character was. I really found myself hating Samantha Scully's weird artsy performance as Laura, her look and how she spoke was so floaty and pretentious, timid or not she was horrible and I didn't give a hoot what happened to her character. She was such a ham when she was trying to act scared, and the Shining type thing between her and Ricky was stupid and completely unnecessary. It's such a listless little mess of a picture, like how they got to the sweet old granny's house who got bumped off earlier and they wonder where she is for about a minute but they never bother to go and look for her, they go and take romantic baths and watch old horror movies, and nothing interesting happens for a good forty minutes, it's a complete joke, and that little condescending "Happy new year" that tops off all the lousiness at the end from Mosley in a tuxedo was so bizarre, I just thought it was like they were going ha-ha you watched the whole movie you idiot! And how about those scenes with Ricky's doctor and the police detective or whatever he was meant to be, their scenes and ridiculous drawn out conversations about crap really drag an already slow as hell movie to a dead halt. They just talk and talk even though they're meant to be racing to stop a demented mass murderer! It's like they were ad-libbing it all and I couldn't stop focusing on the guy's freakishly protruding chin when he was talking.. If you watch them in order, the films in this series each seem to try and top the one that came before in terms of craziness, but at least all the others had they're good points, this is a boring dud with characters that are annoying and unlikeable, it thoroughly wasted Bill Mosley, the kills are pathetic, there's no goddamn Santa suit!! it's slow as f&@k and the absolute worst in the series, do not bother with it, total jingle balls x 👎

Compared to the first two a very slow and boring sequel. With a blind girl as the lead role it was very boring seeing her slowly adjust to the sittuation not realizing the killer was standing next to her. Now to the killer by now the killer is a very slow and frail man, unlike in previous one. The chase scene are hard to watch, your sitting there saying hurry up, or he's just there. It's not a bad movie but I definately enjoyed the first two much more. but do watch it, it's okay.

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.

I consider Silent Night, Deadly Night 1 & 2 to be underwhelming but passable slasher flicks, this third part however is a different creature altogether.

So Ricky Caldwell found himself in a coma after the final events of the last film, somehow he's formed a psychic connection with a blind girl and when he predictably awakens and goes on a killing spree she is his target.

This time he's mute, no more yelling "Naughty" or "Punish" in fact he's near enough braindead. He resembles more of a Frankensteins monster rather than the serial killer we're used to seeing.

This could have worked but alas doesn't. The story is a mess, the whole thing is incredibly boring, the kills are uninspired and not one part of it works.

To make matters worse Ricky has been recast! Taking the role is horror legend Bill Moseley which you'd think would be a great thing but a mute role like this is one he could do little with. This is certainly not Moseleys finest hour.

Not on par with the first two, this is a mindless cash grab.

The Good:

Not a sausage

The Bad:

Recasting

Incredibly boring

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

"She'll come back and she'll let me go as deep as I want, she likes it, loves it" The writer was horny when he was writing this film, this above line was not even remotely meant to be sexual.