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.

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.

Like the other entries in this series thus film has a lot of padding in its short run time. It feels cheap and the acting is terrible. But worse than that, Ricky doesn't even dress up as Santa Claus!

The later sequels drift further away from the original premise, but this one has the same character from the second film, only they strip him of all memorable quotes and over the top acting that actually made that film (the parts that were original anyway) kind of fun. This is the worst sin you could do in this kind of schlocky seasonal low budget horror.

As it stand this is just some people having lots of mostly pointless dialogue and seems to purposefully avoid the only redeeming aspects of the series. It's probably best just to avoid. Naughty!

This is a very bad movie - dry, boring, lame, technically inept. The script is very poor. I can't believe Monte Hellman actually directed it - or anyone, for that matter. The ONLY good thing about this film is Robert Culp, who rises far above everything else in his role as the detective. He's great.

These sequels of the Silent Night, Deadly Night have so far been subpar and not on the level of the original. After a very disappointing second film, had slightly higher expectations for this third film but seeing as it went straight to video, had realistic expectations.

Although this film may be better than the second, it still isn't good and has a lot of things going wrong for it.

It feels extremely dull, slow moving, lacks suspense and any real thrills or horror elements. Doesn't feel much like a Christmas horror film either and nothing like the original.

The tone and overall atmosphere right from the start of the film sets everything off as it has a dry feel.

The acting by the lead female and her character is decent enough as she doesn't quite overact where she's a better lead than the character Ricky in part 2. Still, no real suspense, and no clever gory kills.

The villain in this film wasn't menacing as they made him out to be. And what makes it worse is how they weren't able to kill him. He supported a sort of fishbowl dispenser on his head and wasn't very mobile. How the brother let him attack him was silly.