Written by Carlos Laszlo And Monte Hellman And Arthur Gorson
Directed by Monte Hellman
Laura: "Merry Christmas."
Ricky: "And a Happy New Year."
Last year, I embarked on watching this Christmas horror series but only reviewed the first two movies. To amend things, this month will kick off with reviews for both this and the fourth movies. I'll likely save the next two for next year to tie in with the upcoming remake.
The second movie had focused on Eric Freeman's s younger brother, Ricky Caldwell (Bill Moseley) as the axe wielding Sanra Claus Hanks this one also had him as the main antagonist of the piece. Last time we saw Ricky he got gunned down by police. Time has passed since then.
Yup, for Ricky, he's now got a transparent dome on his head to repair his damaged skull. On top of that, he's also got two new protagonists to go up against as his bloodlust remained rather high. The guy's more unhinged than Eric ever was.
The first protagonist would be his therapist, Dr. Newbury (Richard Beymer). It's a typical role where Newbury tried to assess the triggers to Ricky's violent impulses while Ricky himself killed a Santa impersonator and escaped the hospital. Oh and it didn't end well for Dr Newbury either as his attempts to fix Ricky came to a horrible ending for him.
Then there was blind clairvoyant girl Laura Anderson (Samantha Scully). Along with her brother Chris (Eric Da Re) and his girlfriend, Jerri (Laura Harring), their trip to spend Christmas with Granny Anderson (Elizabeth Hoffman) put them right into Ricky's crosshairs.
As you can guess, pretty everyone who wasn't Laura got taken out by Ricky and in the usual horror ways too. The final scene with a surviving Laura and a bit of fourth wall breaking does end the movie on an okay note.
- There's some uncredited rewrites by Steven Gaydos for this movie.
- There's also archive footage of the first two movies to bring you up to speed with things here.
- This movie was very much rushed into production with the revised script written within a week.
- Chronology: Six years since the events of the second movie.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! did feel like a natural conclusion to a messy trilogy of Christmas slasher movies. It's not particularly great but a tiny bit fascinating in its dynamic between Ricky and Laura.
Rating: 5 out of 10
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