Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

• Stylized onscreen as Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!
• Written and Directed by Monte Hellman
• November 17, 1989

Christmas killer Ricky Caldwell awakens from a coma with a psychic link to a blind girl whom he begins to stalk.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 had numerous flaws. Thirty minutes or so of old footage, the whole movie barely containing Christmas, and bad acting (especially by Eric Freeman as Ricky Caldwell) were all things present that would sink any movie. Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! corrects that last one in the case of Billy Caldwell by switching out Freeman for genre actor Bill Moseley. No award winner but a solid performer who at least makes the character weird beyond the prosthetics.

The movie starts with Billy in a coma and part of an experiment which presumably he had given no consent to participate in because coma where blind psychic girl Laura (Samantha Scully with less range than the previous film’s Freeman) tries to connect with his mind. She is traumatized but you cannot help and consider what her expectations were when psychically probing a deranged killer.

Richard Beymer known for the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank and the 1961 film West Side Story as well as the cult television series Twin Peaks is slumming it here as Dr. Newbury who runs the experiment that, well, not sure of the goal other than to act as a plot device to bring the cast of characters into conflict.

Mixing with this touch of paranormal is a clear dome on Billy’s head where the top half of his skull once was. Why? It looks kinda cool but any bad science reason is not discussed. It is just one more example of the hard science and intense logic that powers this movie’s story. Dr. Newbury clearly works for a well-funded and presumably reputable institution yet treats the more out there aspects as fact rather than a more believable hypothetical eventually proven true by events.

I know this is a cheap movie but cheapness does not excuse lapses like the blind Laura having trouble collapsing her cane. It may seem small but if you go in wanting to enjoy and something happens that is clearly not right you get taken out of the fiction. Laura should be able to collapse a cane with no effort but the actress has obvious trouble.

Laura is also needlessly hostile towards her brother Chris’ (Eric Da Re) girlfriend Jerri (Laura Harring) from the start. This may be another hoe bag picked by him in a long line of skanks (of which Laura is well aware) but she starts their first meeting by picking a fight just before all three head to Granny Anderson’s (Elizabeth Hoffman) for Christmas. It makes both petty and shallow female tropes with no depth. Then again sis makes a self-pleasuring joke to her bro. I have no idea the level of familial dysfunction which would allow the one Laura said to seem like a good idea but it may explain the hostility towards Jerri.

Since Laura and Billy share a psychic link, Billy too is off to Granny Anderson’s to slaughter any and all he finds. Keep in mind he leaves after Laura and follows her route even making the stops she does to get in a kill or two. Yet if I understood the timeline he shows up before her at the house. Am I missing something? Or is it the movie that’s missing something?

For a slasher movie there is a minimal amount of blood in Better Watch Out! You have an instance or two of blood being squirted off screen but the most you’ll see are some moist spots and maybe a wound. On screen kills are nonexistent. It is consistently tight camera shots of individuals mugging in terror. You don’t even see very much actual violence in this movie. It’s practically PG-13. When Ricky finally meets his end (maybe) in this movie you can’t see him that well but you do see the bloody point of what he falls on. 

Perhaps for a sheen of quality Robert Culp shows as Lieutenant Connely who was a never-seen character present for a previous Christmas slaughter. I somehow tuned out which one. Unlike most of the other actors Kulp is trying to create a character making his performance stand out. It is a bit FBI Agent Bill Maxwell. Given a few moments when the camera captures his face I think he knew that he was the only one trying and was very irritated by it. When he’s responding to someone it just looks a little painful. 

Maybe there was some improv done with this movie. Going back to Robert Culp there is a scene where Connely and Newbury are racing off to stop Ricky and Connely goes into a spiel trying to get Newbury to purchase a car phone because Connely gets him $100 off his bill. It’s just a moment that doesn’t work with the rest of the movie. Maybe they just needed a few extra minutes and decided to chuck this in.

While Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 was a halfhearted effort to produce a movie, this here feels like a tepid effort to get a paycheck. They either had a script they changed on the fly or no real script at all. Whatever was done pushes the movie to almost unwatchable because it’s a whole lot of nothing.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! is not a guilty pleasure nor a gory treat. It’s a borderline nonsensical movie that wants to be a deep PG-13 slasher movie with hints of the supernatural. Unfortunately it’s just dumb. Skip!