SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 3: BETTER WATCH OUT! (1989) Directed by Monte Hellman
IVE Home Video VHS
THE FILM
I watched it but, in the end, I'd forgotten what I was watching out for.
...Apart from the killer who wears a plastic dome on his head because his brain is exposed. That's a pretty darn funny concept for a killer. You don't forget that.
Laura, a blind gal, has a psychic connection with Ricky, the killer from Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. Ricky is in a coma with...his brain exposed. On Christmas Eve, Ricky awakens and slowly follows Laura, her brother and his girlfriend (who looks a lot like Laura) to Gramma's house in the countryside. There is some killing along the way. Robert Culp, as a cop, and Richard Beymer, as the slightly mad doctor keeping Ricky alive, hunt him down. In the end, the saga of Ricky and his brother finally draws to a close.
Monte Hellman directed this. He made Cockfighter and Beast From The Haunted Cave. I enjoyed those. There are numerous moments in the film that make me think this is a parody. A good filmmaker making fun of a genre he has somehow got stuck in the middle of. Elements like: Ricky's overall look and attitude. The closing shot with a very funny use of the psychic connection. The Terror playing on every TV. Most of Robert Culp's dialogue. And...that's it, really. Maybe it's not a parody?
Maybe he is making a standard slasher but tweaking it here and there to make it a little different. I can't quite tell. It is one of those films that "almost" is really interesting. But, no one seems too excited about anything. What might have been interesting is kind of blanded out in the end. It's sort of like a Marx Brothers film with superfluous musical numbers and a romance. The Brothers are good. They make you laugh often. But, every time the music starts or the boring couple intrudes, the movie sighs and sits very still.
When Ricky or Robert Culp is on, the movie is fun. When Laura and her brother are on, it's vaguely interesting. But, all the little bits in between seem lifted directly from Slasheria Generica. The film never gets a rhythm going. It goes and goes and ends.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
Looked and sounded great. This probably went direct-to-video so it should.
EXTRAS
Trailers for Lock Up, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! and Weekend At Bernie's. Are these even real movies? C'mon!
FINAL THOUGHTS
If Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 is a parody, then it just doesn't have enough nuttiness going on. It's far too low-key. At this point in slasher history, you needed to be far less subtle because everything was looking like a parody regardless of whether or not it was. It's a mostly entertaining movie but it never really takes off. The sight of Ricky and his exposed brain is amusing for a while...then it becomes part of the landscape. A couple more cans of Jolt Cola passed around the cast and crew might have kick started this one into the Super-Trash realm.
— Dan Budnik, 12.21.07 | 
Works for me
Straight up Kringled
"So, Chris tells me you're psychic?"
Wait for the beep
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