In a move few could have expected, Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out chucks a few supernatural elements into the mix, including a blind girl with psychic powers and a mental connection with the now comatose Ricky whose brain is now mounted on the top of his head in a glass jar. Yes, we’re firmly in cheesy direct-to-video B-Movie territory and the film doesn’t give a damn what you think.
Eric Freeman must have been busy, so this time crazy Ricky is played by horror veteran Bill Moseley who is curiously subdued. To be fair, they could probably have cast anyone, as Ricky is essentially a lumbering vegetable who very occasionally stabs someone, usually offscreen. I’m not certain why he has a glass dome on his head protecting his exposed brain or why it’s got flashing lights and an antenna on it, but nobody in the film questions it. It looks goofy as hell, yet the film itself is actually rather dull and un-frightening.
We do start strongly, inside one of the spine-chilling dreams of Laura (Samantha Scully), the blind girl with some undefined ‘gift’. She’s being chased through blinding white hallways by Ricky before eventually bumping into a creepy Santa Claus. It’s pretty trippy but sadly it’s all downhill from there.
It's established that it’s Christmas Eve but there’s not much in the way of decorations or festive cheer. We do get a whole bunch of flashbacks to part one again, though not 40-minutes worth this time. These are meant to be Laura experiencing Ricky’s ‘memories’, though again they really seem more like Billy’s, who’s been dead for years. They don’t include any footage from part two which was Ricky’s story, perhaps hoping nobody would notice they’d switched actors.
Because the Nightmare on Elm Street movies were making a lot of money back then, Laura’s having some sort of scientific treatment for her weird dreams, though it’s not clear if she realises the docs are using her in experiments to communicate with a comatose murderer. I’m also very unclear why the science guys are doing any of this, but it doesn’t help to ask questions in a film like this. This one’s directed by Monte Hellman who had clearly stopped giving a toss by this point in his career.
Anyway, Laura heads off on a road trip with her brother Chris (Eric DaRe) and his bitchy girlfriend Jerri (Laura Harring) just as Ricky is awakened from his slumber by a drunk guy in a Santa outfit, prompting his bloody pursuit. They really miss a trick by not having Ricky wear the Santa suit and were perhaps so proud of the transparent brain dome they didn’t want to cover it. Oh well. For that reason it doesn’t feel all that Christmassy or connected to the other films, other than in the cheeky use of ‘flashbacks.’
Unfortunately, it’s very boring and whenever anyone does get killed we don’t see much. The characters also don’t act like normal humans, like when the gang arrive at grandma’s house, realise she’s gone missing (SPOILER: she’s dead) and Chris’ first instinct is to have some icky, hairy sex in the bath, rather than, y’know, go look for her? I mean, the old lady’s cooker’s still on when they get there, come on!
Extra points to them for the bizarre cliffhanger ending featuring Ricky in a tuxedo wishing the audience a “happy new year”, despite the fact he’s meant to be dead.
Not much seems to happen over this film’s 90 minutes and I’m left feeling that part two squeezed a whole lot more crazy hoopla into half of that. Shame.
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