A different way of telling a story

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

(Credit to IMDb) The Ricky Caldwell, the "Santa Claus Killer," once thought dead, has been brought back to life by a crazed scientist. A blind woman finds that she is somehow psychically connected to the reanimated serial killer.My mind was overflowing with merriment at the thought of watching this one! If you can't sense sarcasm, I don't know what to tell you. After the atrocious second movie, they decided to go the route of many franchises, by going STV. This movie was so unbearable I only lasted an hour with it! It's almost as dull as watching paint dry. Barely ANYTHING happens! It's filled with painful chit-chat that bored me to tears. It's also filled with crude dialog that irritated me to no end. This is set in a hospital! One of my favorite settings in a horror movie, because a hospital is a very scary place to be! They fail to capitalize on this. It's almost like they didn't care, deciding to half-ass it, knowing it was going STV anyway. These STV sequels were hard to find, and now I wish it stayed that way. There isn't even any gore, or so bad it's good type fun to be had in this one. The acting is extremely amateurish! Horror veteran, Bill Moseley makes a surprisingly bland psycho. Laura Harring shows up in an early role. The cast looked like they were reading lines off a cue card! Thoroughly disinterested in my opinion. Stay far away from the sequels! Watch the original...and then be done with this series! This is 60 minutes of my life I'll never get back! All because I was insistent on watching every movie in this series. This series would take a bizarre turn with the next two, and there wasn't much improvement. I love the original, but I'd rather be shot with a paint-ball gun in the nuts several times than watch the sequelsDUD (0/10)

"Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!" is the third installment in the infamous Christmas-horror film series; this entry focuses on a young blind woman, Laura (Samantha Scully) who seems to have clairvoyant powers. In fact, her doctor has been using her in an attempt to 'channel' the comatose Ricky (Billy Moseley), who was responsible for a string of murders on Christmas Eve some years before. Christmas Eve finally arrives, and Laura goes with her brother, Chris, and his girlfriend, Jerri (Laura Harring) to her grandmother's house in the country. Unfortunately, Ricky awakens from his coma, and targets the three travelers.Anyone familiar with this series knows that these movies are not examples of stellar film-making; the first film, however, has rightfully gained its place in the hall of appreciated cult slasher flicks. The second entry in the series was admittedly a complete disaster, and this third follow-up takes things in a different direction, for better and for worse. In some regards, there are things to appreciate here; the opening dream sequence is a great start to the film, and the aspect of the protagonist's blindness could make for some very scary situations when being stalked by a killer; unfortunately, this opportunity is completely under-utilized. Instead, we get a sort of hokey clairvoyant connection between Laura and Ricky (ala "Halloween 5") that is fairly silly.The acting is decent for a direct-to-video horror flick- in other words, it isn't great by any means, but the performers get the job done. Most interesting are a younger Bill Moseley playing the villain (back in his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" days), with his brain enclosed in some bizarre plexi-glass case that rests on top of his head, and a very young Laura Harring (notable for her performance in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive") as a snarky girlfriend. Samantha Scully is essentially a no-name, but she is decent in the main role and has the right look for it. My biggest problem with the film, though, was how it lacked surprises. There are dozens of opportunities that are never taken, and because of it, the film seems to drag. There is nothing in the way of scares or tension - we get a little bit of atmosphere when the trio arrive at grandma's house, but that's about it. The psychic element of the characters gets tiring after awhile, and the lack of scares or surprises gives the audience little to nothing to chew on. The lack of a score in some of the more dramatic scenes also makes things almost too awkward; the film could have used something more in terms of music. It's kind of a bummer when you take the premise into account, because it could have been much more than it was.Overall, "Silent Night, Deadly Night III" is a bit of a disappointment. The film has an interesting cast who were, for the most part, just starting their careers, and it has a few inventive dream sequences and a slight use of the Christmastime setting. These few things, however, can't make up for the film's shortcomings: lack of suspense and surprise, very little music, and the shoddy psychic subplot. Maybe worth watching for fans of the series, but it's a mostly uninteresting film on its own. 4/10.

The third film in the series, and the last to have any relation to the previous films (The sequels that came out after this one had nothing to do with part 1-3 other than being set in Christmas time) is about Ricky, the brother of the psychotic Santa Claus killer from the first film who is now in coma. A psychiatrist is using a female patient with telepathic abilities to communicate with him on a subconscious level or something like that. Ricky eventually wakes up and sets out to find the woman, committing murder every time he sees the color red. Almost like bulls in cartoons eh? In this case it's because it triggers his childhood trauma as red was the color of Santa's suit. His psychiatrist and a cop is hot on his trail, hoping to catch him before it's to late.Ricky, this time played by Bill "Chop Top" Moseley is more like a partly braindead and nearly mute sleepwalker here and not so much of a cheesy wisecracker as in part 2. The brain in the plastic cap thing seemed a bit silly at first but it didn't bother me as much as the movie progressed. And in case you're wondering; sorry, but he doesn't wear any Santa suit here.The acting and the dialog is OK for the most part, the best are the scenes were the doctor and the cop exchange some interesting quotes.Bottom line is that it's a decent slasher movie, better than part 2, but not as good as the first one.

Dr.Newbury has saved the life of the hideously injured Ricky Caldwell.The doctor has encased his patient's explosive brain inside a Plexiglas cap,yet he has failed to revive him from his deep coma.In Newbury's attempt to reach the comatose victim's mind,he connects Ricky's brain waves to a gifted clairvoyant,Laura Anderson,who unexpectedly taps into the dark and twisted realm of his haunted dreams.Ghastly things begin to happen and detective Connoly(Robert Culp),must fight to stop the dangerous experiment."Silent Night,Deadly Night 3" is a mediocre horror film at its best.The pace is horrendously slow,the script is terrible and the acting is weak.Still there are some interesting camera angles and the film is suitably interesting.The next sequel was a completely unrelated gorefest from Brian Yuzna,whose unusual vision—often rejected by series fans—was at least a change of pace.6 out of 10.