Silent Night Deadly Night 3 : Better Watch Out

Alternate titles : None.

Tagline : "When your nightmare ends, the real terror begins."

Despite Part 2 being a total bore-fest, it didn't stop the producers putting together a third outing. In this, a doctor is conducting experiments on a blind girl, Laura (Samantha Scully), who he believes has psychic abilities and thinks people like her can be used to communicate with coma patients.

However, the particular patient he's trying to get Laura to contact happens to be young Ricky from part 2 (now played by genre regular Bill Mosely), who it seems didn't die at the end of that film and has been in coma for the last 6 years.

Anyway, with it being Xmas eve, a drunken hospital worker stumbles into Ricky's room dressed in a Santa suit and begins taunting him (never a wise idea in an Xmas themed horror film). Causing Ricky to wake up and go on the rampage, breaking out of the hospital, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

He subsequently decides to go look up the blind girl, who's spending Christmas at her grandmother's house, with her brother and his girlfriend Bumping off numerous people on-route, whilst his doctor and a police detective (played by B-movie actor Robert Culp) try and get there ahead of him.

Slow, dull and boring and not much to do with Xmas, except that Ricky from the last film is in it (albeit, played by a different actor). The only thing this film has going for it is the fact it's slightly less worse than part 2.

As with the previous film, I'd advise sticking with the original and not bothering with this.

Overall Marks : 2/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Monte Hellman was not interested in Directing the film and when first approached had also come down with a severe case of the flu, so turned it down flat. However, as he was friends with the producer Arthur Gorson, who insisted he needed his helpt to get the project off the ground fast, he agreed as a favour to him.
• Robert Culp, who played Detective Connely, agreed to appear in the film as he was friends with the Director.
• The hospital Santa that Ricky kills was played by the Director. The scene was originally filmed with Richard Adams as the Santa, who also played the Santa in Laura's dream sequence. But the Director didn't like how it turned out, thinking it looked too mean spirited, and as the original actor wasn't available for reshoots, he reshot the scene with himself in the role.
• Former Mexican professional boxer Carlos Palomino has a small role in the film as a truck driver.
• The film being shown on the TV in the petrol station was the 1963 Roger Corman film "The Terror", which was also co-directed by Monte Hellman.
• Mellissa Hellman, who plays Doctor Newman's assistant, is the Director's Daughter.
• Director Monte Hellman said that he thought this film was his best work, although its not his best film.
• The film's writer was credited as Carlos Laszlo, in reality Carlos Laszlo was the name of the baby seen at the start of the film. The film was actually written by Rex Weiner, who asked to be credited under a pseudonym.
• The sets for the Hospital and the Police station were built inside a warehouse at Newbury Park, California. Filming was done at night and took 10 days to complete the scenes.
• The film was an extrmely rushed production, after Monte Hellman reluctantly agreed to Direct at the beginning of March 1989, he subsequently decided to ditch the original script, and write a completely new one, which they did inside of a week. They then spent a week casting and another week to prepare everything. Filming started April 1st and was finished by the end of that month. The film was edited in May and the sound mixes completed by mid June. The film then premiered at the Barcelona film festival on July 4th.

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