Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989)

“The coma-Santa movie nobody asked for.”


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Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we? 🎥🍿

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⚠️ WARNING:

This movie is NOT for everyone.
Not because it’s gory (it’s honestly not).
But because it’s so bizarrely slow, confusing, and cheap that it might break your brain if you’re not mentally ready.

Alright. Let’s do this.


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🎄 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Imagine taking the killer from Part 2, putting him in a coma, slapping a giant glass dome full of brain goo on his head, and saying:

> “Yeah. This is our slasher villain now.”



That’s literally the movie.

Ricky (the Garbage Day guy) is revived by a scientist because… reasons.
A blind psychic girl keeps having visions of him because… reasons.
And then Ricky wakes up, walks around like a zombie, and kills people because… reasons.

It’s basically a slasher movie that forgot it was supposed to move.
SLOW.
Barely any kills.
And when kills DO happen, they’re just… there.

This is easily the weirdest tone shift in the entire franchise.


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🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Character Rundown

Ricky Caldwell (Bill Moseley)
Yes, THAT Bill Moseley.
And the movie wastes him.
He’s a sleepwalker with a fishbowl brain hat. That’s it.

Laura (Samantha Scully)
Blind psychic girl who constantly looks confused — honestly same.

Dr. Newbury (Richard Beymer)
A scientist who basically exists to stand in rooms and say “hmm.”
He’s doing his best with absolutely nothing.

Laura’s family
They’re here to die. That’s their job.


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⏱️ Pacing / Episode Flow

S-L-O-W.
This thing crawls like it’s stuck in molasses.
It’s weirdly dreamy and low-energy, almost like the director forgot they were making a slasher and thought they were making an art film.

And it ALL takes place over Christmas… but you wouldn’t know it unless characters literally said “it’s Christmas.”


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🎁 Pros

Bill Moseley is here (even though he barely gets to do anything).

The brain-bowl contraption is hilariously iconic.

It’s so weird that it has accidental charm.

The tone is strangely dreamy — almost surreal in a fever-dream way.



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🪓 Cons

Not scary. Like… at all.

Barely any kills.

Incredibly slow pacing.

Practically no plot.

Doesn’t feel like a sequel to anything.

Wastes its lead actor COMPLETELY.



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💭 Final Thoughts

Look…
Is it good?
NO.
Not even close.

But is it memorable?
Weirdly… yes.

This movie feels like someone watched Part 1 and 2, fell asleep, had a bizarre dream about Santa’s brain leaking out of a bowl, and then filmed that dream exactly as-is.

It’s not gory.
It’s not scary.
It’s not exciting.
But it is one of the strangest, most fever-dream sequels out there.

Perfect for “so bad it’s kinda fascinating” Christmas horror marathons.


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⭐ Rating: 4/10

Not offensively bad — just boring, strange, and totally disconnected from the series.


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☠️ Spoiler Warning

The rest of this review contains full spoilers.
Proceed if you dare.


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🎅 Spoilers (Full Detail, No Bullet Points)

The movie opens with Laura, a blind psychic girl, being tested by a scientist who is trying to study her psychic visions. For some reason, she keeps seeing a man in a hospital bed… Ricky Caldwell. Except Ricky isn’t just in a regular coma — oh no, he’s lying there with a giant see-through dome on his head full of pulsing red brain jelly. It looks like someone modded a goldfish bowl into medical equipment, and I genuinely don’t know how this got approved.

Laura senses Ricky waking up but nobody believes her because this movie loves wasting time. Meanwhile Ricky literally gets up out of bed like Frankenstein’s monster, unplugs himself from the machines, and walks down the hallway in slow motion. It’s like watching someone try to escape a hospital after taking too much NyQuil.

Ricky then wanders into the night wearing a hospital gown, barefoot, with his exposed brain sloshing around under the glass dome. He kills a homeless man, kills a drunk Santa, kills a security guard — all in the flattest, least energetic way possible. There’s no tension, no buildup, no slasher energy. Ricky literally just walks up to people and they fall down dead.

Meanwhile Laura goes home to visit her family for Christmas. Her brother and his girlfriend are there, and they all sit around talking about feelings while Ricky VERY slowly makes his way to their house. He walks through fields. Through roads. Through woods. Through daylight. Through nighttime. He basically spends half the movie walking like an NPC glitching through a map.

When he finally arrives, he kills Laura’s brother, chases Laura around the house, and at one point literally sits down at a kitchen table to eat soup while waiting for her to come back. I am not joking. This is a scene. Ricky the killer Santa sits and eats soup.

Laura eventually stabs him, he falls off a balcony, and dies. There’s no big showdown. No catharsis. No epic Santa vs psychic battle. He just kinda tips over and that’s it.

The movie ends with Laura having a vision of Ricky once again, because the franchise desperately wanted a sequel hook that thankfully nobody took.