After Silent Night, Deadly Part 2 gained a cult following, it was perhaps inevitable another sequel would follow. After all, this was still the 1980s, the golden age of horror slasher sequels. And indeed, whether we liked it or not, for the next three years, there would be a new sequel released just in time for Christmas.
Now all three sequels actually went straight to video, rather than getting proper cinema releases, and generally I am choosing to ignore straight to video cheapies as they tend not to have any historical merit. Or cinematic merit often too. However, as we've started this Yuletide horror franchise, we must cover them all. And in fairness, as part of a famous horror franchise, unlike other straight-to-video efforts, these three movies have been released many times, have turned up regularly on television, and more recently on streaming services.
So then, from November 17th 1989, in a video store near you, was Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3: You Better Watch Out. Well, you can't quibble about false advertising I suppose! Now in fairness, this movie had some surprising talents involved. To begin with we have a genuine heavyweight character actor, Robert Culp playing a detective. Secondly we have an early appearance by future cult horror icon Bill Moseley, who would find fame and fans galore with his appearances in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986), Repo the Genetic Opera (2008), cult TV show Carnivale, and Rob Zombie’s trilogy of movies featuring the murderous Firefly family.
Behind the camera was another cult legend too, Monte Hellman, who had started out directing The Beast from the Haunted Cave for Roger Corman, and went on to make the highly rated Westerns Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting in 1966 and both starring Jack Nicholson, and also made the cult car movie Two Lane Blacktop (1971). Quite how he ended up with this gig is anyone's guess. However what we do know is that he got the original script by Arthur Gorson and S.J. Smith in March, and promptly binned it, He then got a new screenplay from Rex Weiner, which was revised by Hellman himself and his daughter. Shooting began and finished in April, and the editing was done in May, even with Hellman taking a break to go to the Cannes film festival. And by July, a finished print was shown at a film festival. So from script to screen in about four months! Apparently Hellman was very proud of this achievement in breakneck film making!
Anyhow, what's the plot for this third instalment? Well, it seemed like Ricky Cauldwell was mortally wounded at the close of the last movie. And as this movie opens, we discover Ricky is in a coma in a hospital, but now has turned into Bill Moseley. Furthermore the top of his head is missing and he now has a glass dome in which we can see his brain sloshing about blood. And why? Nobody knows! Because Ricky did not sustain any head injuries at the end of Part 2.
Anyhow he is being cared for by a Dr Bellman played by Richard Beymer who had previously played Tony in West Side Story (1961). Bell is also working with our heroine, a blind girl named Laura, played by Samantha Scully. Bellman is trying to use Laura's psychic powers to reach the comatose Ricky. Again why? Nobody knows!
An experiment on Christmas Eve induces scary visions for Laura, and she leaves the hospital along with her brother and some friends to visit her grandma. However at the hospital, when an employee in a Santa outfit passes Ricky's bed, he suddenly wakes, and resumes his killing spree. A cop, Lieutenant Connely, played by Robert Culp, hooks up with Dr Bellman to track down his murderous patient. However Ricky now has a psychic link with Laura, and is coming to get her…
Now Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3 is perhaps the least loved film in this franchise, and considering how strange Parts 4 and 5 are, that is really saying something. I suspect it gets the most hate for purporting to carry on the Ricky Cauldwell story, yet seems like a totally separate tale. Indeed the Ricky character could be replaced by any serial killer in a coma, and it would not impact the story of this flick in the slightest.
As we mentioned, there is no continuity to explain why Ricky now has a plexiglass bowl skull, and Bill Moseley looks nothing like Eric Freeman. Worse still however, instead of a high octane performance that leaves teeth marks not just on the set but on the moon, instead Moseley's Ricky is mostly mute and slowly shambles about like a poorly programmed robot. And given that Bill Moseley is capable of creating highly memorable and dynamic characters, just asking him to shuffle about like a zombie feels like a waste of his time and talents.
Now in fairness, the movie itself isn't as bad as it is often made out to be. But it isn't that great either. There are some interesting ideas in here, a few nice set pieces, and if nothing else, the late 80s fashions on show are quite entertaining in themselves. But it's not bad enough to be funny really, and overall the movie is just a bit bland.
And that's not an accusation you can level at the next two sequels, both of which also tell standalone stories and head off in their own highly eccentric directions. However, like Part 3 both feature some surprisingly big name talents, and come with an extra subtitle fitted as standard.
So then, the fourth movie in this increasingly eccentric series was Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, released on 21st November 1990. Again this entry had a well known director of cult movies at the wheel - Brian Yuzna, who previously had worked with Stuart Gordon on Reanimator, Dolls, From Beyond, and Bride of the Reanimator, and had just released his own body horror satire Society (1989).
And, perhaps unsurprisingly, he would bring his own distinct splattery and surreal sensibility to Silent Night, Deadly Night 4. Now apparently the initial script was the one by Arthur Gorson and S.J. Smith for Part 3 that Monte Hellman had binned. However Yuzna reworked it with his then usual screenwriter Zeph E. Daniel (here credited as Woody Keith) and clearly adding his own distinct touch to proceedings.
So then, what is the plot? Neith Hunter plays Kim, a reporter on a local newspaper, and she's struggling to be taken seriously as a journalist because the newsroom is a bit of a boy's club to say the least. So she begins to investigate the mysterious death of a woman who fell from a roof and apparently spontaneously combusted. This leads her to a bookshop where she meets Lilith played by Maud Adams no less, who draws her into a rather new age coven of witches. However this group's activities are somewhat darker than just waving crystals about. And soon Kim is having very strange experiences involving giant worms and insects and Lilith is demanding that she make a human sacrifice in the shape of her boyfriend's little brother Lonnie (played by Conan Yuzna).
And to be honest, that's not the half of it. Alongside the great Maud Adams as the sultry and sinister Lilith, we have cult favourite Clint Howard, who plays a creepy guy the coven have on hand as a general dog's body and enforcer. Somewhat confusingly this character is called Ricky, however this isn't Ricky Cauldwell, for in one scene, this Ricky is seen watching Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3 on a television. And for even more cult film connections, Kim's chauvinistic editor at the paper is played by the great Reggie Bannister from the Phantasm films.
However perhaps the real star of this extremely bizarre movie is the special effects work. Created by regular Yuzna collaborator, Screaming Mad George, we get giant larvae, monstrous beetles and some memorably weird body warping sequences, where flesh drips and melts like clocks in a Dali painting.
And what connection does all of this have to the previous movies? None whatsoever, apart from having a Ricky in it. Indeed in the UK, the movie was released without the Silent Night, Deadly Night branding, under the title Bugs. Likewise Christmas itself doesn't feature terribly heavily, something that Yuzna has later admitted was a mistake. However the film's climax does take place in the festive season, so the movie isn’t entirely devoid of Yuletide touches; it’s just that Christmas makes a bit of a late appearance in this case.
To be honest, this is more a Brian Yuzna film than a Silent Night, Deadly Night movie, and taken as such, it does make for an interesting companion piece to Society, as it features a similar blend of surreal horror and social satire. But it still certainly counts as a festive fright flick, and as such, it is possibly one of the strangest Christmas horror movies ever made. However the next instalment in the franchise would, incredibly, attempt to give it a run for its money!
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