When your nightmare ends, the real terror begins!
Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! is a 1989 Slasher Movie.
Ricky (Bill Moseley) awakens from a coma due to forming a mental link with a blind psychic girl. Ricky (who has a snazzy clear dome replacing the top of his head, exposing his brain and its fluids) becomes obsessed with the girl and stalks her as she heads to her grandmother's house for the holidays, killing everyone in his way. On Ricky's trail are his slightly mad doctor and a high ranking law enforcement official.
This film has examples of:
- All Just a Dream: The film seems rather fond of this trope, giving us three dream sequences in the first 15 minutes alone.
- Bad Santa: Laura encounters one during the opening dream sequence.
- Barrier-Busting Blow: Ricky punching through a door to grab Jerri.
- Berserk Button: The color red sets off Ricky's murderous urges.
- Big "NO!": The hospital Santa's last words when Ricky closes on him.
- Blind Seer: Laura.
- Bloodless Carnage: The film borders on this; most of the deaths occur offscreen, with only the aftermath being shown. The deaths that are directly shown are fairly tame, with at least one using what is obviously ketchup squirted directly from a bottle as “blood”.
- Body Horror: Due to damage to his head, Ricky has a transparent dome which exposes his brain and its fluids in place of a skullcap.
- Creator Cameo: Director Monte Hellman plays the poor fool that wakes up Ricky and gets killed for his trouble.
- Dull Surprise:
- Samantha Scully (not that one). Granted, she's playing a character who's blind, but still...
- There's a scene where Ricky punches through a door to attack Jerri. As his girlfriend is being throttled, Chris says "Holy shit!" in a really, really subdued manner.
- Final Girl: Laura Anderson. Something of a subversion, though; she's seen drinking alcohol and is shown to have quite a bitchy personality, either of which is usually a death sentence in a slasher film.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The hospital receptionist getting knifed.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ricky getting a broken stick driven through his body at the end of the film.
- Leave the Camera Running: Early on, there's a sequence where Laura spends the better part of three minutes sitting around in the hospital waiting room, doing absolutely nothing. When she gets up, though, she finds out that the receptionist has been hacked to death by Ricky.
- Market-Based Title: The film became Blind Terror for its international release.
- Menacing Stroll: Ricky is unable to go faster than a basic walk.
- Off with His Head!: Ricky decapitates Craig, and puts his head on his desk.
- The Public Domain Channel: And all that it shows is Roger Corman's The Terror.
- Psychic Link: One develops between Laura and Ricky when she unknowingly reaches him in his comatose state.
- Psychic Powers: Laura has telepathy, a skill that she shares with her granny.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Ricky's brain dome. Nobody comments on it.
