A bit weird. The director\writer seems to have mixed up the original movie with Twin Peaks? In fact, I doubt that they even watched the original movie at all because [spoiler]in a flashback they show the priest being shot by the cop, not Ricky...[/spoiler]

They have more or less abandoned the Santa Claus thing, but I guess they already did that in the ~~clip show~~ second movie. Now they just throw around some Christmas ornaments and call it a day.

What distinguishes "Silent Night, Deadly Night 3" positively from the second installment is that it is not a clip show. Unfortunately, on the other hand, almost all the entertainment value that the predecessors had has been lost. Most of the kills take place off-screen and can therefore do nothing to to spice up the rather dull plot. At most, the stupid look of the killer, this time embodied by Bill Moseley, provides a few chuckles. And a few dream sequences are also quite interesting, but not enough to make a good, or even mediocre, film. Ultimately, this flick lacks wit, gore, and competent actors.

Santa Claus Killer apparently didn't die and has been brought back to life by a mad scientist and there's a blind woman who finds that she somehow develops psychic connection with the killer. It's better that the second film. Caldwell is back wearing a metallic helmet exposing his brains and acting like Frankenstein. I appreciate that they try something new here. There's no axe-wielding Santa killer but it has some uncommon ideas that are executed really well and the final result is an imaginative psychological horror. Bill Moseley's performance is decent but I feel like he's underutilized in this one.

Well, culthero Monte Hellman did some interesting stuff after the horrible, awful Part 2 of the Silent Night Deadly Night franchise. I knew nothing about the cast when I started watching 'Better Watch Out'. Then the first (dream) scene made me realise it's quite Twin Peaks-ish. The next surprise was the Twin Peaks All-Star cast with Richard Beymer and Eric Da Re. So it's the Twin Peaks vibe (tons of mumbo jumbo scenes) with Ben Horne and Leo Johnson plus the main character's name is Laura? Wow, hold your horses Mr. Lynch!
Hellman tried to reinvent the franchise with a step to 'psychological horror' from 'ordinary slasher'. It's not perfect, sometimes it's painful to watch (especially if you don't fancy the Twin Peaks/David Lynch vibe), but nonetheless a refreshing approach after the garbage 2nd part of Silent Night Deadly Night.