Well we’re now halfway through the franchise, It’s been 6 years since Ricky was shot down and it turns out that he’s been kept in hospital for testing. The doctor wants to see if his clairvoyant patient can contact Ricky, but it has dire consequences.
One thing you soon realize with this film is that it’s not going to be as bad as number 2, which is a relief, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going be a bad film anyway. Another thing that is noticeable is the replacement of Eric Freeman as Ricky, A young Bill Moseley is now playing Ricky and it just shows you how bad Eric Freeman was.
Dr. Newbury is convinced his blind clairvoyant patient Laura is contacting Ricky through her dreams but is holding back and not saying what she’s really seeing. These images and flashbacks that Laura is experiencing are starting to disturb her and she thinks she’s going nuts.
The visions she’s having are the events of the past 2 films and she has no idea that she’s contacting Ricky, who’s in the other room and are attached together by machines and only separated by a window. The make up of Ricky’s brain is brilliant and Bill Moseley shows us why he’s become such a cult actor in the Horror genre.
Also Richard Beymer who plays Dr. Newbury is great to watch, a master at his craft and it’s understandable why he had such a strong acting career, nearly 50 years of a career in fact. Samantha Scully is also great to watch, you can see her slowly slipping into madness with the visions she’s having and when she realizes what’s going on with Ricky her reactions are fantastic.
Despite all the great acting on show in this film it doesn’t make the awful script any better and you feel let-down, the film is all over the place and the dialogue is awful. Also after the abundance of flash-backs in part 2 you soon get sick of seeing the same flash-backs again in this film. If it wasn’t for the great acting then this film could have been worse than number 2, it’s only worth watching if you’re curious as to what happens to Ricky.
You have to start wondering “is it really that hard to make a decent sequel?” well it seems for this team it is too difficult, but wait there’s 2 more films to go……
Miscellaneous fact about the film:
The screenplay by Carlos Lazlo was thrown out shortly before filming and totally rewritten by Monte Hellman and Steven Gaydos. In arbitration however, Gaydos did not receive a writing credit at all, and Hellman only got credited for the story.
