Movies
Bill Moseley Shares Emotional ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night 3’ Memory
“In Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, I actually cried.”
Three years after his breakout role as Chop Top in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, horror icon Bill Moseley was cast as the returning Ricky Caldwell in Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out. The character, the polar opposite of Chop Top, was a mute slasher with his visible brain encased in a glass dome atop his head, and the bizarre film centered on Ricky’s pursuit of a blind young woman he formed a physic connection with. The holiday slasher franchise is a weird one, and believe it or not, the third installment is far from the weirdest sequel.
It’s been 27 years since the Monte Hellman-directed Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 was released straight to VHS, and speaking with Broke Horror Fan, Moseley just reminisced about the experience. Why did it make him cry on camera for the first time? He explains:
I remember that was the first movie I ever cried in. I could slice and dice people, but when I was asked if, need be, would I ever be able to cry on screen, I was afraid that I couldn’t. I was the son of marine, a tough kid growing up in the country in Illinois, not a very emotional person. But in Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, I actually cried. There’s a moment where I was getting fed by a very wonderful grandmother character, who gives me soup even though I have this brain cap with my exposed brain and a bunch of orange juice. Everything says, ‘Don’t let this guy in your house.’ But I ate a spoonful of her turkey soup, and I started crying. Monte Hellman was deeply touched. [laughs] That was my happy reminiscence.
Moseley added:
I really enjoyed working with Monte Hellman. Who knew that Monte would ever do a horror movie? I enjoyed the part. I didn’t get hurt, so that was good. That check did clear.
If you’ve never seen Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, Moseley is the reason you should!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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