Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984; Charles E. Sellier Jr.)

When it comes to christmas horror movies, there is absolutely no shortage. The idea of a warm, chubby Santa visiting just makes the soon-to-be-victims feel so at ease. Unfortunately, people seem to think not letting go of this idea will make it better. Whatever. Bring it on.


Fuck, I hate this part. Young Billy (Bill, William, What-have-you) goes to visit his grandfather when he is young. His grandfather is in a mental hospital sitting around, apparently unable to talk. As his family steps out of the room for a minute to see what the doctors think of their poor grandfathers condition, the old man glides his eyes over to Billy and tells him to beware of Santa Clause. I forgot to mention that this is on Christmas Eve, but whatever, it is a Christmas movie, and he is talking about Santa Clause, so I suppose I really shouldn't need to spell it out. On the way home from the mental place, they run into a man in a Santa suit who seems to be having car troubles. The man turns out to be a psycho, and proceeds to kill Billy's parents.

Billy grows up, is haunted by that night, and blah blah blah starts killing people dressed as Santa. Look, I tried to get detailed, but I just couldn't take it any longer. It had to end.

For what I expected to just be a nice night with a shitty movie ended up being a nice night with a pretty enjoyable film. I can not stress this enough however, do not take this movie seriously. If for one minute you actually try to watch this as a serious movie, just shut it off. While this film offers some pretty decent gore, I personally don't find gore itself very serious. I find it is only serious when the tone of the film as a whole is serious (see any comedy/horror in existence as proof of this).

Like I just said, this film displays some fair amount of gore, (and like I didn't just say) a good amount of nudity, and a decent amount of those two combined (see the still above). As anyone remotely interested in horror knows, those ingredients never get old (mixed together is always preferred... I am not creepy at all).

So what I guess I am trying to get at, is while this film really doesn't prove itself as a gem (no inspiring camera or color work) if you approach it with a light heart, you will find yourself having a fantastic time.

One last thing to point out: I really enjoyed the score in many parts of this film, so if you have the pleasure of watching this piece, take note of it.

Score: 4/5 (Slasher Score)
or
2/5 (Taken Seriously)

Notes: Nun Sex, Spanking