SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
(1984) 0 (out of four)
This one caused a huge controversy when it was first released, but not for the right reason. While everyone was worked up over the fact that SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT depicted a man in a Santa suit killing off horny teenagers, they should have been boycotting it because it's the worst slasher movie ever made.
From the very first moment, the mysteries of the movie are 100% predictable. First we see a family driving along on Christmas Eve, talking about how Santa punishes naughty children, and we know the traumatized little kid in the back seat will become a psychotic killer who kills the "naughty" people (such as anyone who was associated with this movie).
That plot development is further cemented when the family goes to visit catatonic grandpa and the parents leave the kid alone with him. It's obvious the old guy will suddenly start talking to the kid, filling his mind with more nonsense. And then, as a catalyst, we are shown a scene with a man in a Santa Claus suit pumping three bullets into a convenience store clerk. In the next scene, the family stops to pick up a stranded motorist in a Santa suit -- coincidentally, the same guy. Even more coincidentally, and for no reason, he kills the kid's parents, ripping mom's shirt open for the first cheap two-second breast shot.
So this kid starts off with a Santa psychosis, which is continued in the next few scenes, as he and his baby brother are sent off to a Catholic orphanage, one of those orphanages where the nuns beat kids who engage in "naughty" sexual activities and are tied up if they leave their beds at night. Now the kid equates sex with naughtiness, naughtiness with punishment and punishment with murder. Flash forward to the present, where the kid, now eighteen years old, is given a job in a toy store. And that Christmas, after he starts shaking from seeing the giant Santa poster, the owner asks him to dress up as Santa Claus. And the filmmakers don't expect us to see any of this coming!
After scaring every kid who sits on his lap, he notices two co-workers slipping into the back room for a quickie. That's when the fun begins and Santa first strangles the man with a strand of Christmas lights (which stay lit throughout the murder) and then hacks up the woman (after a cheap two-second breast shot, of course). The owner comes back to see what the commotion is about and gets killed himself. Then the last remaining woman gets shot with an arrow. Not only are we supposed to know any of the movie's plot twists beforehand but now we're also not supposed to wonder why there's a real bow-and-arrow set in a toy store instead of a cheap Nerf imitation.
Just when you don't think it's possible, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT degenerates even further, as the killer Claus interrupts two people making love on a pool table ("Two ball in the corner pocket"), killing the girl by impaling her on a set of deer antlers (no kidding) and after the boy calls out to his girlfriend, "What are you doing up there?" (She was too dead to reply "Just hanging around.") Santa gets him too. But he spares the little girl because, when he asks her if she's been naughty, she replies that she hasn't. If some psycho with a hatchet asked me if I deserved punishment, I'd most likely respond in the negative as well, but that's just me.
A few victims later, Santa returns to the orphanage for vengeance and the stage is neatly set for a sequel. Actually, there were four sequels to SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, none of which could possibly top the original for sheer awfulness. There's even a scene here where the killer walks by a snowman and decapitates it, something I actually jokingly suggested would happen beforehand. Like I said, you see everything coming in this movie, then they show you everything that's already happened in flashback scenes just so you won't forget why the guy in the Santa suit is killing all those people. This movie assumes its audience has a double-digit I.Q. -- which is probably the only demographic that would enjoy it.
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