MOVIE REVIEW: Silent Night, Deadly Night

I had already seen Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 before I watched this, therefore I had already seen half of this film since the sequel is mostly made up of flashbacks from it. But it was still entertaining to watch.

It's Christmas Eve and Billy and his family are visiting Billy's catatonic grandfather. When the two are left alone together, Grandpa snaps out of it to tell little Billy that if you were naughty Santa won't just skip the presents, he will punish you. This terrifies Billy and on the way home when they see a man on the side of the road dressed as Santa, he begs his parents not to pull over. But of course they don't listen and it results in their deaths while Billy watches. This, along with abuse from a sadistic nun at the orphanage, drives Billy crazy. At age 18, he reaches his breaking point on Christmas Eve when he has to dress as Santa at the toy store he works at and goes on a killing spree.

Like its sequel, most of this film falls under the "So bad it's good" category, with several scenes making me laugh out loud. Such as the montage with Billy working at the toy store; showing him punching his time card, his boss nodding in approval when he puts something back in its place and when being offered booze, shaking his head and holding up his carton of milk. But I found the opening scene to be genuinely disturbing. And although there wasn't much blood or gore, the deaths were unique and there were a lot of them.

The character development was good when it came to Billy, showing all the traumatic events he endured to gradually turn him into a psycho. But you never really get to know the other characters.

The only thing I didn't like about this movie was all the things the characters did that made absolutely no sense. Why did Billy rip off a guy's shirt before tossing him out the window? Why would a woman open the door topless and stand there for five minutes?

Even though sometimes the characters were stupid and irritating (what horror movie doesn't feature characters like that?), Silent Night, Deadly Night is funny and, in a few scenes, creepy with unique murders. Definitely one to watch this holiday season.

Rating: 4/5

And now for your viewing pleasure, the hilarious montage: