Sick of Christmas cheer? Then how about some Christmas FEAR! Luke Owen kicks off a look back at the killer Santa franchise with a review of Silent Night, Deadly Night…
Released on November 9th 1984, Silent Night, Deadly Night was a movie that was surrounded by controversy. The TV spots depicted a man dressed as Santa carrying an axe and murdering people, causing enraged parents to picket the movie during its opening weekend and subsequently got the movie banned. Although they clearly had not seen the movie, many felt that it was wrong for Santa to be portrayed as a killer – not knowing the fact that it’s actually a deranged and psychologically tortured man dressed as Santa doing the killing as opposed to Chris Cringle himself. It’s a classic tale of morons being told they should be offended by something as opposed to being genuinely offended.
After being scared to death by his mentally ill granddad about the horrors of Christmas (and Santa in particular), a young boy by the name of Billy witnesses his parents being brutally murdered by a two-bit crook dressed like Father Christmas. Taken in by a orphanage run by nuns, Billy comes under the wrath of Mother Superior, who has very strict and harsh lessons when it comes to naughty children. As he turns 18 and leaves the orphanage, Billy takes on a job as a stock boy in a local toy shop. However, when he is made to put on a Santa suit to entertain children, something inside him snaps and all his psychological torture is manifested in a killing spree across town focusing on the naughty boys and girls who must be “punished”.
Although the film hasn’t aged particularly well, Silent Night, Deadly Night is a really decent slasher movie that is more than just a “tab-a into slot-b” horror. It delves deep into the mind of our protagonist and it raises interesting questions about nature vs. nurture and how this can effect the mind of someone who is already troubled. Billy may be doing the killings, but the true villain of the film is Mother Superior who shows no compassion for Billy’s troubled past. Watching his parents get murdered by a guy dressed as Santa was certainly the catalyst for Billy’s troubled childhood, but it is Mother Superior’s teachings that he’s dishing out – just on a more violent scale. Because of this, Silent Night, Deadly Night is a lot different to the slasher movies that were out at the time as it focused more on the psyche of its killer as opposed to just putting a guy in a mask and giving him killing implements.
However, with this being an 80s slasher movie, there is a good emphasis put on the kills and Silent Night, Deadly Night thankfully doesn’t disappoint. There aren’t a huge amount of them and some could argue that the movie is fairly bloodless, but the iconic ‘antler scene’ is quite graphic and uncomfortable to watch. Charles E. Sellier Jr. masterfully forces you to watch each antler pierce the poor woman’s skin and it’s a stark contrast to the more comedic ‘sled death’. The movie also features a typical amount of nudity for a horror movie released in the 80s and also has one of the best (read: unintentionally hilarious) ‘working hard’ montages committed to cinema.
While it could be viewed as comical now, Robert Brian Wilson does a really good job as the 18-year old version of Billy and you get a genuine sense from his performance that his childhood was tough. Unlike a lot of movies where they have several actors play a character throughout his years, Wilson feels connected to his younger counterparts, which is helped in part by some ideal casting of the child actors looking a lot like him. His problem however comes with pretty unreadable dialogue. Like Eric Freeman in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (which we’ll look at tomorrow), Robert Brian Wilson just cannot deliver lines like “punish” and “naughty” with any true conviction or passion as they just sound silly. But as an imposing presence, he really shines and the mad look in his eyes is incredibly piercing.
What’s interesting about Silent Night, Deadly Night in terms of its place in horror history is that in its opening weekend, it beat out a movie that would become an incredibly popular franchise – A Nightmare on Elm Street. Granted, the movie’s negative publicity and subsequent banning meant that Freddy went on to become one of horror’s biggest icons, but playing Devil’s Advocate does raise questions about how the rest of the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise would have gone had the movie not been pushed away by angry parents.
Regardless of its immediate impact, Silent Night, Deadly Night has become somewhat of a cult favourite and often packs out midnight screenings around the festive period. It isn’t the best example of what the genre has to offer at the time, but it’s a lot better than most and it at least tries to do something different. The outrage against the movie is beyond stupid and had the movie marketed itself a little better at the time than we might be having a different discussion, but the acting is solid, the deaths are good and although the movie is a little silly in the dialogue department, there is an awful lot to like about Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Its sequels on the other hand? Well, let’s get into those…
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published December 16, 2013. Updated November 7, 2019.
