Silent Night (2012)

Director: Steven C. Miller

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Jaime King, Donal Logue, Ellen Wong, Brendan Fehr

Screenplay: Jayson Rothwell

94 mins. Rated R for bloody violence, some sexuality/nudity, language and brief drug use.

After the disappearance of Deputy Jordan (Brendan Fehr, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: First Class) and rising count of corpses start popping up in town, officer Aubrey Bradimore (Jaime King, Pearl Harbor, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) is tasked with hunting down a psychopath dressed as Santa Claus…on Christmas Eve of all days. Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell, A Clockwork Orange, Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness) doesn’t trust the unseasoned young cop, and Aubrey is forced to bet on her gut as a gruesome trail is uncovered, and the culprit may be tied to all of them.

In this, the remake to Silent Night, Deadly Night (though, to be fair, it seems like more of a reboot, but never mind that), we see how flimsy the original film really was. This story is riddled with plot holes disguising themselves as tongue-in-cheek homages to clichés but come off as mere problems with a mostly problematic film. So many half-answered plot threads, so many!

Thankfully, the cast understands the intended tone of the film, and most of them perform admirably, including McDowell and Donal Logue (TV’s Grounded for Life, The Reef 2: High Tide), who plays a drunk and lousy dime-store Santa suspected of being the murderous madman.

Unfortunately, I said most. Jaime King underperforms to an already poorly put together character and can’t handles the front seat of this ride. Her character merely fills up space.

I had fun with this film, as I did with the original it is based on, and I loved the rare send-ups to the original series with heightened my enjoyment. Altogether, though, Silent Night could have been more fun. It wasn’t.

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For more 12 Days of Christmas, click here.

December 16, 2015 2

[12 Days of Christmas] On the Second Day… Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Director: Lee Harry

Cast: Jean Miller, Eric Freeman, Elizabeth Kaitan, James L. Newman

Screenplay: Lee Harry, Joseph H. Earle

88 mins. Rated R.

Sometimes, you get sequels that enrich the original film while furthering the ideas put forth by its predecessor. Sometimes, you get a sequel that spends its first half with flashbacks of the first film. Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is the latter.

After seeing his brother gunned down on Christmas, Ricky Caldwell (Eric Freeman, Children of the Corn) begins to display the same disturbed behavior that Billy had. As he is interviewed by Dr. Henry Bloom (James L. Newman, Flags of Our Fathers, Evan Almighty), Ricky describes the events that led him to a psychiatric hospital, all the while displaying his anger towards Mother Superior (Jean Miller) for her involvement in Ricky’s descent into madness.

This film makes absolutely no sense and nothing actually happens. There are plot holes galore, like the fact that Ricky is just able to walk out the front door of his asylum unnoticed.

Eric Freeman’s performance is nails on a chalkboard. He says his lines in the same monotone voice that would drive anyone he speaks with to a mental institution themselves. Beyond getting himself immortalized in a Youtube video forever, Freeman cannot act himself through the framing device of the film’s first half. He might have Voice Immodulation, so I guess I can’t blame him. No wait, yes I can.

Elizabeth Kaitan (Twins, Spy Hard) is another such actress, but she holds up slightly better in other movies, barely. We know why she is here, though. She shows up. She gets naked. She gets murdered. Standard Elizabeth Kaitan performance.

The trouble started with a poor original film for a sequel, followed by a low budget and a bad screenplay. They continue on with more blandness until your finished project is so bad that a drinking game was invented to get through it. DRINKING GAME: Drink every time Ricky adjusts his eyebrows. Drink responsibly, though, folks. He does this at least 100 times in the film. You have been warned.

“GARBAGE DAY!”

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is just plain garbage. There you go.

1/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Silent Night, Deadly Night, click here.

December 15, 2014 2

[Happy 30th Birthday!] Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

Cast: Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Linnea Quigley

Screenplay: Michael Hickey

79 mins. Rated R.

Today, the horror community celebrates two major 30^th Anniversary milestones. One has been heralded as one of the greatest horror films of all time. The other is Silent Night, Deadly Night. Yes, A Nightmare on Elm Street came out on this day in 1984, but today we are going to examine Silent Night, Deadly Night instead. I’d never seen this movie before today, so I needed to explore it for the first time.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is just bad. It exists in that realm of so bad it’s good, and that’s something. Right? Right? Please? Okay, not so much. I can see the cult status of it. There’s a lot of moments here when I giggled. There’s a lot of raunchy partial violence and partial nudity and partial oddity. Yes, Silent Night, Deadly Night exists in a vacuum of awful, and I can live with that.

It is the story of a tragic Christmas Eve many years ago, when Billy witnesses the murder of his parents at the hands of a psycho killer dressed as Santa. Instead of becoming Batman, he chose to go insane. Through a series of devastating series of very unfortunate and detrimental events, Billy goes batshit crazy and on Christmas Eve years later, an eighteen-year-old Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) goes on a killing spree leading towards the woman who helped make him the monster he became, the Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin, Catch Me If You Can, The Man Who Wasn’t There) of the nunnery he grew up in.

That is literally the plot. Somewhere, Linnea Quigley shows up too. She gets naked and murdered. Standard Linnea Quigley performance (not hating).

None of these actors are really actor. The screenplay isn’t good enough to ask anything of them. In fact, most of the elements of this film are too underwhelming to enjoy. Even the director Charles E. Sellier, Jr. couldn’t handle the gore aspects, so editor Michael Spence stepped in.

Bad movies can breed fun movie times, and Silent Night, Deadly Night does, at least for some. I can’t guarantee you’ll have a good time, but it is pretty stupidly Grindhouse-y. Worth a viewing, but not worth much.

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

November 9, 2014 3