’Silent Night, Deadly Night 1 & 2 Blu-ray Review

The eighties are a movie decade synonymous with the horror genre. Thanks to the rise of VHS, the genre underwent a massive surge in popularity and the market was flooded with all manner of macabre. The biggest sub-genre of them all was the slasher, and whilst many of us are familiar with the likes of Friday the 13th and My Bloody Valentine, most will not have heard of the Silent Night, Deadly Night  movies. The series, which eventually included five films, began in the year 1984 and was fairly controversial on release. It arrived in cinemas in the US the same day as A Nightmare on Elm Street and actually outperformed Freddy the first week of release. However, the film was quickly whisked out of movie theatres after only a week due to numerous complaints about it featuring a murderous Santa Claus. Now comes the chance to fill in any potential horror movie blind spots you may have as the film, and its first sequel, arrive on blu-ray together for the first time.

Despite being a keen watcher of all things horror, I’ll admit that before this new Blu-ray release I hadn’t previously seen any of the five Silent Night, Deadly Night films. I had heard of the first film, it being one of the first horrors to get a festive spin, but hadn’t had the opportunity to give it a watch. Now thanks to this 101 Films release, this blip has been corrected, but how do the films hold up?

Silent Night, Deadly Night actually begins quite strongly. I was expecting the typical silly slasher, and whilst that is where the film ultimately ends up, it begins with a much more serious tone. Young boy Billy, his baby brother Ricky and his parents, go to visit Billy’s grandfather on Christmas Eve. The old man warns Billy that Santa is evil and punishes those who have been even the slightest bit naughty. This strikes fear into Billy’s heart and his anxiety about an evil Santa is proved correct when his parents stop to help a broken down car on their journey home. The car belongs to a dangerous criminal who, whilst clad in a Santa outfit, proceeds to kill both of Billy’s parents before leaving Billy and Ricky for dead. This sequence is incredibly hard to watch, it’s steeped in violence, with a string skew towards sexual violence as the offender thrusts himself upon Billy’s mother. What makes the whole scene that much worse though that it is accompanied by the screams of the baby. These screams instantly induce stress and make for some really uncomfortable viewing. 

The story then jumps forwards a year where we meet Billy at an orphanage run by nuns. It’s the lead up to Christmas and Billy, unable to cope with the trauma of his previous not-so-festive experience, is acting out. His unruly behaviour garners the attention of the Mother Superior who sets out to rehabilitate him with her own violent brand of punishment and teachings. Here the film becomes an ‘origins of a killer’ type story. Watching it back now in light of Rob Zombie’s Halloween, it’s clear that this film may be one of the many that influenced his take on Michael Myers. 

Finally the film jumps forwards again, this time by ten years, where we meet Billy just as he is let out of the orphanage and starts work in a toy shop. All appears okay with the young man, that is until he gets made to pose as Santa by his new employer. The experience is too much for Billy; after experiencing a psychotic break, he begins a murderous rampage and starts punishing those he deems to be naughty. It’s here that the film veers into traditional slasher movie territory, complete with over-the-top deaths, fornicating teenagers, and scantily-clad women. It ticks off all of the boxes mentioned by Jamie Kennedy’s Randy, in Scream, and is most certainly one of the archetypal slashers that films whose conventions filmmakers of today try to subvert. As a modern audience it’s hard to see these deaths as anything but silly, but there is at least still a fun factor that keeps the viewer watching. 

Whilst Silent Night, Deadly Night, is just about passable, the sequel is pretty awful. It’s biggest mistake is that it takes almost half of its run-time – forty of the ninety minutes – rehashing the first film. The story joins a now grown-up Ricky who has followed in his late brother’s murderous ways. He’s been captured by the police and is giving his family’s life story to his doctor.  His story comes complete with flashbacks, or more specifically clips from the first film, as Ricky takes the time to recount every single event from it. It plays like a Simpsons clip show episode crossed with an extended “previously on Silent Night, Deadly Night” and is excruciating to watch if you’ve previously seen the first film. The footage is obviously used to keep the costs of the sequel down; rather than having to fund a full ninety minutes the team only had to generate fifty minutes of new material. It’s a massive misstep though as the primary audience for a sequel is someone that has already seen the original. The inclusion of the, essentially streamlined, first film is extremely frustrating to get through. 

Once through, we get to Ricky’s own story as he links us from his end of first film chant of ‘naughty’ to his incarceration. These stories are filled with some excellent over-the-top deaths, one involving an umbrella being a particular highlight, and so it’s a shame that it takes so long to get to them. By the time they appear, the film has lost so much momentum and viewer interest that it’s hard to truly engage with it. Were it to start from the forty minute mark then we might have something more deserving of attention. 

Accompanying both features is a second extended cut of Silent Night, Deadly Night, which includes around five minutes of padding and extra gore. After having watched the theatrical and the sequel, it’s unclear how much appetite you’ll have to sit through the film for what will essentially become a third time, but it’s a great inclusion for die-hard fans. The release also features a treasure trove of commentaries, interviews, and other bonus features that are sure to please those with an affinity for the series. 

Whilst it may not hold up as well as some of its peers, Silent Night, Deadly Night offers a sleigh full of cheesy slasher thrills. The sequel takes much longer to get going, but still offers some genuinely entertaining moments. The perfect gift for the slasher lover in your life, this release is a must-own for eighties horror aficionados.  

The Silent Night Deadly Night 1 & 2 box-set is released on Blu-ray on the 9th November 2020.