Back in 1984 the original
Silent Night, Deadly Night created a stir as one of the early examples of holiday horror. The trouble began when commercials on television depicted Santa wielding an axe. Parents actually picketed theaters, and this was far enough back in our history that the furor did NOT generate free publicity and a higher box office. Instead of the planned ramped up release for the holiday the studio Tri Star ended up pulling the title from theaters after only two weeks.
The cultural attitudes would soon soften. Within seven years there would be no fewer than four sequels in theaters and on home video. Here veteran horror director Steven C. Miller works off a script from an experienced straight-to-video scribe to revisit the dysfunction of a murderous St. Nick in a small northern township. Let's get this fallen elf onto the gurney and see why there was more than sugar plums dancing in their collective heads.
00:00:15 Weakened Impulse The credit sequence tries to build dread as it gives us the archaic Christmas carol “Up On The Rooftop” playing on a poor quality speaker, as the camera slowly crawls through a house.
I will be very surprised if we don’t get treated to a haunting version of the Title Song, or maybe a death-metal cover version at some point.
00:01:12 Septic Introduction We see a close-up of our perceived villain as he shaves, and then trims his fingernails. This diligent grooming is in contrast to the bathroom having a Mid-Western truckstop-level of cleanliness on display.
Oh, and also by the young woman trussed and screaming on the sofa.
009:02:25 Tympanic Trauma Our antagonist slowly constructs a mask with white whiskers and then the soundtrack gives way to jarring audio cues as we watch somebody gearing up, but instead of high-powered weaponry and body armor he pulls on red suspenders, matching white fur lined coat, and shiny black belt.
00:03:36 Exploratory Story Incision A guy in a basement is stammering wildly, all while he is tied up with Christmas lights wrapped around his head. Our Santa stands wordlessly before him, clutching a double-headed axe. The guy is panicky, finally blurting out,
”Say something!!” He apparently is unaware the title contains the word "Silent".
00:04:28 Ruptured Optics Santa turns and before mounting the stairs he flips a switch which begins electrocuting the guy, sending out sparks as his eyes burst and the lights pop. This is exactly why you string lights with a parallel circuit.
00:05:58 Blunt Force Dialogue A female is awakened by a phone call. She is Deputy Aubrey Bradimore, called in to work on Christmas Eve by Malcolm McDowell, playing her boss Sheriff Cooper. When she explains she is off duty because someone covered her shift the Sheriff explains:
SHERIFF COOPER:
Jordan is M.I.A. He’s gonzo – outta here – got a whiff of something he couldn’t pass up. MEOW! Uh . . . so . . . therefore we’ll assume Jordan is the guy who was torched in the basement, if that’s all right?
00:07:44 Elevated Foreshadow Levels In her home we learn Aubrey lives with her parents. Mom is straight out of a Whirlpool dishwasher ad from 1953, and dad is portly in a white beard, wearing a tacky Christmas sweater without irony. Dad has a small wrapped package delivered which becomes the McGuffin throughout this procedural.
00:10:55 Plot Stimulant In another home a girl of thirteen years shouts vulgarities at her mother, demanding to be taken to the mall. Then when she spies a Santa at her front door she exclaims,
Great – the Salvation F*#@ing Army!! It is for this reason I felt zero sympathy as Santa ran her through with a cattle prod. (Point of curiosity; based on her age and implement of her demise, is she now technically considered veal?)
00:13:31 Depleted Character Concentration Aubrey is mourning the loss of a lover and stops by the church to pray. The pastor comes to her and speaks in such a lascivious fashion he should be excommunicated simply for being a lecher:
PASTOR:
If there’s . . . ANYthing . . . I can do . . . to ease your pain . . . any-THING-at-all . . . I’m just going to go ahead and call him Father Red Herring.
00:16:51 Locale Anesthesia The town is Cryer, Wisconsin and it is staging a “Parade of Santas”, which means at any given time there are hundreds of portly elves wandering around. Little wonder a citizen has been inspired to murder.
As Aubrey walks among this throng I expected to hear her address each one:
”Hello there, Kris – Hiya Nick – How have you been Kristopher? – Nicholas, how’s it hangin’?”
00:18:31 Septic Introduction Aubrey investigates a complaint of a belligerent, less-than-jolly elf. She encounters Jim Epstein (Donal Logue, pulling along his version of a
Bad Santa).
Following his appearance in
Shark Night I think Donal’s agent should steer away from any future scripts with “Night” in the title.
00:19:04 Cranial Atrophy For the second time within 5 minutes a character mentions Santa getting an erection while having kids in his lap.
00:21:19 Elevated Foreshadow Levels Next we get an anonymous teen who is visiting his catatonic grandfather in a nursing home. While poaching from the old man’s wallet suddenly the codger grabs his arm and intones psychotic warnings to avoid Santa that night. The septuagenarian actually begins his warning:
GRAMPS:
You better watch out! 00:24:26 Arrested Physics Aubrey gets called out to a home where carolers reported a foul smell. She checks out the basement and finds her dead co-worker Jordan, still adorned in lights. However he just expired that morning, so decomposition would not give enough aroma to alert the acapella assembly.
00:31:56 Visual Adrenal Infusion In a seedy motel a softcore photo-shoot is taking place. One model leaves and bumps into the sinister Santa, making his way to the room. At the door he kills the assistant and, as our nude model flees, Nicolas eliminates the photographer by lacerating him in the jingle bells with his scythe. Makes sense, since that was where most of the guy’s blood was located at the moment.
00:33:22 Arrested Physics Going to a bathroom window the topless girl plummets 3 stories, but the white-trash model survives by landing in a pile of garbage bags. She now runs around the Wisconsin winter wearing only boyshort panties.
00:34:22 Adverse Cerebral Activity The model escapes to a Christmas tree lot, but while looking for shelter a wood chipping machine fires up. Naturally, while fleeing naked from a homicidal maniac, she slowly approaches the machinery to investigate.
00:35:52 Iatrogenic Direction As the evil elf feeds her into the blades it feels like I should be critical of the director for choosing a POV shot from inside the chipper, but for some reason I cannot.
00:46:13 Back to the Bad Rev. Red Herring. We learn he is not the killer because, after leering over inappropriately dressed carolers, he gives a dysfunctional sermon to exactly two people in his pews; an elderly lady, and our costumed killer.
The histrionic hectoring ends with over a dozen stab wounds. The old lady bargains for her life, and Santa instead hands her cash the Reverend had pilfered from the collections.
00:50:46 Invasive Pathos As police question numerous Kringles Aubrey encounters one in a bar. After a few questions he tells her a myth about a Santa killing people with a flame thrower – behaving so suspiciously you know he cannot be the actual killer. Aubrey randomly calls a number discovered at one murder and this guy’s red suit chirps to life, so he bolts out of the bar, because . . . um . . .
00:52:14 Cliché Malignancy For no reason this guy jumps Aubrey in the alley. Standing over her he pulls out a knife from his ankle sheath. The camera zooms in as we watch it pulled from the leather holder, but we hear a Foley track of metal scraping, as if Excalibur had been pulled from the stone.
00:55:45 Blunt Force Dialogue Following the attack Aubrey phones her father to say she cannot cut it as a cop. Dad knows she’s good enough, because he’s been a cop for 40 years (a fact I’d guess she already knew). When she warns him not to go to the parade he has more positivity for her:
DAD:
This isn’t the first time a Bradimore had to bring down a bad Santa. 00:55:52 Editing Arrythmia In a scene in front of a chalkboard the Sheriff’s notations about the suspect’s name changes four different times in less than a minute.
01:03:58 Visual adrenal Infusion When now go to the mayor’s home, and while the civic leader is strangled on his patio with a strand of lights his slutty daughter Tiffany is in the pool house with her boyfriend, about to spread her . . . holiday cheer.
Of all the hackneyed holiday references I will say her festive lingerie with the cleavage-buckle might be my favorite.
01:06:19 Technologic Thrombosis In a direct homage to the original film Tiffany snuffs it when she is hoisted onto a set of antlers on the wall and left there to hang like a stocking. I might question who would use anchor mounts for a trophy that supports 120lbs, but then I’d just be nitpicking.
01:10:02 Depleted Character Concentration Aubrey and the Sheriff arrest Jim Epstein, giving Donal Logue the chance to chew the ham as he launches into a two and a half minute long indictment of the holiday season. Entertaining sure, but watching Santa skewering kids and tossing strippers into woodchippers has already delivered that message.
01:15:09 Cauterized Plot Hole Back at the hotel Aubrey corners the Santa who attacked her. In his unit she shoots him after he draws a gun, then in her catatonia she spies the same small gift on his counter that people have been receiving, including her father, and then SHE KNOWS!
Knows “what” is completely arbitrary, since not a single person, including Aubrey, has unwrapped one of these gifts.
01:17:31 Adverse Cerebral Activity Panicked Aubrey calls Cooper with her theory the killer marks his territory with these gifts. The sheriff now opens his own gift – a lump of coal, of course. The killer arrives with his flame thrower, and as Cooper mocks this choice of weapon he becomes incinerated.
01:20:05 Ruptured Optics When the power is cut off at police headquarters the emergency lights have a holiday theme.
01:26:10 Collapsed Climax In a protracted battle with Killer Kringle at the station Aubrey loses two of her weapons, but once tossed through a glass wall she gets ahold of the flame thrower. The killer is lit up like a yule log, and she and a co-worker get outside as the station burns down – this despite the emergency sprinklers running for 15 minutes prior.
01:28:43 Genetic Sequel Mutation During an epilogue we see the unmasked killer with a scarred face, a complete stranger in this affair. He flashes back to the night he watched his blowtorch wielding father get gunned down by Aubrey’s father. As he drives out of Cryer we contemplate how this event traumatized the youth and inspired him to go on his own flame-thrower holiday massacre. I’d like to see the clinical studies which support this plausibility.
01:20:27 Tympanic Trauma Oh yea, Called It!
The closing credits bring on a children’s chorus singing “Silent Night”, which then segues into a metal-rock version. They just could not resist.
POST MORTEM This was an admittedly ridiculous affair but at the same time there was just enough enjoyment as well. The good news is the production served up the gore without taking things too serious. Dumb? Absolutely, but also it contained its fun moments. If you are looking for a holiday horror diversion I recommend ample amounts of spiked eggnog to go along.