The first ever holiday slasher proper was a made for
TV production in 1972 called ‘Home for the Holidays’ starring a young Sally
Field. From Bob Clark’s influential template prototype for the sub-genre ‘Black
Christmas’ (1974) up until the late 80s it was one of the prime signature stamps
of this movement of exploitation cinema to milk every holiday and every day of
significance there is. Although the unseen antagonist in Clark’s film lacked motivation
public holidays and other marked calendar dates would later serve as a time of
setting to fit in with the killer’s motive. Following ‘Black Christmas’ in the
same year with another Xmas theme was ‘Silent Night, Bloody Night’ although it
was actually filmed a couple of years previous. However, Crimbo would not play
a part in this marketing niche again until the early 80s during the bloody
reign of the slasher’s golden age heyday.
After the phenomenal success of John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ in 1978 there was a nonstop array of slashers with such memorable day related titles. These included ‘Friday The 13th’ (1980), ‘New Year’s Evil’ (1980), ‘Prom Night’ (1980), ‘Sweet Sixteen’ (1980), ‘My Bloody Valentine’(1981), ‘Happy Birthday to Me’ (1981), ‘Graduation Day’ (1981), ‘Trick or Treats’ (1982), ‘April Fool’s Day’ (1986), ‘Bloody Birthday’ (1986) etc. The Christmas slasher would return right bang smack at the birth of the gory times in 1980 with ‘Christmas Evil’, which was the first to feature a homicidal Santa Claus. This was followed by ‘To All a Goodnight’ (1980) again with another Father Christmas loon sod, ‘The Dorm that Dripped Blood' (1981) - no Psycho Saint Nick here, ‘Don’t Open ‘Till Christmas’ (1984) with Santas themselves actually getting cut up this time and of course the movie in review here ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’. There was of course also the remake of ‘Black Christmas’ in 2006.
‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ is more famous for the
controversy it caused in 1984 more than anything else. It was made infamous
due to the overacting of parents picketing outside cinemas in protest of a killer
Santa Claus even though there were two slashers previous with a similar
premise. Fuelling the fire was the typical pomposity of film critics Roger Ebert
and the late Gene Siskel with their damning over the top
televised review reading the production’s credits as naming and shaming. You
can see this below. This all helped give an ordinary little slasher flick more
of a reputation than it would have got if stuffy tight-collared conservative
types had of just left it alone. As it turned out, they managed to get the
movie pulled from theatres and made it more notorious that it really should
have been. Define irony.
The novel entitled ‘Slayride’ written by Paul Caimi would
serve as the basis for this entertaining jingle all the way slice ‘n’ dicer
that is dark, disturbing, grim, sadistic, unpleasant and contradictive to all
this is also laced with black humour, emotion and a huge whiff of hilarious
unintentional cheese. Uninspired flat TV like direction with poor pacing, stare
inducing plot holes and some terrible acting do not deter from the fact this is
a hugely enjoyable slasher. It does actually have some good things going for it
with the emotional aspect coming in the way of an interesting narrative forcing
us to sympathize with the killer. Billy Chapman is not only the villain here but
also the poor victim. He never had a chance from the beginning after a tragic
childhood incident one Christmas has left him deeply disturbed and unable to
try to have a normal life due to the film’s damning depiction of catholic
narrow mindedness. The hindered recovery from his childhood trauma due to his
psychological and psychical abuse in an orphanage inflicted upon him by a downright
nasty Mother Superior Nun drives him over the edge into insanity with murderous
consequences.
We first see a black screen as we hear the sound of a
young boy creepily singing a traditional Christmas carol. While the child is
still singing a wreath of holly appears in the background as it slowly moves
towards the screen and as it gets closer, we can make out the words above on
top of it - ‘Silent Night’. When it stops in full view towards the end of the
carol as soon as the boy stops singing a splatter of bloody graphics drowns the
screen and becomes the rest of the title card - ‘Deadly Night’ accompanied by a
startling musical sting. As the credits appear, a strange atmospheric musical
score follows incorporating surreal sounds. Fading in the non-diegetic
soundtrack disappears and we hear the diegetic sound of a car radio as we are introduced
to the Chapman family as they are driving along to visit the man of the family’s
elderly father who resides in a mental institution. In these interior scenes of
the car taking place on Christmas Eve, 1971 we meet little Billy aged 5 sitting
in the back seat riding along with his parents and younger baby brother Ricky.
When they get to the mental institution we find that
Billy’s grandfather is seemingly in a state of catatonia. As Billy’s parents go
to the office of Grandpa’s doctor to see his records leaving Billy alone with
him Grandpa suddenly comes out of his supposed catatonic shell. What follows is
a creepy yet hilarious over the top massive ham of a performance as Grandpa
tells Billy the terrifying truth of Santa Claus that is a guaranteed bellyache
of laughs. After a scene of the family driving home with Billy voicing his
frightened concerns about Santa visiting this year with the revelation that
Grandpa spoke and told him a chilling tale we cross cut to a convenience store.
A nasty piece of work in a Santa Claus suit is robbing it shooting dead the
store clerk when he tries to resist. He then drives off. Sure enough, the
Chapman family driving along then stops when they see the same man in the Santa
costume pulled over by the side of the road. Asking him if he needs help he
then pulls his gun on them. This scene is hardcore in the brutal stakes as shot
dead is Billy’s father and then his mother dragged out of the car, has her
blouse ripped off and her throat slit. Billy is hiding after getting out of the
back of the car watching as his mother is viciously murdered with his baby
brother Ricky crying in the backseat. The children survive.
Flash forwarding three years later, Billy and Ricky are in the care of St. Mary's Orphanage under the supervision of a terrible elder nun Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin). Chauvin provides the real descent performance here and is effectively convincing as she deals out to Billy her methods of “punishment”. Despite the pleas of Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick), that Billy is psychologically tormented due to his parents’ murders and that his disturbances are at their strongest at Christmas time the old hag has none of it. She dismisses the proof she is offered of a disturbing drawing Billy drew in class of Santa Claus stabbed to death with multiple daggers. Taking personal charge of Billy, she subjects him to beatings, ties him to his bed for the crime of having nightmares about his parent’s murders and running out into the hallway and forces him to confront his fears by making him sit on the lap of a Santa Claus visiting the orphanage. The sight of an 8-year-old boy punching and flooring a grown man dressed as Santa is one of my most cherished cinematic moments of hilarity.
There is a pivotal moment in this second act that contributes
to Billy’s tip over the edge in the third. Witnessing a teenage couple in the
orphanage making love by peeping through a keyhole he has a flashback to his
mother’s murder when seeing the young woman’s breasts. Caught by the sadistic
Mother Superior Billy is flung away from the door as she opens it and proceeds
to curse the couple and beat them with the young man’s trouser belt. Out in the
front yard in the snow she confronts Billy and asks him about what he saw and
he replies he does not know. She tells him what they were doing was very very
naughty -
Mother
Superior: “They thought
they could do it without being caught. But when we do something naughty we are
always caught. Then we are punished. Punishment is absolute, punishment is
good.”
These two scenes portray the sexual repression of
catholic understandings and like the slasher sub-genre as a whole sex is a sin
here and Billy deals out the “punishment”
with extreme measures to the “naughty”
who participate. Grandpa’s scary tale and the immediate traumatic experience of
seeing his parents’ murdered that Christmas by a sociopath in a Santa Claus
suit combined with the harsh teachings of Mother Superior is what lends to
Billy’s decent into madness. There is just a tip of the iceberg next to send
him completely over the edge.
Flash forwarding once again to the movie’s present day
of 1984 and Billy has grown into a strapping 18-year-old hunk (Robert Brian
Wilson). Sister Margaret must have jingle bells for brains because she has the
bright idea of getting him a job in of all places a toyshop. Everything is fine
at first as Billy settles in quite comfortably and is happy until of course Christmas
rolls around. Having all things Santa in his surroundings is not helping with
the stability of his mind. Billy has taken a shine to his work colleague Pamela.
One night in a dream having a sexual fantasy of her, as he is on top making
love a Santa Claus stabs him in the back. Waking up Billy gets out of bed and
sits down and huddles in the corner of the room in a childlike state and
together with flashbacks to his time in the orphanage postured in the same
position he is now he cries the words "I
wanna be good. Don't punish me."
Near reaching breaking point, Billy is asked to
replace the store’s Santa Claus who is off due to injury. He cannot take the
sight of himself in the costume for obvious reasons. Evidently, his sanity is
starting to severely lack when he threatens to “punish” a fidgety little girl sitting on his lap in Santa’s Grotto.
When witnessing Andy another man working there attempting to rape Pamela it brings
memories flooding back of his parents’ murder especially of his mother’s due to
the sight of Pamela’s bare breasts. He totally flips now pulling Andy off Pamela
and then hanging him with a string of Christmas lights. Then Pamela being ungrateful
considering Billy just saved her from rape shouts at him calling him crazy
which he bat shit is and gets carved up like a turkey with a box cutter. It is
now up to Sister Margaret to stop him and make up for her incompetence. Obviously,
I do not know whether you have seen this nasty little stocking filler or not,
so I am going to leave the rest of the kills spoiler free as so not to ruin the
surprise of your presents before you open them.
Formulaic but it is what it is. This is an enjoyable
slasher with boobs and splatter galore. There are many highly memorable moments
in this mean spirited festive carve up. The murder set-pieces while lacking a
suspenseful build up in their set-up are executed with merciless callousness putting
down bloody presents under the Christmas tree for any gorehounds. There are
some surprisingly nice camera shots thrown in also. Even a snowman is
decapitated. If the filmmakers set out to entertain a demographic of
bloodthirsty slasherholics then they achieved in what they set out to do. However, if you want solid writing, direction and acting (Chauvin is an exception) then
avoid at all costs. It is the impossible to ignore charm of its cheesiness and an
interesting emotional narrative of its protagonist/antagonist of Billy, which aids
‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ along with its stand out kills in being a
cherished slasher in my collection. Whatever you do though keep away from the abysmal
sequels - “Naughty”!
*** out of ****
Dave J. Wilson
©2012
Cinematic Shocks, Dave J. Wilson - All work is the property of the credited
author and may not be reprinted or reproduced elsewhere without permission.
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