One thing I am always a sucker for are Christmas themed horror flicks. It probably stems from my hatred of this Holiday. It seems taboo to say that you hate Christmas, but if you ever worked in retail, you too would feel the same and would love nothing more then to see Santa Clause hack a bunch of people to death.
So in celebration of this Holiday season, I have decided to write about Silent Night, Deadly Night. The film starts off with young Billy and his family driving somewhere in the middle of Utah to visit crazy Grandpa at the mental hospital. When they arrive, Grandpa is sitting in his rocking chair in his usual comatose state. The parents leave little 8 year old Billy alone with him. Moments later Grandpa warns Billy about Santa Clause, and that if he see's Santa, he better run for his life. This immediately panics Billy and his parents come back but of course Grandpa is back to his quiet state. On the car ride back from the Christmas Eve visit they spot a man in a Santa suite broken down on the side of the road. His parents decide to pull over and help Santa. Little do they know that Santa is actually a burglar with a gun. Billy witnesses his parents get murdered and manages to get away.
This film is separated in 3 parts. Young Billy's back story, his time at the orphanage, and him at 18 as our killer Santa. So we move forward to his time at an orphanage under the rule of a strict heartless nun who refuses to acknowledge Billy's psychological damage, but instead she punishes him for any time he has an episode related to his hazy memory. Over time Mother Superior only adds to his trauma, ultimately creating a psycho in the making, brain washing him to think that "punishment is necessary, punishment is good".
So we get to Billy at 18. He grows up to be a soft spoken hunk! The nice nun who has always looked out for Billy, Sister Margaret, sets him up with a job as a stock room worker at a toy store. Of course the Christmas season creeps up on him and he is faced with Christmas decorations, and even having to dress up as Santa for the children. My favorite scene is when he has to have the children sit on his lap making him so uncomfortable and the worse Santa to take your kid to. One young girl was fidgeting all over, being really difficult and Billy Santa Clause looks right at her and says "you're being naughty" to intimidate her to stop. Hilarious. Shortly after the staff at the toy store has their holiday party. Our sweet handsome Billy sees the coworker he is crushing on being raped by a stock room clerk in the back. Anything sexual is a trigger for Billy since he saw his mother being taken advantage of before the Santa Clause thief killed her. He finally snaps and goes on a killing spree in his Santa Clause suit. Some of his killings include a Christmas light strangling and even pushing a teenager through deer antlers mounter on the wall. At the end of the film Billy makes his way back to the orphanage Christmas Morning to finish his rampage and kill Mother Superior. All the children in the orphanage embrace him as he walks in, unaware that he is not the Santa they had in mind. Billy takes his ax and lifts it to kill Mother Superior, but in the nick of time is shot down by a cop and the day is saved. The real tragedy is that he didn't get to kill off Mother Superior since she is the person who inflicted all this mental abuse that created the monster he became. All the children scream and Christmas is ruined. Chances are these children are all going to be a bunch of Billy's in the making and are going to need lots of medication and therapy. At the very end of the film we see a young boy who looks disturbed by all this and already putting people on his "naughty" list. Of course this leaves room open for a sequel.
What I love most about this movie is all the uproar that took place when it was released. A bunch of conservative bible hugging parents protested, as well as Siskel and Ebert who publically called out the director, writer, and producer of the film on their show and stated that this was a film made to ruin Christmas and just wanted to make money off of shock value and blood guts. The film was even pulled from the theaters shortly after it's release. So of course that means that this film is nothing short of awesome, and a must watch for anyone into slashers. Another interesting idea from this movie is that it's not just a "Killer Santa" film. It's a film that allows you to empathize, relate, and even feel bad for the killer. The real monsters of the film were the ones responsible for creating and adding fuel to the fire of Billy's post traumatic shock of seeing a man in a Santa costume murder his parents. This low budget flick does hold some great performances by Lilyan Chauvin who played Mother Superior. Her strictness was up to par with that of Sister Jude from American Horror Story. The fan favorite seems to be the short role of Grandpa played by Will Hare. His Christmas warning sets the tone for the rest of the film and is quite chilling. That scene makes me think, was he having a premonition, did he just want to torment Billy, did he too have a Christmas trauma, did he really have these comatose episodes or was he faking it to spite his family? Regardless, it kick starts this movie early on. Naughty or nice, this film is a must see! It has a great concept, it's fun and slashery, and it celebrates the true meaning of Christmas. It also has a really cool movie poster!
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