Believe it or not what we have here is the tip of the iceberg in the whole sorry franchise that is Silent Night, Deadly Night. The first was released in 1984 and the second sequel in this set in 1987. Since then we have been treated to three more blood soaked Yuletide greetings! Thankfully the last was in 1992 and by the looks of it they are done with the franchise.
Upon its original release, which was extremely limited due to being pulled only after a few days in cinemas, and not because it was a terrible film. Instead, it was due to the obvious controversial nature of the film. There comes a time when you have to ask your self; is nothing sacred? And does the world really need a film about a homicidal maniac dressed in a Santa suit? Well the filmmakers ignored this and have given us a collection films that are in the "So bad its good category!" Heck even Ed Woods’ films look genius compared to this! In fact, it's films like this that drinking games were invented, allowing you to wipe all traces of it away and wake up in the morning blissfully unaware of the travesty viewed from the night before.
The first feature begins on Christmas Eve 1971 with a young family on their way to visit their catatonic grandpa currently residing in a mental hospital. Whilst there, grandpa comes alive and starts speaking to little Billy while his parents aren’t around. He gives Billy some handy hints regarding Christmas before they leave:
| "Santy Claus only brings presents to them that's been good all year. All the other ones, all the naughty ones, he punishes! What about you, boy? You been good all year?" |
Now if that isn’t enough to freak out any little boy on Christmas Eve I don’t know what will! While driving home they come across a man wearing a Santa suit pulled over on the side of the road. Little do they realise it is the same Bad Santa that has just held up a convenience store killing the clerk in the process. Naturally Billy isn’t too enthused about meeting Santa tonight after his little chat with grandpa! Doing the right thing Dad pulls the car over to help out St Nick and what follows is one of the most senseless and depraved acts of violence. Killing the father followed by a somewhat implied rape & murder of Billy’s mother. Little Billy manages to elude Santa, his younger baby brother Ricky spared also. At least they didn’t kill the baby!
Both brothers are then shipped off to an orphanage run by the mean old nasty Mother Superior, with Billy now carrying the scars of that traumatic night. Now if you thought what the grandpa had to say was a hoot check out what this penguin has to offer young and impressionable minds. Her mantra being, punishment is absolute, punishment is good!
Flash forward 13 years later and Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) is now 18 and is given a job in a Toy Store for Christmas. The nuns firmly believing that the horrific events of his childhood are a distant memory for Billy now. Wrong! Billy is roped into playing Santa on Christmas Eve in the store, filling in for the regular who is MIA. After the store closes Billy witness’s the storeman trying to rape a female clerk in the storeroom triggering off the violent memories of his youth setting Billy off on a killing spree dishing out his own special brand of Christmas cheer; punishment for all the naughty boys & girls by hacking them to pieces. All the while keeping his eye on the ultimate prize, mean old Mother Superior that brought him up in the orphanage.
The sequel contains roughly about 50% new footage. No Joke! Following on from were the first left off. Billy's baby brother Ricky (Eric Freeman) is all grown up now and it seems has followed in the footsteps of his older brother. Ricky has been locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane. The first half of the picture comprises of Ricky talking to a shrink retelling the events of the first film almost in its entirety. What’s most puzzling is Ricky’s ability to recall events from when he was an infant, and incidents that he wouldn’t possibly know about from Billy’s point of view within the first film.
Ricky then chronicles his tragic upbringing after leaving the orphanage and what lead him on his own little killing spree that landed him in the nut house. Naturally Ricky doesn’t last too long in the there, dispensing the shrink after some truly banal dialogue, and severe over acting of the eyebrows by Eric Freeman. I have never seen an actor act so much with a set of eyebrows! It was like they had a life of their own! (Ed: You haven't seen two greek uncles argue then).
With Ricky on the loose he seeks out Mother Superior with the intent of finishing off what his big brother didn’t do all those years ago……..Punish!
The video for Silent Night Deadly Night Parts 1 & 2 is average. Presented in 1.85:1 and enhanced for widescreen displays, the transfer is pretty much a straight NTSC to PAL conversion. Taken from the Region 1 Anchor Bay Collectors release; the image has been cleaned up and is relatively free from film artefacts with only the odd bit of dirt and grain noticeable. The colour appears a little washed out, instantly dating the films. I’m not too sure if this is intentional or not.
Around the 38-minute mark of the first film a dramatic shift in picture quality occurs repeating itself throughout the last half of the film, which is due to the reinsertion of deleted footage of gore and nudity that was removed for censorship reasons. It is very noticeable as the deleted footage hasn't been colour corrected to match the rest of the film. I found it very annoying as it took me out of the film when the reinserted footage showed up, very sloppy.
Overall the image in Part 1 tended to suffer more from MPEG compression artefacts than anything, playing havoc with small object detail and looking very blocky at times. Part 2 was a lot sharper, and I didn't notice any MPEG artefacts that plagued the first feature. Strange really as they are both encoded at the same bit rate.
If you can look past the offensive nature of these films there are a few laughs to be had. In fact if you are planning or partaking of a bad movie night you would definitely take the door prize with this pack. The level of acting is poor (except for the previously mentioned eyebrows!), not even scream queen Linnea Quigley's brief performance stands out in the first feature. The scripting is even worse; the main problem with these films is that they take themselves too seriously. If they had of done these films for laughs it might have been a different story, however. Troma films have this market cornered in my opinion.
The sequel completely does away with the need to watch the first film and makes me wonder who would finance such a project, in fact even green lighting more sequels! I have not been subjected to the three other sequels as yet, and I have no desire to. These two were enough for me.
Rumour has it there is a move to remake the first one by the people responsible for the Texas Chainsaw remake. HBO did a remake a while ago under a different name that went largely unnoticed. I really can’t see anyone improving these films and I don't think the world of cinema needs another film in this vein. The damage has been done.
