Silent Night, Deadly Night was perhaps
the most controversial slasher film in 80's America, it never did see
a cinema or video release here in the UK until 2009 but we had our
own share of film controversy with the Video Nasties. The thing
about the Video Nasties is a lot of them are bad films and if it was
not for the controversy surrounding them they would probably have
been forgotten. Is this the same case for Silent Night, Deadly
Night? Well I'm glad to say it is not, in fact this might be one of
the best slasher film's I've seen.
Unlike most slashers we don't follow the soon to become victims of a mass killer,
instead we see the life of the slasher and the events that drive him to kill. One Christmas Eve Billy
Chapman (Jonathan Best) get's freaked out by his grandfather (Will Hare) who tells him Santa
Clause punishes children who haven't been good one-hundred percent of
the year, Billy been a normal kid knows he has been naughts sometimes
so starts to dread Santa coming, despite his parents (Tara Buckman and Jeff Hansen) protests that
his grandpa was wrong. That same night he witnesses a criminal in a
Santa outfit (Charles Dierkop) kill his father and attempt to rape his mother before killing her too, leaving just Billy and his baby
brother Richy alive. From here we detail Billy's live as he grown up
in a orphanage run by an evil Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvi), the kind of woman who
is so set in her methods of raising and punishing the children she
doesn’t even see the damage she is causing to Billy’s mind. Also
forcing him to sit on Santa's lap despite knowing what he lived
through really helped mess him up, in other words the blood of what
he will do latter in life is on this woman’s hands!
Despite all this Billy seems to grow
into a nice young man, at least this is how he appears on the
outside, getting a job in a toy store he does well until Christmas
comes around and he is made to fill in for the stores Santa on
Christmas Eve, he finally snaps after seeing the attempted rape of
his crush, flashing back to his parents deaths. And so he sets out
to punish the naughty.
What I find most interesting about this
film is its format, sure I've seen other slasher films that show the
killers backstory but this is the first one I know of that actually
follows the killers story for most of the film, it isn't until the
third act that focus switches to the police hunting Billy. We really
get a sense of what he has gone through and most of the film is
dedicated to his character development, he really is a sympathetic
character, we can't blame him for what he does as we know the trauma
he went through and that he never got the help he needed.
The latter half of the film detailing
the rampage is great two, it's set up so we'll go to a scene with new
characters only for Billy to burst in and kill them, yeah we don't
get to see much about these characters except some are bullier and
others like to screw on pool tables but it really feels like these a
scenes right out of another slasher, like you could have made an
alternative film to this where we follow these characters but know
nothing about Billy. This is Billy's story so he is the focus so we
don't need to know as much about these other characters but if you
are a fan of slashers like me you already have an idea what they are
like. Though I did feel that having Billy repeat 'Punish!' over and over sounded a little silly, at least to me.
I also have to say some of the kills
here are pretty creative, yes we have our standard axe swings to the
gut and hammer blows to the head but by far the most iconic of the
film is when the lovely Linnea Quigley is impaled on the antlers of a
mounted deer head, giving a whole new meaning to horny teenager.
Even when a guy is thrown out a window it's a bit more creative when
we see massive shards of glass sticking out of him. The blood and
gore effects in the film, it must be said, are very good.
Other than Linnea Quigley there are
probably few actors you will recognise here, but thats not to say any
of the cast were bad, though some of the smaller roles and the kids at the orphanage may not be the best acting, the main cast give good
performances throughout, especially Lilyan Chauvin as the Mother
Superior who really sells her part, you just want to reach into the
screen and deck this woman!
This is one of the slasher classics,
though I'm sure I don't need to tell any of you that, if you haven't
see this one I highly recommend it. The film also sets it self up nicely for a sequel, how did that go? Well, maybe we'll talk about it another time.
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