Silent Night, Deadly Night

Title: Silent Night, Deadly Night

Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

Released: 1984

Starring: Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Linnea Quigley

Plot: As a young boy Billy was left traumatised when he saw his parents being killed by a man dressed as Santa Claus. Now years later he works in a toy store were he after he forced to dress as Santa Claus which causes him to suffer a psychotic break which soon sees him on a murderous rampage.

 

Review: While “Christmas Evil” might have been the first horror film to feature a killer Santa on the rampage, it would as I covered in my review for that film, soon be overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the release of this film, which many still mistakenly credit with creating the idea of a killer Santa. Unsurprisingly though parents didn’t exactly warm to the idea of the Christmas icon being warped in this way and descended upon cinemas in angry mobs to protest the film while critics branded the films as being pure shock tactics as shown in the documentary “Going To Pieces: The Rise and Fall of The Slasher Film”. Pulled from theatres by the original distributor TriStar Pictures, the film would two years later be re-released by independent distributor Aquarius films with a market campaign which unsurprisingly played off the earlier controversy while paving the way to the film becoming a cult classic.  

It is kind of sad that the film is more remembered for the controversy it caused than the content of the film itself, which no doubt few (if any) of the films protestors bother to actually watch the film they were protesting. If they had, perhaps they would have discovered a film with surprisingly more depth than many would have expected from a slasher movie like this. For here great effort is given to establishing the cause of Billy’s psychosis, for he is far from the usual nutter of the week, for as a child we see him dealt the double whammy of watching his parents being killed by a killer dressed as Santa Claus aswell as the insane ramblings of his Grandfather, who his parents felt Christmas Eve was the perfect time to go visit him, because after all nothing spells out festive fun like a trip to an asylum. Sent to an orphanage Billy is further bombarded with a heavy dose of Catholic dose at the hands of the Sister Superior who firmly believes that Billy can be put on the right path through the use of regular punishment. Needless to say all this mental trauma leaves Billy as very much a ticking timebomb and a mind set which we see coming together with the slow burn first half as Director Sellier ensures that he highlights each piece which add to Billy’s eventual breakdown  and devoting the first forty minutes of the film to outlining these reasons.

This understandably can be frustrating to those expecting another throwaway slasher which was very much the case the first time I saw this film. Due to the build up to Billy’s snap, you can feel the tension being slowly cranked up especially during the scene were he is forced to play Santa, dealing with spoilt and figiting kids as he begs them under his breath to behave almost as if he can feel himself tittering on the edge. Needless to say when Billy does finally snap, he really wastes little time in making up for it and if variety is the spice of life, then Billy comes with a whole spice rack of creativity when it comes to his kills as he set out to punish those he views as naughty. A personal mission which sees him not only putting a fire axe to good use, but also getting creative with a box cutter, bow and arrow and even a set of deer antlers while racking up a healthy body count. However these victims frequently have no real connection to Billy and more often than not just happened to be in the bloody path he is carving on his way back to the orphanage.

While it might seem from the setting that the film is about a serial killer Santa, the whole costume is really more of a coincidence seeing how it happens to be what Billy is wearing when he snaps and unlike Harry in “Christmas Evil” is less fuelled by a Santa delusion, especially when he is judging people as “Naughty” it seems to be based more on Catholic dogma than anything to do with Santa’s naughty or nice list. However these judgements do lead to a creepy moment were Billy encounters the younger sister of one of his victims, who after being informed of how good she has been, hands her a bloody box cutter which is something I would have preferred to have been one of the candy canes we see him handing out to kids earlier in the film. As such the scene comes off slightly confused, much like the scene were Billy freezes while looking at a Christmas poster while the smaltzy “Warm Side of The Door” by Morgan Ames plays in the background.

Wilson though is really great as Billy, especially during the scenes requiring him to showcase his fragile psyche, even with his size and toned psyche he is still able to sell these moments, while at the same he never oversteps the mark when it comes to Billy’s psychotic side which never falls into a farcical performance even if it does largely consist of him growling naughty and holding a stone cold glare.

One of the real strengths of the film though is the soundtrack provided by Perry Botkin, Jr. whose soundtrack Sellier uses mainly to highlight the current state of Billy’s psyche with the music becoming more erratic the closer to the edge he gets. Outside of these moments he also provides some truly haunting themes for the rest of the film including the title sequence which is filled with dread and it only makes it more suprising considering that he was also responsible for also producing the soundtracks for both “Happy Days” and “Mork and Mindy” whose sunny setting are the truly at the opposite end of the spectrum to this film.

Creepy though is one thing this film has in spades from the crazy grandpa ramblings and the chilling psycho Santa attack on Billy’s parents, even the Christmas decorations frequently have a creepy edge to them, which really makes me wonder where these films find such creepy decorations or perhaps the 80’s Christmas’s were just a lot more creepier than today’s which is no doubt the case looking at some of the horrible jumpers of Christmas past which seem to haunt my childhood Christmas photos.

Needless to say this film is worthy of its cult status and while certainly heavier than “Christmas Evil” it still brings plenty of originality to the table, while audience seemed to prefer their Serial Killer Santa’s more icy cold than confused judging by how this film spawned a further four films, while “Christmas Evil” remained a solo curiosity.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker

Title: Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker

Director: Martin Kitrosser
Released: 1991
Staring: William Thorne, Jane Higginson, Tracy Fraim, Mickey Rooney, Brian Bremer, Van Quattro

Plot: When Derek (Thorne) sees his father (Quattro) killed by a toy that was anonymously delivered to his house, it leaves him too traumatized to speak. Meanwhile, a toy maker named Joe Peto (Rooney) is building some suspicious-looking toys, and a mysterious man (Fraim) creeps around both the toy store and the boy's house...but who is responsible for the killer toys?

Review: The last film in the “Silent Night Deadly Night” Series while continuing on the same alternative path established by the previous entry, with the first three films having been more focused on serial killer Santa antics, which had lead to the original film being protested by the PTA and eventually removed from theatres but not before it had outgrossed “A Nightmare On Elm Street” which opened on the same day. Bizarrely “Christmas Evil” which also featured a serial killer Santa and released four years before “Silent Night, Deadly Night” managed to somhow avoid any of controversy upon its release.

Now no doubt like myself you are looking at that poster and thinking that this looks like  pretty badass looking flick, especially with Derek being surrounded by those creepy looking creations. I mean this is a photo cover so this means they have to be in he film right, unlike the painted posters which usually greatly exaggerate events in the film. Well you as well prepare to be disappointed as none of them appear here making me wonder were they actually got them from, as clearly that is the movie I really want to see. Okay perhaps I am being alittle unfair as the film does manage to pull out a few interesting creations like the face burrowing Larry the Lavae and a pair of rocket skates, the only other real surprise was that it was a killer toy movie with no sign of Charles Band being attached. Still even with this late entry in the series it is nice to see Brian Yuzna still involved in the series after directing the previous entry and here he returns as producer while handing directing duties to Kitrosser who is probably better known as a script supervisor (including Tarantino’s first seven movies) than for being a director for which this film would be his debut.

Despite being his first time in the directing chair this is still a confident effort and actually one the better killer toy movies and something of a welcome relief especially after my recent ventures into the genre with “Demonic Toys” and the later entries in the seemingly never ending “Puppet Master” saga as Kitrosser pulls out some fun toy attacks which are on the whole pretty satisfying, even though the spacing between these moments is where the film does starts to come undone especially when time is given to the mysterious stranger Noah who ultimately turns out to not be worth the screentime, much less the random alfresco sex scene he engages in with Derek’s mother which seems beyond out of place and seems to only have been included to keep the audiences attention. Equally frustrating is the fact that Derek is a mute, thanks to Thorne not exactly being the most talented of child actors and instead switches between three faces of bored, shy or Prozac happy.

The toy effects are simple yet effective while a disembodied hand proves itself less convincing especially when in some shots it looks essentially like a hand in a rubber glove, especially when it is clenching a guy’s ass. Still long term Yuzna collaborator and underrated special effect guru Screaming Mad George still manages to give us some fun attacks including a mini army of toys attacking Derek’s babysitter and her boyfriend after they don’t even wait for him to go to sleep before they are having sex, which seemingly happens a lot seeing how unfazed Derek seems about this, much less when he walks in on his parents having sex at the start.

The real strength of the film comes from Mickey Rooney and Brian Bremer as the toymaker Joe Petto and his oddball son Pino, whose names give a cheeky nod Pinocchio, while also strangely hinting at the secret they are hiding. Rooney in particular is on great form and only makes me wonder why he hasn’t played more creepy roles and especially when he is so good here easily switching between being the kindly toymaker and his much darker self, especially when he beats on Pino for disappointing him as  a son. Still it is surprisingly to see Rooney agreeing to be in this at all, especially when he wrote a letter of protest against the first “Silent Night, Deadly Night” stating that the “scum” who made it should be “run out of Town” for having sullied the sacredness of Christmas, though it would seem he has dropped the grudge by the time this film came about, with his performance not exactly making it seem like an actor just taking on a film for the work. Bremer on the other hand is creepy from the start as he lurks around the toyshop and continually running off to hide in the basement, while later even breaking into Derek’s house to rummage around his mother underwear drawer, though what this has to do with his final plan is anyone guess, while his performance goes completely bonkers at the end with him even randomly trying to dry hump Derek’s mother!

Not a bad final entry for the series, but one certainly not helped by having such a flat script, yet at the same time awhole lot better than the majority of killer toy movies and the evil Mickey Rooney, almost makes up for many of the films issues, including a sagging middle section which was more than alittle testing especially when it seemed that Kitrosser had lost focus on the sort of film he was supposed to be making. Still while it veers close to batshit insane with its finale, it is stil another watchable addition to the series.