Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

With the release of the upcoming Silent Night, Deadly Night reboot on Friday. I thought it would be fun to go back to watch all 5 movies in the series plus the 2012 remake. Before I begin my usual commentary, I find it humorous that a film like Silent Night, Deadly Night was the result of controversy because of it's depiction of a killer Santa Claus. Bear in mind, that in one of the stories in the 1972 film, Tales From the Crypt was about a killer Santa Claus and in the 1980 slasher flick, Christmas Evil, also was about a killer Santa Claus. I find it odd that these 2 films had a killer Santa story and yet, there was no controversy, no picketing at theaters. Kind of a double edged sword if you ask me. The slasher film genre was at it's peak in 1984, Friday the 13th was in it's 4th film, A Nightmare on Elm Street just debuted, and a bunch of indie slashers were making it's way to video stores. Silent Night, Deadly Night was a film I remember seeing in the VHS horror section in one of many trips to my local video store as a kid and I recall seeing a picture on the side of the VHS of the killer dressed in a Santa outfit holding an axe. That image alone burned into my mind until I finally saw the film years later. Watching it again now, the movie is extremely cheesy in every sense of the word, it's a typical slasher, that's for sure and you can sure bet that it's got bad acting that would make Madonna blush. Surprisingly, the pacing is pretty good and that's saying a lot for a slasher. Silent Night, Deadly Night has a ton of sleazy content which would make Death Wish 2 proud and that film was full of sleaze. Overall, this is the first of 5 movies and now onto Silent Night part 2. Bearing in mind that I've never seen the sequels and I look forward to whatever cheese I'll be getting into.

I'm Jeff Roman.

2/5

 

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