Silent Night is a loose remake to the original classic Silent Night, Deadly Night and when I say loose, I really mean it. The basic concept of a killer Santa seems to be the only link to the original, besides a few recreated scenes involving a completely out of place crazed Grandpa and a homage to the great deer antler kill (sadly sans topless lady). There also is a quick nod to Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, which I’ll leave up to you crafty readers to see if you can pick up on it. So, now that you know Silent Night is nothing like the aforementioned 80s film, how redeeming is it as an X-Mas themed slasher? I’ll give you a quick hint, if I happened to open the DVD case and a lump of coal was there instead, I think I would’ve been better off…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas Eve.
Silent Night for the most part is awful. The acting from most of the cast borders on being physically abusing to the viewer. Malcolm McDowell, who plays Shrieff Cooper, tries his hardest to ham up his performance with some dark comedy, but more often than not, I was just groaning and rolling my eyes, while clutching my stomach to subside the queasy filling I was getting from watching this tripe. Our lead heroine, Aubrey Bradimore, played by Jamie King, is an 80 pound police officer and one of the only performances in the movie worth anything, unless you count the mute Santa Claus killer. For the most part she does an admirable job with what she is given, which isn’t much besides playing a bumbling cop, who isn’t phased by seeing a dismembered body. She also has a dark past, which is never explained, but I assume it has something to do with a possible dead husband and some sort of Christmas tragedy, most likely involving elves, but I could be totally wrong.
As for the “story”, it really doesn’t make much sense and the ending does a great job at revealing something which amounts to nothing. The film tries it’s hardest to setup a mystery as to who the killer is, but once a few red herrings are killed off, you start to realize even the people who made the movie had no idea who it was. So, come that wonderful ending, you’ll leave with a confused, sick look on your face. Also side note, what’s up with the sleazy Reverend? That guy almost beat out the Santa killer for most scary guy ever award.
There seems to be only one thing going for this movie and that’s the gore. Most of the kills will treat your eyes to a visceral display of plasma and giblets. The most obvious kill and the one that raised my overall rating a little higher, was the wood chipper kill. It truly was a goregasmic display of carnage. It also helps that for the most part, our poor victim was a topless woman running for her life from our killer Claus. (I realize that sentence makes me sound like a sadistic pervert, but I’ll allow it.) Gorehounds, if you can look past the awful acting and lacking plot, you’ll be in for an rewarding, bloody present.
Not much else can be said about this one, besides the fact that Silent Night manages to make the 1984 Silent Night, Deadly Night look like Shakespeare. The acting’s bad, the story’s bad, however the gore is alive and well. I personally wouldn’t recommend this one, but I have a feeling once you find out that Santa Claus wields a flamethrower, there’s nothing that’s going to stop you from seeing it. I wish you luck if you do decide to see it and if by chance you actually disagree with me and come out loving it, leave a comment below and let me know why you think it deserves a higher score.
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