SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984)--Directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr. Stars Lilyan Chauvan, Gilmer McCormick, Robert Brian Wilson, Britt Leach. One of the most notorious--and hilarious--slasher movies of the era. Angry parents picketed theaters where this Tri-Star release played during the 1984 Christmas season, and Siskel and Ebert ripped it on their television series, causing the studio to pull it. The controversy definitely caused more people to see it than otherwise would have, and when it came to home video, it was in an unrated version blessed with additional footage. The reasons for the parent groups’ ire appear to have been the one-sheet, which showed the arm of an axe-wielding Santa slithering down a chimney, a barrage of television ads, and what they supposed to be a plot about a killer Santa Claus. In fact, SILENT NIGHT concerns a psychotic teenage boy who goes on a Christmas Eve killing spree dressed in a Santa Claus outfit. Um, well, maybe the protesters had a good point, but SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT was hardly the first movie to feature a killer Santa, so who knows what brought them out from beneath their rocks this time.

It’s hard to know where to start describing Sellier’s film, a combination of wonky dime-store psychology, ludicrous logic, clumsy performances, riotously funny plot contrivances, and the most ill-conceived, out-of-place musical montage in the history of film, one so absurd you feel it must have inspired Trey Parker’s brilliant montage parody in TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE. Christmas Eve, 1971. Little Billy witnesses his parents being murdered by a liquor-store robber dressed as Santa. Of course, the killer has to rip open the mother’s blouse before slitting her throat, and how lucky for us that Jane Housewife left the house on this cold December day without her brassiere. Fast-forward three years later to the Catholic orphanage where Billy has been placed, where the cruel Mother Superior (French actress Chauvan) beats Billy for spying through a keyhole on a pair of teen fornicators, forces him to sit on the lap of the Santa visiting the kids (Billy socks him in the jaw and knocks him to the floor), and then ties him to his bed to endure annual nightmares of Santa Claus “punishing” children like himself who have been naughty.

Eventually Billy turns eighteen (and is played in the second flash-forward by Wilson), and with the aid of the friendly Sister Margaret (McCormick), he lands a job in a toy store (good thinking, Mags) owned by Mr. Simms (Leach), where he fantasizes about hot sex with his female co-worker while enduring barbs from his bullying supervisor in the stockroom. For some reason, Simms has a giant inventory inversely proportional to the size of his store, which is doing so poorly this holiday season that he still has Halloween costumes and Easter toys on the shelves.

Billy’s fear of Christmas explodes into full-fledged craziness when Simms asks the lad to don a red suit and whiskers and play Santa for the young customers. As thoughts of “naughty” and “punish” pelt his brain, Billy finally goes postal at the store’s Christmas party, wiping out all the employees in various gory ways. With Sister Margaret hot on his trail, Billy wanders around town, murdering fornicators and setting his sights on the orphanage where he endured his abusive childhood.

If there’s one thing that Sellier and writer Michael Hickey do reasonably well, it’s building audience sympathy for Billy, who certainly grew up with the short end of the stick. Although they present the material in a wildly funny over-the-top manner, it’s easy to see that Billy isn’t to blame for his actions (that’s considering you buy in to the psychological theories set forth by the film, which are admittedly a heck of a reach), causing us to react to his killing spree with mixed emotions. While a few of his victims clearly “earn” their deaths by virtue of being bullies or rapists or trigger-happy cops, many of them do not.

As if the elements of child cruelty, Catholic-bashing, graphic violence and abundant female nudity aren’t sleazy enough for one film, SILENT NIGHT trumps them with its uncomfortable anti-woman stance. Granted, nearly all slasher films, if not the whole horror genre, have been accused of misogyny, but I’m afraid this film actually earns the criticism. One of Billy’s kills is a rape victim, who thanks Billy for strangling her attacker by calling him “crazy” and a “bastard”, resulting in a close-up of a box cutter slicing open her stomach just below her bare breasts. Two other women are murdered while topless, even though the film goes to elaborate and unbelievable lengths to justify it (would you open the front door during the winter to let the cat inside while wearing nothing but a pair of cutoff jean shorts?).

On one hand, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is reprehensible, a film as ugly in its attitude as in its approach. But of course, some people will choose to watch it for that very reason, and it’s true that, viewed strictly in Bad Movie terms, it’s a delight. Sellier piles on the gruesomeness, the heavy psychological twists, the deux es machina story elements to write himself out of a corner (like the character who is (poorly) introduced well into the film’s second hour to resolve the plot), and the outrageous juxtaposition of sex and violence in manners so heavy-handedly that you’d have to be working actively against the film to not laugh at it. The strictly mercenary motives for making this film are clearly obvious, and a glimpse at SILENT NIGHT’s box office, as well as the presence of four sequels (many in name only), prove that the filmmakers’ approach was the right one. I wonder how successful this crudity would have been if Siskel and Ebert had just ignored it. Filmed in Utah by the producer of the GRIZZLY ADAMS TV series and all those Sunn Classics docudramas like IN SEARCH OF NOAH’S ARK and THE LINCOLN CONSPIRACY. Tara Buckman (THE CANNONBALL RUN) and Linnea Quigley (SAVAGE STREETS) contribute nudity to Sellier’s cause. Perry Botkin Jr. (BLESS THE BEASTS & CHILDREN) provided the score.

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The DVD includes a phone interview with Sellier, and it's amusing listening to him seem proud of certain aspects of the picture, but at the same time, really pretty embarrassed by it overall.

John Charles

The funniest extra on the DVD is the letter from Mickey Rooney during the films original theatrical run that lambasts the film and its greedy producers for destroying the meaning of Christmas. Only 8 years later Rooney would star in SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 5!

I saw the unrated video version of this and thought it was pretty entertaining. The review above does a pretty good job of capturing the viciousness and the campiness of this "no holds barred" exploiter.

In the UK, No 2 got into real trouble with the BBFC and was banned outright on video (no 1 was never submitted). It had the misfortune to be released soon after an event in a town called Hungerford in which a maniac walked down a suburban street and shot dead a lot of people (in excess of 10 i believe). No 2 has a dream sequence which eerily parallels this event and that caused it to be banned. It has never been resubmitted for release.

My favourite scene in the series is from No 3 in which the killer walks out of hospital garbed in his operating gown and with his brain exposed from an operation under a glass tank (after having killed several people). He then stands by the side of the road for a couple of hours and manages to hitchhike a lift!!