I felt like I needed to bring down the Christmas spirit that yesterday’s film gave me, so why not watch a film where Santa is a killer. Step forward ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ (1984). And I thought I had got enough of slasher films after October. But there is a reason that I am watching this film, the clue as to why is in the title. I don’t have much else to say here so let's just crack on with it. The film follows Billy (Robert Brian Wilson), a young man who was traumatised as a child when he witnessed a man dressed as Santa Claus murder his parents. Him and his brother are taken to a catholic orphanage where Billy is consistently punished by Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin). After turning 18 he gets a job at a toy shop where, on Christmas Eve he snaps and goes on a murderous rampage, murdering all those who have been ‘naughty’.
I half expected this film to be terrible, but it is actually a pretty solid slasher film. That doesn’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things, and it is not exactly high art. But for slasher fans (which I think I might reluctantly be) it delivers exactly what you would want. Performance-wise it is as you would expect. I don’t want to say it serviceable because I think that is a bit harsh, but it is whatever the level is above serviceable. No one stands out but each actor does their job so I can’t complain. The film is also absolutely fine on a technical level. There are a couple of moments where shots are a bit off or the editing isn’t great, but it is mostly decent. Again, it does the job it needs to do in delivering a decent slasher film. And when you have that solid base to build on you have an opportunity to make a solid and entertaining slasher film. All you need is fun kills, and this film has at least a couple. One of them involved a character being pierced onto the antlers of a mounted deer head, and the other is where a bully has his head cut off while he is sledding and his body continues to sled down the hill. Is any of it scary? Of course not, it is a slasher film. But it is fun if you’re into that kind of thing. One other thing I should mention about the death scenes in this film is that, at least in the version I watched, the quality between shots is very jarring. At first, I had no idea why this was happening, but then I noticed a trend between all these and upon further research, my suspicions were proven correct.
Those suspicions were that this film was butchered in the editing room and the shots which were of a lower quality had been added back in at a later date. And yeah that is exactly what happened. This was a hugely controversial film when it came out with, mostly due to the advertising campaign which juxtaposed holiday cheer with murder and terror and did this during daytime shows. Is this controversy warranted? Well no but creating controversy around slasher films seemed the thing to do back in the day so it isn’t surprising that it was controversial. It is no worse in terms of nudity or violence and gore than many of the other slasher films f the day. But the fact that it took Santa, everyone’s favourite chubby man, and made him a killer (even though he technically isn’t) probably rubbed people the wrong way. What makes this funnier is that this film is relatively tame for today's standards. It even feels kind of tame for the time if you ask me. Like I say, it is a solid slasher film with a few decent kills, but it isn’t anything special. Still, I had fun with it and I am sure I would have enjoyed it had I seen it in 1984 as well. I’m all for getting a bit more excitement into Christmas.
At the end of the day, there is only one reason I wanted (and needed) to watch this film. Yes, it may have turned out to be a better slasher film than I had expected, and I did have a decent time with it overall. I would also recommend it if you are a fan of slasher films. But that isn’t why I watched it. The problem is that I am a little bit of a completionist when it comes to film series and I couldn’t start this franchise anywhere but at the beginning. But it is ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ I wanted to watch, it was the sequel ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2’ (1987) that I really wanted to see. Why? For the memes. Obviously.
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