Under closer examination, Silent Night from director Steven C. Miller isn’t so much a remake/reboot/rebootquel of Silent Night, Deadly Night, as yet another killer Santa tale with a few nods and homages to the original film. We don’t learn much about the backstory of the jolly bearded butcher in this one, but we find out enough to know he had nothing to do with Billy and his messed-up family
Jaime King is Aubrey, a plucky, resourceful cop forced to work Christmas Eve by her asshole boss Sherriff Cooper (McDowell) just as the sinister Santa begins his spree.
It’s another slasher story where almost everyone acts like an exaggeratedly horrible creep, so we’re meant to think it’s okay when the killer guts them with a hook or whatever. There’s the hideously overacting preacher who gets his fingers slashed off during an angry fire and brimstone sermon. There’s the Christmas-hating Santa-for-hire (Donal Logue) who goes on a comical extended rant about all that’s wrong with the season before he's bludgeoned to death. Best of all is the detestable little girl (Laura Cartlidge) who swears at and bullies her mum, right before being zapped by a cattle prod and gutted on her own doorstep. It's not every film that will willingly show the callous murder of a tween, so fair play to them for going that far.
Some of the gore effects are impressive with one scene depicting a head being smashed to a pulp that leaves me wondering how they did it. They also recreate the impaled-on-antlers’ bit, but it’s not as cool this time and the plot feels too loose and ridiculous.
McDowell’s police force are woefully crap, with the Sherriff ignoring Aubrey’s sound advice so many times I become certain he must be the killer. Despite the bodies rapidly piling up, he declines her pleas to call for backup, explaining “We can’t do that – it’s Christmas!”, even though he’s just pulled her in on her day off. The Sheriff also has some bizarre dialogue like, when he’s worried about the force overcomplicating their approach, he implores his team “don’t put avocado on the burger.”
The film does show a few smart touches – having this all go down during a ‘Santa Parade’ makes it easy for the lunatic to hide in plain sight, allowing for some creepy ‘he could be anywhere’ moments. There’s also a well-executed final battle at the police station involving a flame-thrower that’s far more nail-biting and riveting than the rest of the film.
But it’s all too drab, bleak and wilfully upsetting for most of its runtime. A key set-piece sees psycho Santa chase a topless model through the snow, with the poor girl falling from a window, get roughed up as she dashes screaming across town before finally being fed into a wood chipper. It's a heroic, brave performance from Cortney Palm but I’m left really unsure as to why it was deemed essential for the poor girl to do this extended, gruelling scene in just her panties. It’s certainly not sexy and sure is terrifying, but seems really unnecessary and crude. Those hardcore horror fans just love them boobies, I guess.
Though this film is pretty action-packed, it still feels like a lesser effort when compared to Charles Sellier’s original, which took it’s time to tell a proper story and demonstrate how some normal kid could be transformed into a monster. This one’s far more interested in racking up the body count and having everyone be mean and swear at each other. Without much motivation as to why this jelly bellied madman is doing this, it just becomes another forgettable slasher. It’s not bad but not great either. However, as long as they keep making trashy horror flicks like this, Malcolm McDowell will never be out of work.
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