Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

hyped garbage

Excellent but underrated film

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I have watched this film when I was a little kid. Since then, I re-watched it many times. When holidays comes, my wife want to watch Christmas films, I recommend this one. Even she watched this film twice. I am not religious person, but I like this concept. This film is well acted and well directed. Soundtrack is awsome. It is psychological thriller, it has violence and gore, it has sexy scenes too with good looking boys and girls. All that combined with killer Santa Claus. It is beautiful film, you will be entertained and you will be disturbed. What more do you need?34 years later, still the best Christmas film. Santa knows if you've been bad !!!

In 1971 Billy and his family are traveling to see Grandpa at a Utah Mental facility. Grandpa seems to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The parents along with his little brother, Ricky see the doctor privately. They leave Billy alone with Grandpa in the rec room. When Grandpa suddenly talks, it scares Billy. He tells him Christmas Eve. is the scariest time of year. If children have been the least bit naughty, Santa punishes them. On the way home Billy tells his parents what Grandpa said. They are shocked and tell him not to listen to his stories. While traveling on a pitch black road a guy in a Santa suit waves them down, well Billy freaks and tells dad don't stop. Well they do anyway to see if he needs help. When the guy in the Santa suit approaches the car; he pulls a gun on the family. They try to escape, but the only one able is Billy. He runs into the field where he sees his father shot and his mother murdered and raped.Three Years later in 1974 Billy is 8 and Ricky is 3, they are in St. Mary's Orphanage, in Utah. Billy still has the scars of that night and it shows. One day in class he draws a grim picture of Santa and his Reindeer. He is immediately sent to see Mother Superior. The Mother Superior is stern and believe in punishment. Sister Margaret feels for Billy. She knows he is severely traumatized, and the Christmas season makes him worse. The Mother Superior ignores Sister Margaret and punishes him anyway for the picture, among other things that occur during his stay at St. Mary's. It's 1984 and Billy has aged out of the orphanage. He needs to find a job and with Sister Margaret's help he does. Billy gets a job at Ira's Toy's, and he is the ideal worker at first. He impresses his Boss, Mr. Sims that it makes his co-worker Andy jealous. When the Christmas Season rolls around though, Billy changes. One day the store Santa hurts his leg ice skating. When Billy is approached by Sims to work someplace else in the store, Billy is all for it. When he finally finds out what his job will be, he S##T's in a way. He starts to change psychologically more. After playing Santa on Christmas Eve, the store has it's annual Christmas party. It seems to be going well at first everyone is jolly; Sims who is so drunk approaches Billy. When he says those words "you know what Santa does on Christmas Eve, don't you" Billy Starts to crack. Slowly he goes on a killing spree in the store, then though out the State of Utah. If he sees anyone doing anything Naughty( Bullying, Sex, E.T.C.)he will make them pay. This psychotic behavior is from those events of the night in 1971; and the treatment he received from the Mother Superior at St. Mary's Orphanage. Thus triggering him back to the Orphanage; to find the Mother Superior that was so abusive to him. This film is pretty cool,not too much gore; but you will have the typical boob show in this film.

In his book Poetic Diction, Owen Barfield posits that there is a moment in the evolution of every language where conditions are perfect for a masterpiece to be born. It's a moment when a majority of the speakers of the language fully understand how it works, but the "rules" have not yet been chiseled into stone. There exists a perfect balance of structure to build upon without the rigidity of form.Doubtless Mr. Barfield would object to his philosophy being applied to the slasher film genre in general, and Silent Night, Deadly Night in particular, but the application is apt nonetheless. The 80s were a perfect storm in the evolution of cinematic language of the slasher film. The films that preceded that time had not completely codified the tropes of the genre, and the films that followed were necessarily works of imitation and deconstruction. But at the exact balancing point between chaos and convention, Silent Night, Deadly Night emerged, whole and complete and perfect in every way.The story opens with a typical family going to visit their grandfather in a mental institution on Christmas Day. He sits in his wheelchair, seemingly catatonic, until the rest of the family leaves little Billy Chapman alone with the old man. Then he begins to speak, whispering to Billy that Santa Claus rides out each year, not only to bring presents to the good children, but to punish those who have been naughty even once.Later Billy's family stops to help a man in a Santa suit who has broken down by the side of the road; but the man turns out to be a robber who brutally murders Billy's mother and father right in front of him.As the years pass Billy has an understandable fear of Santa Claus, despite having blocked the specifics of that night from his young mind, but the Mother superior at the Catholic orphanage where he is raised believes the best way to treat his phobias is by administering ever more stringent discipline, forcing Billy's fears ever further inward. This song of psychological trauma finally crescendos into madness when an adult Billy is asked to wear the garb of a department store Santa Claus.Silent Night, Deadly Night is fascinating because of the line it walks between bowing to the tropes of the 80's slasher film, and making its own way. On the one hand it indulges in violence for violence's sake, killing off amorous teens and stereotypical bullies in increasingly gruesome and creative set pieces. Take those scenes out of context and it could just as easily be Jason Vorhees or Freddy Krueger lopping off heads and impaling nubile teens on mounted antlers (do you get it? She's horny). But context is everything. And Billy Chapman is not like Jason or Freddy. His backstory is not painted in a broad strokes flashback narrated by the people he's about to slaughter. We see how he got to be this way. He's not a supernatural, unstoppable force. He's just a guy who's been taken beyond the breaking point by the cruel twists and turns of life.Silent Night, Deadly Night drags the subversive truth of how we view slasher films into the cold light of day; it knows we aren't really cheering for the stupid teenagers. It knows that on some level, the killer is the hero of the film. Silent Night, Deadly Night does away with beating around the moral bush and makes the slasher the main character.And it succeeds on more than a theoretical level. The cinematography here is beautiful; the framing, perfect; the set design, spot on. The actors could easily be forgiven for mailing in their lines in such a bizarre movie, but instead their performances bring even more depth to these characters. In particular, the role of the Mother Superior could have easily devolved into a cartoonishly evil caricature, but instead Lilyan Chauvin brings a depth to the character that makes her seem real and relatable.Silent Night Deadly Night entered the world in a storm of controversy. Critics panned it simply for its subject matter, believing that it was an attack on Christmas and Santa Claus and all that was good in the world. But for all of its gore and gruesome violence, Silent Night Deadly Night isn't a mean-spirited movie. It's a story about a boy who lost his way and eventually lost his mind, in the dark days of what should have been season of cheer. And it's a dirge for every time the true spirit of Christmas is lost in the shadow of selfishness and cynicism.For more reviews like this, check out HumanEchoes.com.

Silent Night Deadly Night has it all for slasher fans, and for people who may come to it just based on the premise and may not be well-versed. It has a simple enough set up (but fairly original) with a young kid who sees his parents killed in front of him by a disgruntled Santa Claus, becomes an orphan, and then snaps when he's an adult and under the control of some nuns.The movie is not any kind of 'high art'. Some of the filmmaking may not even be very good. But the movie pulls off some sequences that stick with you, and at times, often, it's very funny. It's somewhat disturbing, it's got some terrible acting, and lots of anti-Nun action. Highlight: the 'sledding' scene is the most random killing scene, but it does give a moment of pause from the rest of the psychological anguish of the piece. And yes, there is some of that too.