Silent Night (2012)

A lot of fun.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas Eve. Even tho it's not as bad as other films of Steven C. Miller's Silent Night is still your typical by the numbers slasher film and not that very good one too i'm afraid. Jaime King does give a respectable good perfomance as Aubrey, Donal Logue does his usual things and he is pretty good too and Malcolm McDowell as well also did an alright job. Unfortunately this over the top kills that the Killer Santa is making does ruin the movie alot, the script was a bit bad too and the overall plot of the movie was kind of bad to say the least. Overall a bad remake from Miller. (3/10)

Malcolm McDowell and Jaime King star in this 2012 horror film. This takes place on Christmas Eve in Wisconsin town, Cryer where a brutal killer dressed as Santa Claus lurks. McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Halloween) plays Sheriff Cooper who intends to find him with help from one of his deputies, Aubrey Bradimore (King), a recent widow who tries to get through the holidays. Donal Logue (Blade, Gotham) also appears as Santa Jim. This sort of resembles and pays tribute to other holiday horror/slasher flicks like "Silent Night, Deadly Night," "Christmas Evil" and "Black Christmas." It also feels a bit like a Rob Zombie film, McDowell and King are good in it and there's gruesome deaths/killings. I'd give this a view if you're into the genre.

For a Christmas slasher, SILENT NIGHT isn't up to scratch. I've not seen the original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, but I have seen the likes of DON'T OPEN TILL Christmas and that memorable segment from TALES FROM THE CRYPT and both were much, much better. Director Steven C. Miller seems to vary broadly when it comes to the films he makes, for every trashy flick like UNDER THE BED he makes something superior like THE AGGRESSION SCALE. However, this is one of his worst.The story is about a killer Santa Claus who goes around bumping off various victims while a local sheriff department attempt to track him down. There's little more plot to it than that, although attempts to raise the whole 'whodunit' aspect of the film fall flat because you never care who's responsible. The deaths are gory but somehow feel fake and overblown; it may be that the victims are all random and rather despicable in themselves, so it all goes over your head a bit.Jaime King gives a tired performance as the protagonist of the piece and you get the sense that her heart wasn't really in it, and you can't really blame her for it. Malcolm McDowell is better, but is given little to work with other than play it gruff. The ending is as cheesy and over the top as you'd expect.

Getting Malcolm McDowell for your horror movie is always a nice treat. And he seems to be willing to help (young) filmmakers out, like in this case. This fun little slasher, is not profound, but it does not need to be. You just want to pop in the movie, drink the beverage of your choice and have a bowl of whatever in front of you, to cheer on the events unfolding on screen.Christmas has been used in other movies to go dark and evil, so that's not new (even Santa has been bad quite a few times in the past), but the level of violence reached here has to be in the top 3 at least. There are some innovative ways Santa is disposing of "evil" persons and it's kind a fun to watch this low budget movie, even when it struggles at times. Fun, because we know it's a movie.