Silent Night (2012)

Movie Info

I know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice!

Someone is getting coal for Christmas.  When the isolated town of Cryer, Wisconsin prepares to celebrate the holiday with their annual Santa Clause parade, they get more than they bargained for in the form of a killer dressed like Santa.  Deputy Aubrey Bradimore (Jaime King) and Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell) have their hands full with murders popping up around the town and almost everyone dressed as Claus.  Santa Claus knows who is naughty and who is nice and Cryer, Wisconsin is full of naughty people who need to be punished.

Directed by Steven C. Miller, Silent Night is a holiday slasher horror movie.  The film is a loose remake of the cult 1984 horror movie Silent Night, Deadly Night and received average reviews from critics.

Silent Night, Deadly Night was a favorite when I was young.  My friend and I got it relatively soon after its release and all the controversy surrounding it.  That film followed a mentally unstable guy from childhood to a mental breakdown and a Christmas Eve slaughterfest.  It is schlocky and not good, but it is everything you’d want from an ’80s horror movie.  Silent Night is technically a better movie, but I didn’t enjoy it as much.

Have fun in the wood chipper…shouldn’t have been a stripper

The movie has a slight tie to a real case.  In 2008 in the Covina suburb of Los Angeles, a man went crazy and killed nine people with a shotgun and a homemade flamethrower.  The killer in Silent Night has a similar “origin” story to motivate his mental break and killing streak, but the movie largely is about Deputy Bradimore and her search for the killer.  It does have some throwbacks to the original film with a woman being impaled on deer antlers, a creepy, comatose grandpa giving a warning about the dangers of Christmas, and even a use of the internet meme with a line “What is this…garbage day?” in reference to Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

Malcolm McDowell seems like he will take any role and he plays the same character in every role he takes.  As Sheriff James Cooper, he’s loud and barks with attitude that has become expected from him.  Jaime King is actually decent as the deputy getting her feet wet in a real crime and Donal Logue has a smaller role as a potential suspect.  Tim Burton alum Lisa Marie also appears in the movie.

This Santa’s cooler than that Tim Allen Santa

While Silent Night, Deadly Night was gory at the time, most of the controversy surrounded a Santa Claus being portrayed as a killer in previews and commercials.  The Santa Claus stigma was pretty much gone by the time of Silent Night (which did receive a limited theatrical run).  This film does amp up the gore and in particular has a rather nasty woodchipper scene where a woman is fed feet first to increase the pain…and this is all in line with most of the deaths in the movie.

Silent Night isn’t really a bad “remake”, but it also does feel like its own thing.  I am actually kind of surprised with a relatively strong reception that this didn’t end up creating more Silent Night sequels.  The film ends with the potential for more Santa slayings, and Christmas does come every year…it might be fun to revisit this version of a killer Santa.

Related Links:

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987)