By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Long-term horror fans everywhere know this sad Christmas story. For those new to the genre or unfamiliar with the backstory, here’s a bit of the tale surrounding SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT (1984).
TRI-STAR PICTURES released this holiday gem. In the trailer, a glimpse of a Santa with an ax sent people into frenzies. A bunch of pious assholes with nothing better to do got together to ruin Christmas for horror fans. They grabbed picket signs and moaned with their stupid loud mouths until TRI-STAR pulled the movie from theaters.
Of course, that wasn’t enough for Grinches Siskel & Ebert who encouraged these biddies to yell louder. I’m sure if SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT was black & white and in French, they’d go on about how nuanced and artistic the death scenes were.
Siskel was so much of a prick that he encouraged boycotts by naming everyone involved. I know people respect these guys. I don’t. I think they were alpha-male douches who masqueraded as progressive windbags. If you feel differently, that’s okay. Different kicks, but for me – fuck those guys!
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT wasn’t the first film about a killer Santa Claus and it certainly wasn’t the first Christmas theme horror movie. That didn’t matter. They just wanted to fuck us and for years we ended up with a chopped down, edited version of this masterpiece because a tight-ass in a tighter sweater and a bald guy who hadn’t realized he was bald yet griped about everything – not that I’m bitter.
I wouldn’t be so angry if this wasn’t such a spectacular film. It’s layered. The villainous acts run deep and the main antagonist remains the most sympathetic character even while committing heinous acts of violent murder. It’s complex. It’s well-thought out. It’s provocative for a reason. It’s a great fucking movie!
It begins with Billy (Jonathan Best) a 5 yr old boy who is brought on Christmas Eve to see his catatonic grandfather (Will Hare). When Billy’s parents leave, we find that Grandpa’s condition is being faked. He takes the opportunity to scare the hell out of the kid by telling him that Santa punishes anyone who was naughty during the year. He tells Billy to run if he sees the jolly man in red. I can’t do this scene justice. Will Hare was fantastically entertaining in the role of psycho granddad and his delivery mixed with Best’s reactions are priceless. For as little as Jonathan Best was, he did wonderful in the role.
That night, Billy tells his parents what Grandpa said and they try to alleviate his concerns. When they see a man dressed like Santa on the side of the road with apparent car trouble, they ignore Billy’s pleas and stop to help him. The guy has a gun. He kills the father, attempts to rape the mother but eventually kills her too. Billy hides and his baby brother Tommy (Teo Geter)is spared because he’s too tiny to remember anything.
Three years later in a catholic orphanage run by nuns, Billy (Danny Wagner) is having problems. One nun, Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick) is sympathetic and tries to help Billy but she is overruled by evil, twisted Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin).
Superior insists on mindless obedience and harsh consequences when she’s disobeyed. She has so little regard for his past trauma that she forces him to sit on Santa’s lap. The kid saw his parents brutally killed by a man dressed like Santa so of course it doesn’t end well. He punches the man and flees. The poor kid hides in a corner, hugging his knees as he apologizes to no one. Of course, Superior just takes this as a sign of misbehavior and spanks him.
Later, Billy watches on as two teens are having sex. Superior comes in and whips them for their unchaste behavior. She then finds Billy and tells him that what they were doing was naughty and that punishment is necessary for naughty people. Way to fuck up a fucked up kid even more, lady!
Ten years later, Billy is put on a work release program at a small toy store that sells everything I ever wanted as a kid. I love that place. Billy does too and he even develops feelings for a coworker named Pamela (Toni Nero). Though when he has sex dreams about her, they turn to nightmares filled with blood. Poor guy. He can’t even have a wet dream in peace!
When Pamela is attacked and nearly raped by douche-bag stock-boy Andy (Randy Stumpf) Billy takes action and chokes that motherfucker to death with Christmas lights. Now, if Pam was a true fem goddess she’d be helping Billy hide the body and the two would flee together – maybe get Billy some therapeutic help once safely out of town, but it could work. If she’d only try!
She doesn’t. For some strange reason, she’s upset that he killed Andy. I don’t get it. I don’t. I understand that she probably didn’t want to see someone get murdered in front of her, but I sincerely think she overreacted. I mean, he killed a rapist during an attack. That’s a good thing!
Things get worse as the death toll mounts. That said, Billy isn’t really to blame. He’s like Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) from PSYCHO (1960). Society, trauma and religion fucked him up. At one point, he comes across a young girl who says she was good all year. In a creepy but somehow genuinely sweet scene, he gives her his knife as a present. He is only living by the rules that were instilled into him. He was raised to be exactly what he’s being and those to blame are crazy family members, a horrific crime and Catholic nuns. Even Sister Margaret should have done more to stand up to Superior. I like Margaret. I think she meant well, but her passivity allowed this all to manifest into what it is.
Next to BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is my favorite Christmas horror film. It has everything a great movie should and it’s exploitation with brains. If any of these outraged parents took the time to watch the film they were screaming about, they would have seen it wasn’t mean-spirited like Siskel said. It’s a tale of consequences – not the consequences that Mother Superior talked about or the consequences that Billy handed out, but the consequences of allowing abuse to be perpetuated on a little boy and looking the other way as the anger grow to a level were there was no-coming-back. It’s about the decent into madness and how horrible actions can make the most frightened kid with the biggest puppy dog eyes into a violent maniac.
If you haven’t watched this, pick up the unedited and fully restored copy. Make it an extra gift for yourself under the tree this year. In my family, this is a traditional watch that we break out every December.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8.5/10
