Silent Night, Deadly Night Poster

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Horror  
Rayting:   5.9/10 13.9K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 9 November 1984

Little Billy witness his parents getting killed by Santa after being warned by his senile grandpa that Santa punishes those who are naughty. Now Billy is 18, and out of the orphanage, and he has just become Santa, himself.

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sol- 24 December 2016

Traumatised after witnessing a man in a Santa suit brutally murder his parents, a teenager goes on a killing spree after his employer forces him to dress as Santa in this controversial horror thriller. With a plot that mostly follows slasher clichés, 'Silent Night, Deadly Night' is easy to forget amid the surplus of 1980s horror flicks, but it is a highly competent production that stands up well to revision. The film actually does a better job than John Carpenter's far more iconic 'Halloween' in establishing the psychology and mindset of its serial killer protagonist. Eighteen minutes of exposition may sound like a lot, but it works magnificently for getting us to understand how the character ticks and actually pity him, heinous though his actions may be. The film takes a potent swipe at church-run orphanages too in which children have religion forced upon them with the protagonist a victim of this system in addition the aforementioned childhood trauma. The film does not do itself any favours by painting the nuns as stereotypes and lead actor Robert Brian Wilson is never really convincing, but everything else falls into place so well here that it is hard not to like it. The filmmakers approach the project with the perfect dose of dark humour too; "he sure knows how to handle kids!" comments one mother after Wilson quietly threatens a girl sitting on his Santa's lap! The Yuletide themed deaths also come with streak of black comedy and there is an awesome 'Battleship Potemkin' lions style sequence in which several toy soldiers appear to react to a toy store death.

Aaron2616 25 February 2003

Fmovies: I enjoyed this film alot. I'm a horror nut and I love 80's slasher movies..so no its not for everybody...but for those who do like 80's slashers you should really check this out. The story is good, it sounds cheesy with santa being a killer, but the back story is very well done, the character development is great, the music works, and it has one of the coolest death scenes in a movie ever....(antlers) Sure, here and there it can be cheesy-PUNISH!- but it still is very watchable and I recommend it to any horror fan around the holidays.

dyl_gon 4 January 2009

Ah, Christmas. Although it has become increasingly commercialized and sometimes appears to be nothing more than a huge crash-grab for multi-million dollar corporations, Christmas have remained popular year after year. While the underlying message the holiday carries with it of caring for one another has been overshadowed by companies desperate attempts to launder more money out of consumers, the holiday-themed films often still carry these reaffirming messages. There's a reason that "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" air on TV every year to solid ratings: in today's dour times, where even our popular movies have deviated from escapism and taken on a depressing quality, it is refreshing to see a film that can make us feel good about ourselves and life in general.

This is also why Christmas-themed horror movies are often more disturbing than their regular themed counterparts. Christmas has become representative of joy, cheer and ignorant bliss, and even the most jaded of adults can remember with fondness the excitement they felt as children at the idea of Santa. When you give Santa an axe and have him hacking people to pieces, he might as well be hacking up all our good feelings for the holiday. Christmas is supposed to be happy and people can't stand to see it represented as otherwise. This is why "Silent Night Deadly Night", a slasher that is no more violent than your average Friday the 13th film, was targeted by a massive protest during its release in 1984 and subsequently pulled from theatres and home video. People couldn't stand to see the feel-good time of year used in such a depressing manner and their childhood idol, Santa Claus, turned into some sort of psychopathic murderer. It wasn't just ultra-conservative Christians that fought to have this movie banned: even Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel shamed the entire cast and crew on their show.

The movie starts out with a series of tragic events on Christmas Eve that instill a warped view of St. Nick into young Billy. First, Billy's family pays visit to his clinically insane grandfather, who warns Billy that Santa will punish him for his naughty behavior. Then on the drive back from the institution, a criminal dressed as Santa murders his father and rapes his mother, slitting her throat afterwards and leaving Billy and his baby brother without parents. The two children are brought to an orphanage, where head-nun Mother Superior consistently punishes young Billy for the rest of his childhood, especially around Christmas time, which is usually when Billy begins acting out with memories of his parents murder still fresh in his head. By the time Billy has reached his eighteenth birthday, he lands a job at a local toy store. However, when he is required to don a Santa's suit for Christmas Eve and the co-workers begin referring to him as Santa, Billy goes over the edge, setting out to punish those who have been naughty...with the help of an axe.

Silent Night Deadly Night is another entry in the long list of eighties slashers, and while some may see it as nothing more than Friday the 13th featuring Santa Claus instead of Jason, it differentiates from other slashers in several ways. The over-the-top gore, often a staple of the slasher film, is toned down here, with much more tonally realistic violence, excluding an instance of death-by-antlers. However the biggest difference is the subject matter, which is much more grim than usual, including such topics as rape, sexual abuse and

octagon88 8 August 2003

Silent Night, Deadly Night fmovies. I love this movie, it was scary, cool, and just...cool. It had nice gore FX, a scary as hell killer, which we still care about even though he is on a Frenzy, and the movie had good acting. Especially Robert Brian Wilson as Billy, It is too bad that he didn't go on to do bigger things. Anyway, I recomend this movie to just about anyone. And praise the lord that they are making a nice DVD version. But Avoid the Sequels at all costs!!!

Have a nice day and rent SNDN today!

utgard14 15 December 2014

A young boy named Billy is warned by his creepy grandpa that Santa Claus punishes those who are naughty. That night he sees a killer dressed in a Santa suit murder his parents. Needless to say, he doesn't grow up well-adjusted. Years go by and adult Billy is set off by something that reminds him of that tragic night. So he goes on a killing spree wearing a Santa suit.

This slasher flick has a poor reputation, due in part to the unsavory subject matter and in part to the really terrible sequels that followed it. But it's actually not half bad. Yeah the premise is unpleasant but we've seen far worse in the years since (sadly). The movie spends a considerable amount of time on the build-up to Billy becoming a killer. The first half-hour is devoted to showing his childhood at a strict Catholic orphanage and then his getting a job at a toy store, complete with a montage set to a corny song by some guy who sounds like Kenny Rogers. The point I'm trying to make is they do attempt to craft a story here rather than just give you 90 minutes of splatter. However, once the killing does start, the movie becomes by-the-numbers slasher stuff. Modern horror fans might be put off by the pace and how long it takes before Billy starts killing. One thing nobody should be put off by is the great Linnea Quigley topless. Avoid the abhorrent 2012 remake.

AlsExGal 14 September 2018

This killer Santa movie got quite the infamous reputation upon its release due to excessive violence. The film differs from a lot of slasher films in that it spends half of its running time showing the back story of the killer, as we watch him endure a parade of horrors from childhood through his teenage years. In the end, it leaves him mentally unbalanced, with a particularly skewed vision of who Santa Claus is and what he's supposed to do.

Once he dons the Santa suit and goes on his killing spree, the film drops any attempt at story as we watch him move from one scenario to the next, killing those he encounters, or as he thinks of it, "punishing the naughty." It's all pretty dopey, but the lead (Robert Brian Wilson) gives it his all, and some of the gore effects are memorable. Also with Charles Dierkop, Tara Buckman, and scream queen Linnea Quigley. Followed by several sequels, and remade in 2012.

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