Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) open in the year 1971 as young Billy (Jonathan Best,
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out) and mom (Tara Buckman,
Xtro II: The Second Encounter) and father (Geoff Hansen,
The Arrival) are driving to see dear old grandpa (Will Hare,
Back To the Future) at the asylum on Christmas Eve. The old man is in a catatonic state and hasn't spoken in years, however, when Billy is left alone with him the creepy bearded-elder awakens to warn the boy that Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year, and that old Saint Nick not only gives gifts to children who've been good, but he severely punishes the naughty ones. Of course young Billy is terrified by what occurred, and later that night on the drive home he and family encounter a man dressed in a Santa suit (Charles Dierkop,
Messiah of Evil) stranded on the side of the road next to a disable vehicle, Billy's dad stops to assist the man, not realizing that this Santa just robbed a store and shot the clerk three times in cold blood. As his father rolls down the window to offer assistance he is shot dead, then Santa sets his sights on Billy's mother; dragging her kicking and screaming from the car, ripping open her blouse exposing her breasts, and attempting to rape her. While this is happening Billy's infant brother Ricky is left in the car screaming while Billy runs off into the nearby bushes to hide, witnessing the costumed criminal slash his mother's throat, scarring young Billy for years to come.
Three years later eight year old Billy (Danny Wagner) and his brother are living at the St. Mary's Orphanage for Children where the traumatized Billy draws bloody crayon pictures of Santa being stabbed to death and decapitated reindeer, much to the ire of the stern Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin, Predator 2) who scolds Billy mercilessly, while kindly Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick, China Lake) is a more caring and sympathetic force in his life. Mother Superior's brutal lessons in right and wrong continue to inform Billy's twisted perception of how the naughty must be punished. Billy is further traumatized on Christmas when Mother Superior cruelly forces him to sit on Santa's lap, whom Billy immediately punches in the face, blood pouring from his nose! The film really does a good job explaining the psychological traumas that inform what happens a bit later with poor Billy, but it's slow going after the initial Santa attack at the start of the film, particularly when you take into account that the film in only 82 minutes long to begin with.
Flash forward 10 years later and the now strapping 18-year-old Billy (Robert Brian Wilson,
A Nanny To Die For) is working for Mr. Sims (Britt Leach,
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker) at Ira's Toy Store. Oh my God, the toys on the toy store shelves! Just give me one of each, and I could die a happy man-child; gimme gimme gimme the Matchbox Super Garage, Jabba the Hutt Action Playset, those Ben Cooper Halloween Masks, the Schwinn Banana Seat Muscle Bike - all the cool shit I wanted when I was 10 is all right there. Anyway, Billy seems fine, he has a crush on co-worker Pamela (Toni Nero,
Commando Squad), and while the stockroom manager Andy (Randy Stumpf,
Are You in the House Alone?) is a right prick, at least he's working and being a productive member of society at least. Things begin to fall apart when Billy is asked to dress up as Santa on Christmas Eve. Yeah, asking the guy who saw his mother and father murdered by a bad guy in Santa suit as a kid, that's gonna be trouble.
He powers through it but when the store closes that night and the employee Christmas Eve celebration begins Billy get drunk at the office party, later he walks in on Andy attempting to rape Pamela which spurs a flashback to the traumatic childhood murder and rape of his mom and he just snaps, killing the co-worker by strangling him with a string of Christmas lights, declaring him "naughty", and also stabbing Pamela with a box cutter. Now it's Christmas Eve and Billy is reliving and the death of his mother and father, the years of abuse at the hands of Mother Superior and his twisted sense of naughty/punishment all come to the forefront, now we have a psycho Santa on the loose in a small Midwest town with Billy continues his naughty killing spree as he makes his way back to the orphanage to punish Mother Superior. The film ends with Billy's younger brother Ricky (Alex Burton) looking upon the dead brother and uttering the word "Naughty", thereby setting up the insane sequel.
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a fun, sleazy slasher with some decent kills, perhaps the most elaborate features 80's scream queen Linnea Quigley (
The Return of the Living Dead) being impaled on the antlers of a deer which was just a very cool kill. There's also a memorable axe decapitation of a bully (John Bishop,
Seven Psychopaths) while he's snow sledding down a wooded hill, his headless body continuing down the hill on the sled and his severed head rolling down after a few moments later, fun stuff.
The acting here is not of the highest caliber and it's not exactly the best looking film you will ever see, there's plenty of out of focus shots, but as low-budget early 80's slashers go this is fun stuff, just keep in mind there's some real pacing issues when nothing much is happening, or something is happening, is just boring and happening for far too long. Despite the notorious controversy the film is petty tame by 80's slasher standards, but apparently the idea of a psycho-Santa with an axe killing the naughty was pretty offensive stuff in '84. The notions of little kids watching the trailer for this one on TV which is just hilarious to me, even though the idea of a killer Santa was not new at the time, it having been done 12 years prior with the "All Through the House" segment of the Amicus horror anthology Tales from the Crypt (1972).
Audio/Video: Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) arrives on 4K Ultra HD with a 4K scan from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision (HDR10) color-space, framed in the original 1.85:1 widescreen for the Theatrical Version. The image looks great, there's some very minor small scratches and white speckling, but the grain field is more refined, the 4K resolution does produce a more refined and detailed image, and the WGC color-space stronger produces deeper more nuanced blacks, more refined shadow detail, and primaries like the red of the Santa suits and blues have a nice deeper hue to them, and the whiter are truer and more crisp. The Theatrical cut is also presented on Blu-ray sourced from the new scan, but presented in 1080p HD with SDR.
The unrated version also get a dedicated Blu-ray disc, this is also sourced from the same 4K restoration with standard definition inserts. The drop in quality is significant but acceptable as these elements just do not exist in a better quality version. Audio on all three versions comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and well-balanced, dialogue is crisp, and the effects and atonal Christmas-tinged horror score from Perry Botkin Jr. (Goin' South) sounds terrific.
Disc 1 is the 4K Ultra HD disc with the Theatrical Version, the sole extras is a brand new Audio Commentary With Author Amanda Reyes And The Hysteria Continues Podcast. I love both Reyes and the Hysteria Continues Podcast crews, so this was quite a treat. There's plenty of well-researched information, anecdotes, and of course plenty of humor. Disc 2 is a Blu-ray also containing the Theatrical Version and the Audio Commentary With Author Amanda Reyes And The Hysteria Continues Podcast, as well as a trio of brand new extras to commemorate the film's fortieth anniversary. I love that Scream Factory went the extra mile for the film's 40th, their previous Blu-ray release was already stacked, and including these newly produced extras are a testament to their continuing dedication to physical media and the continuation extras, unlike say Criterion Collection. Up first is the 16-min The Night He Came Home... For Christmas: Creating Silent Night, Deadly Night – An Interview With Producer Scott Schneid. This gets into Schneid receiving the original script, it being in the Halloween mold, a bit generic, but he still loved the one-line idea of a the psycho-Santa running amuck in small Midwest town. He took that idea and developing it with his partner Dennis Whitehead, and they brought in screenwriter Michael Hickey. He touches the character's backstory, and the trauma that lead to the psychosis, and how Billy was actually a sympathetic killer. Also getting into how they were frozen out of the production when a new financing producer Ira Barmack was brought onboard, and talking a bit about director Charles Sellier Jr., and his thoughts on him, and other directors they had considered, as well as the score and terrific Tri-Star movie poster, as well as the backlash.
In the 11-min In Search of Charles Sellier Jr: Remembering the Director – An Interview With Editor Michael Spence wherein he talks about his early film schooling and struggling to get his foot in the door before going to work for through Utah based Sunn Classics Pictures, and first meeting Sellier while trying to find the director a foosball table for his editing room at Sunn. He also gets into how he started as an editor on teaser trailers for Sunn, moving onto assistant editor on some Grizzly Adams made-for-TV films, before being the main editing guy on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow starring Jeff Goldblum, and getting lots of work through Sunn as an on-staff editor for Sellier, also working on Hangar 18 and The Boogens. The last of the new extras is the 12-min Naughty or Nice: 40 Years Of Silent Night, Deadly Night – An Interview The Producers Scott Schneid And Dennis Whitehead About The Longevity Of The Film. The pair talk enthusiastically about all the different merchandise that has been sold for the film, from t-shirts, to board games, various vinyl soundtracks, cookie tins, comic books, toys, ornaments, novelization, audiobook, and even perfume. They show of a bunch of it, and they say if you have merchandising idea to let them know!
The third disc is a Blu-ray with the Unrated Version, in addition to the wealth of archival extras that previously appeared on Scream Factory's 2-disc Collector's Edition Blu-ray from 2017. We start of with a pair of commentaries, the first is an Audio Commentary with actor Robert Brian Wilson And Co-Executive Producer Scott J. Schneid, and a second Audio Commentary with Screenwriter Michael Hickey, Composer Perry Boykin, Scott J. Schneid, and Editor Michael Spence. Next, the 46-min Slay Bells Ring: The Story Of Silent Night, Deadly Night which features interviews with Writer Michael Hickey, Co-Executive Producers Scott J. Schneid And Dennis Whitehead, Editor/Second Unit Director Michael Spence, Composer Perry Botkin, And Actor Robert Brian Wilson. This takes us through the journey of the genesis of the script, selling the film to Tri-Star, shooting and editing the film, and the moral outrage generated by the naughty slasher which sent parent's groups through the roof with yuletide horror, this is the doc I think we've all been waiting for. There's also the 22-min Oh Deer! – An Interview With Actor Linnea Quigley who discusses her role in the film, what it was like working with the director, and the locations in Utah, and discussing nudity in the film, and being upset when another actress who refused to do nudity got a diamond necklace from the director while she didn't get squat.
Christmas In July – Silent Night, Deadly Night Locations is a 10-min then and now look at various locations used in the film, plus we an nearly hour-long Audio Interview With Director Charles E. Sellier, Jr. From Deadpit Radio (Extended Version) (58:03). Also carried-over is the 5-min Santa’s Stocking Of Outrage offering the quotes/letters from people condemning the film during it's initial release, which is a fun read. The disc is finished-up a 1-min Poster And Still Gallery; with posters, home video release art and stills from the film, plus the 2-min R-Rated Theatrical Trailer; a 46-sec Japanese VHS Trailer; 1-min of TV Spots; and a 36-sec Radio Spot.
This 3-disc 4k Ultra HD + Blu-ray Collector's Edition arrives housed a black keepcase with a flipper tray housing two of the discs. We get singled-sided sleeve of artwork, that amazing Tri-Star one sheet featuring Santa climbing down the chimney with an ax in his hand. This release comes with a limited edition slipcover also featuring same original artwork.
- Audio Commentary With Actor Robert Brian Wilson And Co-Executive Producer Scott J. Schneid
- Audio Commentary With Writer Michael Hickey, Composer Perry Boykin, Producer Scott J. Schneid, and Unit Director Michael Spence
- “Slay Bells Ring: The Story Of Silent Night, Deadly Night” – Featuring Interviews With Writer Michael Hickey, Co-Executive Producers Scott J. Schneid And Dennis Whitehead, Editor/Second Unit Director Michael Spence, Composer Perry Botkin, And Actor Robert Brian Wilson (45:51)
- Christmas In July – Silent Night, Deadly Night Locations – Then And Now (10:00)
- Audio Interview With Director Charles E. Sellier, Jr. From Deadpit Radio (Extended Version) (58:03)
My love of this demented psycho-Santa slasher grows with each viewing, a well-made yuletide bloodletter that offers up some naughty Christmas carnage for lover's of bloody Santa mayhem, and Scream Factory have put together a wonder 3-disc addition with terrific A/V and some tasty new extras. This release is the perfect stocking stuffer for that very naughty horror fan on your Christmas list, highly recommended!
