Blu-ray Review: SILENT NIGHT (2012)

 

SILENT NIGHT (2012) 

Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment

Region Code: A l 1

Duration: 94 Minutes

Rating: R

Video: 1080p  Anamorphic Widescreen (2.40:1) 

Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 , English TrueHD 5.1 

Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Jamie King, Donal Logue, Lisa Marie, Brendan Fehr, Ellen Wong

Director: Steven C. Miller 

Tagline: He Knows Who's Been Naughty

Synopsis: McDowell and King star as a small-town sheriff and deputy on the hunt for a murderous Santa Claus terrorizing their community on Christmas Eve. But with the streets full of Santa's for the annual Christmas parade, the killer is hiding in plain sight. He’s made his list, checked it twice, and the naughty are going to pay with their lives.

Director Steven C. Miller came onto the scene with a little indie darling zombie feature AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION (2006) and hasn't done a whole lot that I have seen since so I was a bit surprised to him at the helm of the remake of the sleazy Santa slasher SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984). Right away let's just say that this is only a remake in the same sense that Zach Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004) was a remake of George A. Romero's original, the basic idea is there but they keep it pretty loose and that's a good thing in both instances, DotD '04 is a pretty great film, one of the better remakes of classic horror films along the lines of THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006) and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003)  - all remakes that did it right.

There's a fun cast of character beginning with Malcolm McDowell (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) as the small-town's sheriff Cooper delivering some of the film's best lines, really rote stuff but McDowell nails each one perfectly. Then we have his deputy Aubrey played by Jamie King (MOTHER's DAY) who suffering through some personal loss and self doubt, she's sorta the centerpiece of the film but I found her character not so much unlikable as just a bit too drab in a film cast with colorful caricatures, particularly Donel Logue (GROUNDED FOR LIFE) as a cynical Santa Jim who makes children cry while they sit on his lap as he dispenses the hard truth about xmas, he also delivers the film's greatest monologue, a diatribe about how awful Christmas time really is. Those three our our main characters and then we get a dip-shit Deputy Jordan (Brendean Fehr) and the town mayor plus his slutty daughter Tiffany (Courtney Jane-White, TV's TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL) plus a pervy priest. There's not a whole lot of character development nor likable characters  to get behind  but sometimes it's fun just to kick back and watch Santa kill a few fuckers. 

The Santa here is significantly more awesome than the original in my opinion, a hulk of a jolly St. Nick with a huge white beard and one of those creepy translucent masks covering his eyes and nose with blackened eyes, he cuts quite an imposing figure and he's a brutal bastard with no mercy for the naughty, even cattle-prodding a bitchy teen before skewering her with a wood-poker. Setting itself apart from the original film there's not a lot of character development for our slasher Santa, there are no evil nuns at an orphanage, no flashbacks to a Santa raping his mother and I really like the way they handled it, there is an origin story with a cool urban legend element to it. Something they kept from the original film that I liked a bunch was the creepy catatonic grandpa warning his grandson about Santa and his wicked ways.

As kills go we do get some nice homages to the original in the form of electrocution and impalement on antlers and if there's one thing the original did better it's probably these two kills, Linnea Quigley's impalement was a great kill in the original and the electrocution seems to me more of a lift from the second film and I think that too holds up a bit better. This Santa utilizes all manner of weaponry, we get some dismemberment, a blood splattered wood chipper massacre, a brutal head-splitting with an ax, a scythe to the groin and Santa pulverizing someones face with a set of brass knuckles emblazoned with the words "Ho Ho Ho".  The kills are the highlight of the film for me, it's definitely not a character study of a demented mind, just some totally fun psycho-Santa brutality including some flame-thrower shenanigans. 

Maybe the only thing that annoyed me was that for a Christmas-themed slasher I felt that the atmosphere was a bit inconsistent, snow sorta came and went from scene to scene but that's a pretty small gripe. This is a brutal Christmas slasher and a fun remake, perfect viewing with a few seasonal beers and definitely gonna be a tradition from here on in. This one hit the right notes for me, a stylish film with some gruesome raw gore and cool nods to the original. There's not a whole lot of substance here but c'mon now - it's a psycho Santa on the loose with a flame-thrower!  4 Outta 5 

Special Features:

- “SILENT NIGHT: Behind The Scenes” (6:14) 
- Deleted Scenes (4:50) 

                                              

 

DVD Review: RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE (2010)

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE (2010)

LABEL: Icon Home Entertainment
REGION: 2 PAL Format
DURATION: 88 mins
VIDEO: 16:9 Widescreen (2.40:1)
AUDIO: Dolby Digital Finnish 5.1 with optional English Subtitles
DIRECTOR: Jalmari Helander
CAST: Per Christian Ellefsen, Peter Jakobi, Tommi Korpela, Jorma Tommila, Jonathan Hutchings, Onni Tommila, Risto Salmi, Rauno Juvonen
TAGLINE: This Christmas Everyone Will Believe in Santa

SYNOPSIS:
"In the depths of Lapland’s Korvatunturi Mountains, 486 metres deep, lies the closest guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up.You better watch out, you better not cry, better not shout, I’m telling you why... Based on the award winning shorts of director Jalmari Helander that have already acquired a cult reputation in the internet, Santa Claus is coming to town in a never-before-seen Christmas fantasy thriller. He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good... This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus."

Now this was a pleasant surprise and a nice diversion from the glut of macabre and horrific films I've been spreeing thru as of late, this was a film I could actually sit down and watch with my three young children which is pretty rare with the type of screeners that usually end up in my mailbox. I can't really screen IN A GLASS CAGE (1987) for 'em without surely inflicting lifelong damage upon their psyche now can I? I usually wait until they're asleep before I pop in whatever video nasty peaks my interest any day of the week so it was a rare treat indeed to gather the squirts around the tube just after school for some family fun.   

RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE (2010) is a dark fantasy Christmas tale that takes place in the small rural Finnish village where an American mining company has secretly unearthed a mysterious "sacred grave" on the top of Korvatunturi Mountain overlooking the village. The excavation has been wrought with explosions which have caught the attention of a young imaginative boy named Pietari (Onni Tommila) in the shadow of the mountain with his strict, plain-spoken father Rauno (Jorma Tommila). Rauno, a butcher by trade, along with Piparinen (Rauno Juvonen) and Aimo (Tommy Korpela) are reindeer herders whose lively hood depends on the annual slaughtering of the deer and when the herd are killed off by what would appear to have been wolves Rauno and the others head for the Korvatuntari mining site to voice their grievances,  blaming the explosions at the site for driving Russian wolves across the Russian border and into their territory. Once they arrive at the site it appears to have been abandoned with some haste by the miners leaving an ominous and cavernous hole in the ground, something rather large has been unearthed but little do they realize it's something that's been kept a secret for centuries and it's extrication could very well threaten Christmas as we know it.

Young Pietari mind is set afire by the possibilities of what could have been buried within the mountainside and when he also finds strange tracks in the snow outside his bedroom window he becomes obsessed with old legends of an evil Santa, a death-bringer more apt to boil children alive than stuff their stocking with presents. Becoming increasingly alarmed by the idea he sets a trap for Santa should he decide to come down the chimney, the deterrent nearly ends in his father's death. The relationship with his father is quietly difficult, it's pretty obvious the young boy craves his father's attention but for his father, a recent widow, the emotional struggles of raising his son alone ways heavy upon him and his grief often times emerges in short, terse interactions with the boy. The relationship isn't dwelt on a great deal but it's there plainly enough.

Soon enough things start to take a bizarre turn as creepy elderly men appear around the village, children go missing, potato sacks are stolen as are other  heat producing appliances all leading up to a wonderfully odd finale that maybe wraps up a bit too quick. The story is whimsical and fantastical but also quite dark, more so than any American PG-13 would dare go with creepy, nude elderly men with a pedophiles sixth sense for sniffing out children,  the cover-up of a murder, a near dismemberment, gun toting children and a child sacrificing himself in a heroic act, it's weird shit but awesome just the same.

At only eighty-eight minutes the film definitely takes some storytelling shortcuts more than it's fair share with stortytelling and character development, much of which I would have of liked to seen fleshed out, particularly the final coda of the film which is inspired lunacy but felt way too abbreviated for me. Something else that irked me was a lack of revelation, were taunted with a big ticket set piece but it never really comes to fruition and I was really dying for it but it just never emerged to the degree that I wanted to see it - the film maintained it's mystery a bit too much for me in that respect, not enough ruin the film but just enough to be bothersome.

The film's absurdly weird premise is brought to life with some attractive winter bound scenery that's pitch perfect for the story at hand, the gorgeous visuals are pretty fantastic from start to finish and really draw you in with candy colored cinematography. It's just a very sharp looking film that brought to mind the early 90's films of the French filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro who wowed me with their own dark fairy tales, DELICATESSEN (1991) and CITY OF THE LOST CHILDREN (1995).

VERDICT: There are precious few Christmas tales that have made their way into my yearly rotation of Christmas classics in the past decade, the few that have earned their positions are BAD SANTA (2003), THE ICE HARVEST (2005) and SANTA'S SLAY (2005). I'm quite happy to have comes across this dark, Christmas fairy-tale, it's  sure to be a Christmas cult classic for years to come. It's not perfect but it's pretty awesome and I give it a high recommend for fans of dark fantasy like MILLIONS (2004), CORALINE (2009) and CITY OF THE LOST CHILDREN (1995). 3.5 outta 5