SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984)

 

(Director: Charles E. Sellier Jr. Screenwriter: Michael Hickey, his script based on Paul Caimi’s story.)

 

Review

Christmas Eve, 1971. After five-year-old Billy Chapman, baby Ricky and their parents visit their supposedly catatonic Grandpa (who says menacing things about Santa Claus to Billy) in a “Utah Mental Facility”, a roadside criminal in a Santa Claus suit (Charles Dierkop, MESSIAH OF EVIL, 1973) kills Billy’s parents while the hiding, fearful boy watches.

December 1974. Eight-year-old Billy and four-year-old Ricky are now residents at Saint Mary’s Home for Orphaned Children, run by strict disciplinarian Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin, PUMPKINHEAD II: BLOOD WINGS, 1993). Billy’s classroom drawings─childish renderings of his parents’ murders─indicate that Billy, quiet, is still traumatized by them, not that the strap-wielding Mother Superior cares (“Punishment is necessary. Punishment is good,” the no-nonsense nun tells Billy). Billy’s situation worsens when he, shocked, espies one of the sisters in flagrante delicto, and he─further freaked out─hits a visiting man in a Santa Claus suit.

Spring 1984. One of Saint Mary’s more sympathetic nuns (Sister Margaret, played by Gilmer McCormick) gets him a job as a stock boy at nearby Ira’s Toys. Things are going good─Billy seems nice, well-adjusted─until December rolls around, and memories of his parents’ killings return in full force.

Mr. Sims (Britt Leach, BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER, 1981), owner of Ira Toys, has Billy don a Santa suit for the store’s Christmas Eve shift. Billy is depressed but complies without complaint. He witnesses the near-rape of one of the female employees (Pamela, who he’s crushing on) and snaps, flashing back to his mother’s near-rape. He kills her assailant (Andy), then her─Billy’s town-wide murder spree has just begun, one that will eventually bring Billy home.

Shot in Heber City, Utah, this tightly edited (thank you, Michael Spence!) and controversial killer-rampage flick has a dark, focused intensity with its religious-critical, punishment theme (reiterated by “Killer Santa,” Grandpa, Mother Superior), its foreboding, humor-leavened mood reinforced by cinematographer Henning Schillerup’s effective mix of Christmas-light cheer and shadowy darkness as well as composer Perry Botkin Jr.’s unsettling, bordering-on-Eighties-cheesy score. Charles E. Sellier’s direction is solid, effective in its execution. Rick Josephson and G. Lynn Maughan’s relatively restrained FX simultaneously add a sense of fun to SILENT (with its syrupy-looking blood) while contributing to the movie’s overall mood and the effectiveness of the creative and varied kill scenes.

Its cast ranges from solid to excellent. Robert Brian Wilson is B-movie good as the trying-to-be-good-before-he-snaps Billy, while Alex Burton, in his only role (Ricky at 14), matches that B-flick goodness (a mix of cheese and sincerity) when he utters the word “Naughty.”

Other players include: Nancy Borgenicht (HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS, 1988) as the feisty Mrs. Randall, one of Billy’s co-workers; Scream Queen Linnea Quigley (THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, 1985) as Denise, a lusty babysitter; and Leo Geter (HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS, 1995) as Tommy, Denise’s boyfriend.

Selliers’s workmanlike direction, along with SILENT’s creative kills, bordering-on-bleak humor and other elements, makes this a standout holiday-horror B-movie, one that spawned four sequels, starting with SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 (1987).

 

Deep(er) filmic dive

Released stateside on November 9, 1984—the same day as Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET—it made twice as much money as NIGHTMARE (SILENT was in more theaters, before being pulled two weeks later, after a group, “Citizens Against Movie Madness”, were outraged when SILENT was advertised during primetime television, terrifying children, and angering their parents). SILENT‘s ads were pulled six days later. Curiously enough, producers had expected SILENT’s controversy to stem from its potent anti-Catholic vibe, not the killer Santa theme, which had been done already.

Director Charles Sellier retired from directing because of the film’s reception—it was too hard to find work. He focused on producing instead.

PARTY HARD, DIE YOUNG (2018)

 

(Shudder Original/streaming film. Director: Dominik Hartl. Screenwriters: Robert Buschwenter and Karin Lomot.)

Storyline

Julia and her friends travel to Croatia from Germany to have the “party of their lives”─a celebration that is interrupted by a clever killer who has targeted them.

 

Review

PARTY, a Shudder Original streaming film, is a generic, sometimes entertaining Eurostylish version of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER crossed with a rape story. (At one point, one character sarcastically namechecks KNOW.) While PARTY is visually interesting, has pretty, young people (for those who care about that), and far from the worst thriller I’ve seen, its bland, mostly suspense-less (aside from the rooftop stalk-and-slay scene) film is more of a drama with mostly one-note characters. The filmmakers clearly have the chops to deliver a visually interesting work─it’s Robert Buchschwenter and Karin Lomot’s screenplay that makes PARTY a forgettable, flashy exercise that shows off modern-day technology and attractive youth partying. The end-shot is darkly humorous, so kudos to the filmmakers for that. Worth watching, if you need something occasionally-fun-in-parts flick that you can fall asleep to midway through, without missing anything important.

PARTY is rated R for mild gore, a flash of female nudity, violence, drug use and foul language.

THE HAUNTING (1963)

 

(Director: Robert Wise. Screenwriter: Nelson GIdding. Based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House.)

 

Review

In the supposedly haunted, ninety-year-old Hill House in Massachusetts, Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson, ZOMBIE, 1979) brings together a group of paranormal researchers to investigate the long-empty abode. In allowing him access, one of the conditions Mrs. Sanderson (Fay Compton), Hill House’s owner, places on Markway is that he must allow her nephew (Luke Sanderson, played by Russ Tamblyn, TWIN PEAKS, 2017) to be present during the investigation. It’s said that no one has stayed in the house for more than two or three days, not since its last owner—who may’ve murdered its previous owner— hanged herself by its spiral staircase inside the library.

Out of the nine investigators Markway invites, two accept. The first is self-assured, darkly funny Theodora, a.k.a. “Theo” (Claire Bloom), a psychic. The second is frangible, psychically sensitive Eleanor “Nell” Lance (Julie Harris, also said to be fragile during HAUNTING’s filming), who’s trying to escape her nasty family. Eleanor, the first to arrive and whose thoughts are voiced for the audience, is immediately drawn to the house in an unhealthy way. Theodora arrives shortly afterward, honestly telling Eleanor that Hill House “wants” her—not that Eleanor minds. She views this macabre outing as a “vacation” and “want[s] to stay, period.”

Dr. Johnson, showing up a few minutes later, informs the two women that “all the doors are hung slightly off-set, which explains why they keep shutting by themselves. . . all the angles are slightly off, not a square corner in the place."

During their initial tour of the claustrophobic, Rococo-style spook house, they meet Luke Sanderson, who doesn’t believe Hill House is inhabited by ghosts. The young man cites “subterranean water”, “atmospheric pressure”, “sunspots” and “electric currents” as the reasons its “disturbances”. The film’s tone is light, humorous, the house well-lit with no shadowy corners.

Later that night, Eleanor—around whom much of the paranormal activity centers—wakes to loud and violent pounding on the walls and her bedroom door, noises that terrify Theo as well. It’s during these scenes that darkness reappears (early scenes relating to the house’s history were shadow-drenched), a tonal, menacing shift furthered by HAUNTING’s sound department, with odd noises and the faint sound of a woman’s mocking laughter.

From there, the situation worsens with more overt manifestations (human or supernatural?), becoming more intense and dreadful. Will any of them leave the house whole, healthy?

HAUNTING, an excellent psychological (and G-rated!) film, with lots of odd tracking shots and pans, constantly roving cameras, and low angle shot, something director Robert Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton (MODESTY BLAISE, 1966) worked out. These shots and other visual tricks heighten the effect of HAUNTING’s physical aspects (credit interior designer Elliot Scott and set decorator John Jarvis). Humphrey Searle’s well-timed, often nuanced score, along with its actors, complete the overall effect of the film.

 

All of HAUNTING’s players are excellent, from Harris’s volatile Eleanor to Lois Maxell’s ghost-doubting Grave Markway, Dr. Markway’s wife. (Many filmgoers know Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny in fourteen James Bond films, starting with DR. NO, 1962). All of these actors embody and/or lighten (when necessary) the emotional intensity of the expansive, sensory-oppressive manse, in one of the best entries in the spook house genre.

 

Deep(er) filmic dive

According to IMDb, director Robert Wise shot HAUNTING (a title suggested by source-book author Shirley Jackson) in black and white because it added to the “rich atmospheric quality” of the film.

Julie Harris said the film censors dictated that Theo must never touch Eleanor, to downplay Theo’s lesbian attraction to Eleanor. In spite of this, they touched or sat close to each other several times in the film.

Fans of the hard rock band White Zombie might recognize their sampling of a line of dialogue from HAUNTING in their song “Super-Charger Heaven” (off their 1995 ASTRO-CREEP: 2000 album), specifically Dr. Markway’s line “Now I know the supernatural is something that isn’t supposed to happen, but it does happen.”

Russ Tamblyn, in an uncredited role, played a psychiatrist in the streaming Netflix series THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018).

Director/screenwriter Ti West is said to be a fan of HAUNTING. His first film, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009) is a copycat-title nod to the title given to HAUNTING when originally released in France.