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.