SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT (1984)

All definitely not calm, quiet in `Silent Night' - Movie review

The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution - April 1, 1986

Author: RINGEL, ELEANOR, Eleanor Ringel Film Editor: STAFF

When it was originally released in 1984, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" was just another so-so splatter film. Then certain parents in the Midwest decided there was nothing so-so about a film whose killer went ho-ho-ho. Their protests - led by a group calling itself Citizens Against Movie Madness - gave the movie an unintentional publicity boost and probably brought it a few extra dollars at the box office.

The picture is both too little and too late. Don't be fooled by the ads or by its so-called lurid past; "Silent Night" is nothing more than yet another ho-ho-hum "Halloween" rip-off that happened to pick the wrong holiday (or the right one, depending on your point of view).

When it was originally released in 1984, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" was just another so-so splatter film. Then certain parents in the Midwest decided there was nothing so-so about a film whose killer went ho-ho-ho. Their protests - led by a group calling itself Citizens Against Movie Madness - gave the movie an unintentional publicity boost and probably brought it a few extra dollars at the box office.

The distributor, Tri-Star Pictures, rode the crest as long as it was profitable but, in the face of mounting unfavorable P.R. and dwindling grosses, pulled the picture instead of opening it nationwide. "Silent Night" was then dumped on the cable and videocassette circuit, where it has slumbered peacefully until some greedy bookers figured there were still a few bucks to be made from a two-year-old non-scandal. To that end, the film has been re-released with a "Caligula"-ish ad campaign -i. e., "The movie that went too far . . . they tried to ban it . . . Now you can see it . . . uncut." - and Atlantans are "enjoying" Christmas in April as "Silent Night, Deadly Night" finally limps into town.

A kid named Billy is badly traumatized when a killer dressed in a Santa suit kills his parents one Christmas Eve. This happens just after the family has visited Grampa in the mental hospital and the loony old man has hissed in Billy's face, "Christmas is the scariest damn night of the year. You see Santa Claus tonight, you better run away."

Billy's next stop is an orphanage run by a Nazi nun (Lilyan Chauvin) who ties naughty little boys to their bedposts and says things like, "You will learn what it means to be sorry." By the time he's grown up, Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake - though it takes being forced to dress as a toy-store Santa on Christmas Eve to get his psychoses flowing.

The last 45 minutes of the film is an On Dasher-On Slasher rampage as Billy, still dressed as Santa, folds, spindles and mutilates the rest of the cast. To help get those psycho-juices flowing in the audience, the film intercuts the carnage with flashbacks to various naked breasts Billy saw while he was growing up (including those of his mother, who was almost raped by the original killer Claus).

Frankly, if you want to see a really scary movie about a psycho-Santa, let me suggest 1972's horror anthology "Tales From the Crypt," in which Joan Collins (!) tries frantically to keep an escaped lunatic in Santa-drag from getting inside her house, only to have her efforts thwarted by her own little girl who welcomes "Santa" with open arms. That film's final shot - of a slavering madman, d ressed in a red-and-white suit, with mayhem in his eyes - is more frightening than all of "Silent Night's" imbecilic impalings put together.

The director of "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is Charles Sellier Jr., whose previous credits include "Grizzly Adams." That ought to tell horror connoisseurs something. But I don't know what you tell people like the guy who sat across the aisle from me in an almost-deserted theater and explained that he was there because he was bored. His boredom means more bucks for more movies like this and more of my time wasted. I'd personally appreciate it if the other bored young men and women out there would try a movie they think they might like instead of supporting one they expect to be awful. It would make my job a lot easier - and a lot less insulting.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night." Horror film about a psycho Santa starring Robert Brian Wilson. Rated R for sex, female nudity and excessive violence.