Christmas time is almost upon us and while the rest of the world will be watching the more really traditional Christmas films. Those films are really to boring for me so instead i've chosen to watch an alternative Christmas movie and it just so happens that this film also has a remake coming out this Friday as well and so then join me as I review the film that really spends quite alot of time in just setting up the main villain of the film with the film in question being called simply just "Silent Night, Deadly Night" enjoy.
The plot of this film is ten years after seeing his parents killed by a man in a Santa suit Billy Chapman goes insane and it's up those closest to him to stop from doing more harm dressed in a Santa suit. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad with the film actually telling an original plot as there really hadn't been a horror film before now that told this plot and yet at the same time it's kind of easy to see why as this films plot is pretty bare bones as it is with it being quite hard to tell just what the main plot of the film is even meant to be alot of the time with this not really being helped by the fact that the film comes across as not really having a plot with it seeming like the makers of this film were oping that the premise alone would be more then enough to make the film good which granted the premise is original enough that you do kind of forgive the film for not really having that much of a plot in the first place but in saying this tho there really did need to be some resemblance of plot there to make the film worth watching in the first place and yet because of the fact that the makers of this film really didn't bother to give this film a plot it does make it seem like that they had no idea of what to do from a plot point of view as there really is very little in the way of plot with the plot of this film not really being really rather entertaining and nor is it really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this film is Robert Brian Wilson as Billy Chapman and Alex Burton as Richard "Ricky" Chapman. Also starring in this film is Lilyan Chauvin as Mother Superior , Gilmer McCormick as Sister Margaret , Toni Nero as Pamela , Britt Leach as Mr. Sims , Nancy Borgenicht as Mrs. Helen Randall , Linnea Quigley as Denise , Will Hare as Grandpa Chapman , Tara Buckman as Ellie Chapman and Geoff Hansen as Jim Chapman.
Now then interms of what I personally tought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty i in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with all of this films actors turning as good of a performance as they possibly could have done as nobody is going into this film expecting the acting to be top notch and yet we still do manage to get some really passable acting from all of this films actors which for this film is truly something to be hold as by all rights this films acting should have been really bad and yet you can tell that alot of this films actors really are trying there absolute best to turn in a good performance with the films best actor being Robert Brian Wilson as not only is he in alot of the film but that he also does get to show off both sides of his character from him being partially sane to going fully blown insane and it is something that does work with the type of performance that he gives and while he's not as good as Robert Englund is as Freddy Krueger for example for an actor in a low budget slasher film he does as well as is to be expected and yet he does manage to turn in a really good performance when this kind of film really didn't require him to do so to make this character work in the first place with the acting that's in this film not really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that there actual characters personalities are meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.
Where this film does fair somewhat better is in it's characters as the characters in this film are fairly decent. With alot of the films characters whilst they aren't anywhere close to being fully formed characters do serve there purpose really well which is to be nothing more then people for Billy to kill and that's it with the only one that doesn't serve that purpose being Sister Margaret who does try to be kind to Billy when he's growing up something which Mother Superior doesn't do as she believes that punishment is a good thing and often hits Billy over every little thing that he does that she deems to be wrong and Billy himself is a rather fascinating character as we spend ALOT of the first thirty minuets if the film with him just as a child with us getting to see just what it is that made as insane as he is and while spending that long of the films running time is pretty excessive it is something that does help us form a connection with Billy as a character infact out of all of this films characters Billy is the one that we the audience spend alot of time with and because of that the character does come across as being oddly likable as the people around him that there looking after him after the death of his parents could have treated him nicely and made sure that he was mentally well but they didn't which only served to do more harm then good to him as a character with the rest of the of the films characters being nothing more then people for him to kill which granted was kind of the purpose of those characters but it still would have been if alot more of this films characters played bigger roles in the film as someone of them could have given Billy someone to talk to and Sister Margaret someone to bounce off of as well and yet they don't do that which means that Billy is left to spend alot of the film alone and Sister Margaret spends alot of the time with a Police Officer tracking Billy down.
Whilst alot of people would say that Billy or even Mother Superior are the ones to blame for what happens in the film and there is some truth to that. However there is one character that alot of people seem to forget also played a large part in who Billy is as an adult that being Grandpa as he straight up tells young Billy that Santa will punish him because he's been naughty and makes young Billy afraid of Santa in the first place something does come into play quite alot of the time in this film as now everytime he sees that suit or someone in that suit he now associates it with punishment and fear and granted Grandpa wasn't in the best of conditions when Billy last saw him as a kid but it was still pretty bad of Grandpa to do that to a kid so young and granted Billy's parents did try to calm him down when they saw a Santa on the road on the way home which is what any good parent would do but by that point it was far to little to late and given the fact that the Santa they chose to help out was a bad person did serve to hit home just what it was that Grandpa said to him in the first place with all of this plus the scenes at the orphanage only serving to make Billy more of a likable character the any of the characters that we would normally like as here we have a villain who was basically mentally tortured by two people who should have known better but actively chose not to granted Grandpa wasn't in the best of health at the time so he does get let off a little bit but he still should have known not to basically scar the kid in the first place as best case scenario that now means that both the kid and his parents and brother will now no longer see him with the film playing out the worst case scenario.
Be prepared for this film to be a slow burn as that's exactly what this film it's a very slow burner of a film. With the film spending a good chuck of it's time just6 in setting up Billy as a character prior to him turning eighteen and then when he does turn eighteen the film spends a good while just showing us what it is that finally drives him insane and while this kind of approach worked for something like halloween as that film was at the very least building up tension and had more likable characters in it to help to make the time go by faster here tho none of that is the case as the only likable character outside of Billy is Sister Margaret and that's it and even then the film doesn't spend alot of time with her character so much so infact that you' be forgiven for thinking that she even was a character in the first place as she disappears from the film for large periods of the films running time with the film not even building up tension when we see him get a job as a store Santa as everything that we'd seen with the character up until that point in time made us feel sorry for the character therefor it would have helped the film out quite a bit if there was more to this film maybe by having more main characters that have a story of there own as then it would break up alot of the boring scenes with Billy working happily at the Toy Shop but to the films credit tho when it does get going it really does get going it just takes a good long while for it to really get going which would be fine if the film was near two hours long which this film sadly isn't and heck the film doesn't take full advantage of the fact that it's a Christmas themed horror film as you don't really see anything that makes it a Christmas type of film outside of some snow of the ground.
To give this film some credit you can see the potential for this film to be a really good horror film in it's own right. As the idea alone is creative enough and the idea of having someone dressed up as Father Christmas going around killing people does make for a good villain but given the films Christmas setting and how the killer of the film is dressed up as it's not as fun as it really should have been as by all rights this film should have been a horror comedy as it's all right there for the film to work all the more better if they didn't take themselves as seriously as they do in the film and while yes granted the film having Billy going around and only killing people who he sees doing things that he himself deems to be naughty could be seen as being a funny and possibly even campy thing the film really doesn't lean into that aspect of the film as such all it does is make Billy come across as being the hero of the film and heck he even stops some bullies in the film as well and yet if the film did lean into this aspect just a little bit more and even made it into a running joke for the film then it is something that would have helped make the film be alot more entertaining then what it already is in the first place and heck it could even be argued that Billy shouting "Naughty" every time that he's about to kill someone does make the film more unintentionally funny then what perhaps the makers of the film had originally intended and yet if this was a horror comedy then they would have been able to go to those more weird and wacky places that they just can't go to as everything in the film is playing straight which could be argued makes those more unintentionally funny moments even more funnier in the first place but it does also make the film out be alot more boring as well thankfully tho based on recently released clips it does look like the the remake is going more of the horror comedy route tho.
Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and twenty four minuets and fifty four seconds. With this film being a little bit on the long side as this film really doesn't have the right amount of plot to cover that amount of running time in the first place infact it has about the right amount of plot to cover at best thirty minuets and that's it with the film not even using it's running time all that wisely in the first place as this film doesn't even develop it's plot all that well with the makers of this film being alot more focused on giving us every single aspect of Billy's backstory then it is giving us a well developed plot when it would have made more sense if the makers of the film spent more time on giving us a more well developed plot then anything else with this even effecting the films characters as well as none of this films characters are well developed with alot of them coming across as not even two dimensional characters but rather there just one dimensional characters with the same thing even being true for Billy as we don't get to spend that much time with him before he starts to slowly go insane and therefor we can't really feel that sorry for him with the only thing that could have fixed this being if the film had a page one rewrite of it's script as that's where all the issues with the film start as by doing that it could mean that all of the pointless backstory story stuff could get trimmed down thus freeing up room for more time to develop both the films plot and it's characters and yet because of the fact that the makers of this film really want us to know every aspect of how Billy became who he is in the first place that does mean that we are left with both a plot and characters that feel like afterthoughts when compared to the films backstory but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is a slasher that really does mean that I have t actually have to talk about the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With the film shockingly having alot of pretty decent kills in it which was shocking given the fact that this film had a really small production budget and yet while that you can see how cheap this film was on screen where you can't see it is in the films kills as the film does have alot of rally impressive gore effects in it all of which work really well and look alot more better then what they really should have done and while it would be very easy to say that the films best kill was the massacre that Billy goes on in the Toy Shop the fact is is that whilst there some really good kills there the films best best kill have to be when he goes next door and proceed to pierce the girlfriend of one of the people in the house with deer antlers as that's only a really creative kill and it's one that does tie in to the films Christmas theme as well as even tho the film does have a killer Santa alot of the kills in this film happen because of Billy using an axe and don't really have that much to do with Christmas with the only other Christmas themed kill being when he strangles someone with Christmas lights in the Toy Shop but the antler kill is an iconic kill for a reason as it's a kill that really does work really well with there being some really good look practical effects in that kill and other kills as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall it really isn't that hard to see why this film became a cult classic there's really nothing in this film that says that it was ever going to be a mainstream film and yet the film is still despite being a pretty dull film alot of the time is still one that is enjoyable once the film itself really get going in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad thigs that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6.5 out 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all pf the images that I personally used in this vert review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Tenor , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images from this film being Google Images simply because Google Images actually has images from this film really are up and on Google Images and plus pretty much much all of the images that I personally found on Google Images were all really very fairly high quality and as well as being as really very fairly high definition as well and so then horror fans we end this review as we always do with really our one and true goddess Elvira wishing us all some really very unpleasant dreams.
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