Horror remakes are sadly still a thing and now that Hollywood has all but ran out of all of the major franchises to remake it's now turning it's attention to all of the little known franchises as well. Case in point the film that i'm going to be talking to you all about today as while there might be some people that remember the original Silent Night, Deadly Night movie alot more people are going to remember it's sequel due to how bad it is and yet hollywood thought that this film was worth remaking not once but twice and so the join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the film stripes away anything that made the first film feel so good and unique in the first place with the film in question being called simply just "Silent Night, Deadly Night" enjoy.
The plot of this film is some years after witnessing his parents getting killed by a man in a Santa suit a young man goes on a killing spree all over a small town. 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 as this films plot is pretty similar to the plot of the original film but at the same time it does take the first films plot in a different direction which at first does seem like a good idea as it does give this film a reason for being other then to cash in on the franchise IP but the amount of changes that this film makes to the originals plot just feels out of place and don't work alot of the time but to be fair tho this films plot is one that can get quite entertaining alot of the time due to one of the new aspects that this films introduces however tho he original films plot is all the more better then this films version of it just due to the fact that whilst yes it was a slow burn that was something that did ultimately work well in the films favor whereas here in this film it's plot takes the exact opposite approach to it's plot which robs the film of any chance to be it's own unique thing with the films pot feeling like the plot to any slasher remake as it's not that original of a plot as this film doesn't really do anything that's all that new or interesting with the plot of the 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 Rohan Campbell as Billy Chapman and Happy Death Day star Ruby Modine as Pamela "Pam" Sims. Also starring in this film is Mark Acheson as Charlie , David Lawrence Brown as Mr. Sims , David Tomlinson as Max Benedict , Darren Felbel as Grandpa , Jessica Burleson as Dana , Marina Stephenson Kerr as Rebecca , Landon McGowan Geoffrey as Liam , Coco Kolomiyets-Tohjoh as Celia , Cora Matheson as Hannah , Toni Reimer as Gail , Erik Athavale as Geoffrey Chapman , Rick Skene as Elroy , James Durham as Harold , Krystle Snow as Tara Chapman and Sharon Bajer as Delphine Anderson.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about thew 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 actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With this films acting being one of the more better aspects of the film as you can tell right away that the actors in this film know full well that there not in that good of a film and are just willing to have fun with their roles and that is something that does shine through in the film and eve tho alot of this films actors aren't that well known performance wise they do do a good job with there characters as there is alot of thought and effort put into there acting with it being helped by the fact that this films writer and director Mike P. Nelson does come across as being the kind of director that knows how to talk to his actors and get a good performance out of them with the films best actor being Rohan Campbell as Billy Chapman as he does do a good job of portraying Billy in a new and exciting way as it would have been very easy for him to copy what Robert Brian Wilson did with the character in the original film and yet here his performance makes it so that you not only feel sorry for the character but also can't really predict just what the character is thinking or feeling alot of the time 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 even 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.
This film really doesn't fair all that much better character wise either as there's really nothing to any of this films characters. With all of this films characters just being really poorly done with there being nothing to them tat makes them interesting in the first place and granted the same thing could also be said for the original film but with that film they have the excuse of only really having one main character and a few side characters ad that's it here tho the film has alot of main characters and very few side characters and yet the makes of this film give none of this films characters be they main characters are or side characters anything interesting with alot of the characters are carried over from the the first film being nothing more then weaker versions of already weakly done characters heck the film could have made them stereotypes of other slasher film characters and it still would have been a step up from what we got in this film as here it felt like that the characters were treated more as an afterthought when compared to anything else in the film as the film does give alot more thought and effort into other aspects with its characters not being something that the makers of this film bothered to fix which is something that the makers of this film could have done as they could have taken the chance to fix something that could have been seen as a fault in the original film whilst still doing it's own unique thing as the idea of a remake is to redo the first film but do it better and that's not something that the makers of this film did alot of the time as the films characters just come across as being very dimensional characters and that's really it for them.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whilst this film is largely a remake of the original film it does make key changes from the first film that impact this film in a negative light. Like for example not only do they not make the Grandpa character a strange person who gave Billy the fear of Santa in the first place but they also have his dad drug and kill him and they cut out everything at the orphanage which means that we don't get to see what it was that made Billy snap and start killing people in the first place as when the film starts he's already been killing people whilst dressed up in a Santa suit for years at this point in time when it was more effective in the first film as we spent a good chunk of that films running time on just Billy's backstory so when he finally did start killing people it meant all the more as we'd spent longer with him as a character and yet here the makers of the film expect us to already feel something for the character without really giving us a reason to care for him and while giving Pam a bigger role in this film does make sense as she's a co-lead character in this film the film still does nothing interesting with her character as she's only there to be Billy's love interest and that's it and with the film stripping away everything that made the original be a flawed but still very unique film we are left with a film that feels more like a watered down version of the original film as the makers of this film are more focused on showing us references to the first two films then they are in giving us a film that is a genuinely good film thus making this film feel like a lazy cash grab of a film when it should have been a film that kept what made the original film unique but added new spins on them and have those new spins be things that actually made sense and weren't just added in for the sake of having them in there in the first place.
Look to be fair to this film it does add one new thing that does kind of work or would have done if they explained it a bit better. That being the fact that they now give Billy a voice in his head that he calls Charlie with it being Charlie that convinces him to kill people and even shows him not only who is evil but also how best to kill them which fair enough is a decent idea and one that does indeed work for the film as it helps to make this film feel more like a horror comedy then a straight up horror film but the issue is tho is that the film doesn't really explain why Billy is hearing this voice in the first place as it's strongly implied that Charlie is a curse that he got when he touched the man in the Santa suit that killed his parents but that's really the only kind of explanation that we get for this inner voice and it's not something that works as both this film and the original film are meant to be set in our world and therefor meant to be grounded in some of reality and yet the second that the makers of this film introduced that concept but didn't bother to ground in some form of reality it then makes you wonder why they bothered to even remake the original film in the first place as the first film didn't have aspects like that it as it was a more grounded slasher film think Halloween but set at Christmas whereas here with this film it felt like that they were trying something that they made a problem in the first place as since they cut out all of the scene at the Orphanage and made Grandpa more nicer to Billy it now means there's no reason for Billy to go as insane as does and so they gave him this voice that he hears just so that they can have a reason for him to kill people which is a fun idea don't get me wrong but it's also something that really wasn't needed as the original film already gave us the perfect excuse for him to go mad in the first place.
One of the big issues with the first film is that it wasn't as funny as a Christmas slasher film where a man dressed in a Santa suit is the killer should have been. Well whilst this film isn't all that funnier either there was an attempt ton add in more moments of humor into the film alot of which did work for this film as this is a film that should be more lighter in tone as the very idea of having someone dressed up as Santa going around killing people does open itself up for having alot of jokes and while the film doesn't take advantage of that as nobody mocks the fact that there's a guy going around killing people in a Santa suit the film does have him have some funny moments like for the example in what is sure to be the films most talked about moment for political reasons Billy infiltrates a party only to discover that everyone there including the hostess are Na*is which is something that does lead to fun a sequence with him killing everyone there all the while he's trying to avoid using a gun only for the very thing that stops him from killing people being a gun itself with this sequence even leading into the film recreating the original films decapitation scene only now instead of it being bully it's the hostess but what makes the scene political and one that certain groups of people will be talking is he fact that the people portrayed as Na*is are right wing Americans with them speaking of traditional American values which does kind of rob the scene of being more fun but at the same time tho it does make the film feel oddly topical as well and heck there's even a fun montage near the end of the film where Billy goes over alot of the kills that he did as a youth with that whole sequence being kind of fun to see.
Now then this film has / had an exact gran total running time of exactly one hour and thirty minuets and thirty six seconds. Which to be fair to this film to this film is a decent amount of running time however tho this film seems to be more interested in giving us a second killer for some reason then it is in giving us a good plot as while this film does have more then enough plot there to cover that amount of running time in the first place this film really doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as the film doesn't fully develop it's running time in the first place this is despite the fact that this film is actually longer then the original film and yet because of the fact that the makers of this film wanted to give us a second killer for literally no reason whatsoever with this even effecting the films characters as one of them Billy included get any kind of character development whatsoever with all of them being paper thin when the film should have spent less time in giving us a second underdeveloped killer and should have spent more time in developing the characters something which with it's longer running time it very easily could have done and heck it's something that the flashback with Billy in the original film did and could have done here as then we'd fully understand why Billy is the way that he is but as the film cut that whole portion out for no reason it now means that none of this films characters can be that well developed and instead come across as being one dimensional characters which is something that was OK in the original film as alot of cheaply made eighties slasher films had no character development but here in this film it's not really an excuse as slasher films today do make room for character development no matter how small that it is in the first place but I really will admit that his 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 to actually talk about the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I inn all honesty personally thought / felt hat the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With alot of this films kills being really fun to watch but in saying this tho there not as good as they could have been as by all rights this films kills should have been alot more fun and alot more gorier then what they are in the first place and while we do get some good gore alot of the time alot more of the time the film doesn't show of its gore when that would have made the films kills all the more fun to watch as people do come to a slasher film to watch not only good kills but also gore as well and yet there are some good kills that do show of just how fun that this film could be with the best example of this also being the films best kill as we get to see Billy just go nut and kill a bunch of people at a secret Na*i party in alot of really cool ways with us getting to see alot of really impressive gore in that scene as well with even the films decapitation having alot of really good gore in it as well and while the film does copy Denise's kill from the original film which was a fun thing to say and to be fair to this film it was a kill that was handled really well in this film as well as it is a kill that very easily could have been messed up and while we don't get to see any in that kill it is one that still looks really good in this very film with the film having alot of really good kills in it as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall this is a film that had so much potential to be one of the more fun and crazier horror films of the year and yet it comes out as one of the more safe and boring horror films of the year due to the fact that it plays everything super safe and it feels like a generic slasher film 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 things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does earn that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score 0f exactly a 5.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very 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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