Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

Review #1776: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.

Cast: 

Eric Freeman (Ricky Caldwell), Darrel Guilbeau (Ricky, age 15), Brian Michael Henley (Ricky, age 10), James L. Newman (Dr. Henry Bloom), Elizabeth Kaitan (Jennifer Statson), Jean Miller (Mother Superior), Corrine Gelfan (Martha Rosenberg), Michael Combatti (Morty Rosenberg), Jill K. Allen (Mrs. Rosenberg's Friend), Ken Weichert (Chip), Ron Moriarty (Detective), and Frank Novak (Rocco, The Loan Shark) Directed by Lee Harry.

Featuring archival footage of Robert Brian Wilson (Billy Chapman, age 18), Danny Wagner (Billy, age 8), Jonathan Best (Billy, age 5), Alex Burton (Ricky Caldwell, age 14), Max Broadhead (Ricky, age 4), Gilmer McCormick (Sister Margaret), and Lilyan Chauvin (Mother Superior)

Review: 

If you remember, people got really weird about the idea of someone dressed up as Santa Claus going around slashing people in Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). In that film, if you recall, this happened to an eighteen year old after having a psychological breakdown from a bad childhood where he saw his parents get killed by a man in said suit (after conveniently having his grandfather tell him that Santa punishes the "naughty" kids) and raised in a sad orphanage. Critics took umbrage with the film as some sort of feeling that it was either something that would traumatize kids and their trust in Santa (uh...) or as "bloody money" (as stated by Gene Siskel, which is purely ridiculous). Parents groups also took (hysterical) umbrage with the film and even had protesters picket the theater and sing Christmas carols (of course, I'm not sure how that is supposed to sway someone interested in watching a slasher film). Even Mickey Rooney spoke out against the film, saying "How dare they! I'm all for the first amendment but... don't give me Santa Claus with a gun going to kill someone. The scum who made that movie should be run out of town." (he proceeded to star in Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker). Of course, it wasn't even the first Christmas slasher film, since Christmas Evil (1980) had been released independently, but I think you can understand how times have changed since 1984, for better or worse. Imagine my surprise to hear that a second film came and went without even half of the controversy, three years later. Granted, it barely had a release in theaters at all, but it still made it in time with alleged scares to follow. The film was written by Harry and Joseph H. Earle for its screenplay while its story was done by Lee, Earle, Dennis Patterson, and Lawrence Appelbaum (the latter also produced the film).

Are you ready for this? Somehow, the producers got an idea to take the first film and basically re-edit it with a few small new sequences to try and sell a "new" film to audiences. But the director managed to convince them to allow for a few days of shooting to film a few new sequences that could at least make a plot besides just re-using the original. So... that means nearly forty minutes of footage from the first film is present here, basically telling us an abridged version of the events from that film again, with occasional narration (by Freeman) or segments involving Freeman and Newman (try not to dwell on the fact that a character is narrating events that they were not present for and for some reason with a different last name than before); the total run-time of this film is 88 minutes, by the way,  complete with crediting the original cast in the credits. Eventually comes the use of footage with Freeman in the "well, now here's what happened when I turned 18" before finally, finally getting to actual breathing attempts at slasher stuff near the end. The gore is okay, but it proves pretty silly compared to what we had to see for the first forty minutes. You have a scene where a guy pushes an umbrella through someone's entire body before it reaches its peak with the one sticking line of the film: The killer, loose on a rampage seeing someone put their garbage on the street and saying "Garbage Day!" in an over-the-top nature. It became a "meme" in the early days of the Internet for good reason. Freeman attracted a cult following, probably amplified by the fact that he basically disapeared from acting after 1992. In fact, he couldn't even be contacted when it came time to do a commentary with Harry; an actual community on the Internet was even made (Finding Freeman) about him. The writer of the film apparently encouraged Freeman to go for an over-the-top performance, while Harry did not give him too much encouragement. One will see plenty of eyebrow twitching and shifts in his voice that makes for a curious performance. It is more watchable to hear him toy with Newman than it is to hear him narrate over exposition. Him just saying "I was there." to when he is asked about how he remembers a murder as a baby makes it almost seem worth it. All Newman has to do is sit in a chair and look over Chapman as the plot is told and so on, which is at least better than it could have been. Kaitian and Weichert make the significant part of the "plot" (i.e. a romance and rival), and each actually make Freeman look better by comparison before they become bait (Gelfan and Combatti basically disappear from the film after only a few minutes, somehow). It is bewildering to show so much stock footage of Chauvin and her icy effective performance from the first film only to have a different actress play the character in Miller (complete with makeup). It just doesn't seem the same when it comes to character motivation (if you can call it that for this film) when talking about the climax. Somehow, the series would morph into further weirdness. While the second film was the last to be released theatrically, three further films followed, each with their own storyline (the third one re-casts the "Billy" character while following up this one). A remake called Silent Night (2012) was also made. As a whole, the film is an amusing embarrassment, one that can't live up to the already mediocre standards the first feature had done that shows its limitations in all of the campy ways possible. If one wants to see where "Garbage Day!" comes from...seeing the clip is better than seeing the film, probably.  

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Next time: something better, again.