This review was originally supposed to be up in time for Christmas, but didn’t make it. That’s okay because we’re breaking all the rules here at Video Junkie. So you’re getting a December review in January. Why did I miss my own deadline? Well, it is a combination of utter laziness and SILENT NIGHT being the biggest lump of coal/shit you can ever imagine. This movie pissed me off so much that I started beating my kids…and I don’t have any kids! So that means I was basically punching myself in the nuts for watching this utterly cynical and completely useless remake.
You know you’re in trouble right off the bat when non-talent Steven C. Miller opens his film with a SAW-tinged torture bit. A killer Santa has a chick tied up and the guy she was cheating on her husband with wrapped in a bunch of Christmas lights in the basement. The guy pleads for his life but then realizes he isn’t dealing with his lover’s husband but some real “sick fuck.” He comes to this realization a moment before being electrocuted. And we are off! Cut to Deputy Aubrey Bradimore (Jamie King) waking up lonely in bed. You see it has been a year since she lost her hubby John and she is feeling down. Not so understanding is Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell), who demands she come in today, Christmas Eve of all days, because another deputy has gone missing (the guy from the opening). It is a big day for this sleepy Wisconsin town because they are having their annual parade of Santas, where seemingly every man in town dresses up like ol’ St. Nick. Oh lawd, here we go.
So Aubrey swallows her hurt and gets into work. It is here that director Miller and screenwriter Jayson Rothwell offer up a stunning succession of scenes that showcase they just don’t care or live in a world completely populated by caricatures. Aubrey runs up on the Mayor, who has a slutty daughter, Tiffany (Courtney-Jane White), who tells him to fuck off; we get a bratty tween who slaps her mother’s heart medication (!) out of her hands, demands to go to the mall and screams, “Fuck church! I want my new LV today” at her (she gets killed right after this); we get perv Reverend Madeley (Curtis Moore) coming onto Aubrey; and we get a belligerent Santa (Donal Logue) who likes to be mean to bratty kids and keeps a journal about Santa Claus. Can you see how badass this movie is? I’m willing to bet Miller sat in meetings and said, “We’re gonna fuck this holiday up.” And we’re just getting started with this bad boy attitude as now we have the first direct scene from the original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984). Oh, did you forget this is a remake? Randomly shoehorned in is a scene where Dennis (Erik Berg) is visiting his catatonic Grandpa at an old folks’ home. He mentions he is dating Tiffany and says to his Grandfather, “I’m boning her pretty regularly now” (yes, really) as he steals money from his wallet. Apparently a screenplay scenario this bad is enough to get Grandpa to snap out of his trance and he delivers the “Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year” dialogue. *sigh*
Meanwhile, the cops have discovered the dead bodies from the opening in the Myers place…er, sorry…an abandoned house. On the other side of town Tiffany is visiting some cokeheads doing a Suicide Girls-style shoot in a seedy motel. Seriously, fuck off. After she leaves, the killer Santa shows up and offs everyone including throwing the topless girl into a wood chipper. Aubrey suspects former mill worker Stein Karsson (Mike O’Brien) is the killer because 1. she’s never seen him before and 2. he is wearing work boots similar to the prints left on the scene. She confronts him at a bar and he tells her a story he heard about a guy dressed as Santa who torched his wife and her lover with a flamethrower back in the day (a cynical working in of this real life Santa killer). But it turns out Stein is just the local cocaine dealer, Mr. Snow. Jesus, let me wrap this up. Aubrey begins doubting her policing skills and calls her former cop dad, who says, “This isn’t the first time a Bradimore had to bring down a bad Santa” (more on that in a bit). A whole bunch of people get killed in the last half hour (including a pathetic recreation of Linnea Quigley’s deer antler death from the original) as the cops run around looking for the right Santa and – MAGICALLY -- the cop doubting their skills saves the day. Cue end credits with shitty metal version of “Silent Night.”
It is almost fitting that this flick ends with a really crappy cover of a Christmas carol because that pretty much encapsulates this film – an attempt to take something well known and make it hard, dude. Now horror historians won’t be crowning the original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT as an all-time great. But I will! It isn’t the best Christmas horror movie, but it is certainly my favorite. I mean, it is infinitely quotable, has plenty of Christmas spirit, is highly exploitative (to the point of creating massive controversy) and, believe it or not, has some pretty damning commentary on a number of issues (yes, really). The fact that this remake mostly focuses on the exploitation factor should let you know how concerned the filmmakers were with making a good movie. This is a group that openly created something so contemptuous that they wanted people to get upset by it. It doesn’t work that way and has all the power of a kid with a Mohawk saying “fuck the system” while manning the register at Hot Topic.
This review cracks me up.
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