MOVIE #2,238 • SCORE 2/10 • 12.24.24
SERIES: XMAS 2024 — A 3-DAY "SILENT NIGHT" CELEBRATION
Right from the jump, the look of this — directed by Steven C. Miller, who helmed one of the most atrocious Nicolas Cage wasteland movies — immediately had me pining for the 80s. This looks like a Saw film. “Santa” puts on a homemade/makeshift mask and beard combo and fries a guy strung up in Xmas lights in a basement torture chamber electric chair while a bound and gagged woman writhes in terror upstairs.
Officer Jaime King gets called into work from her curmudgeon boss Sheriff Malcolm McDowell even though this is her “first Christmas without John” and she wasn't supposed to be on duty (don't worry, the loss of her husband isn't a plot point beyond this — why would it be?).
Then we're introduced to the worst child in human history (who, at least, immediately gets her comeuppance)...
This is clearly modeled (thematically, at least) after the first film’s “punish the naughty” plot, without the setup, which they'll obviously give us in some sort of flashback, I'm sure? But in actuality, it's based very loosely on real life events: the Covina massacre.
We are introduced to an overtly creepy priest that misses the mark completely...
What happened to subtlety? Speaking of which, a random, unfunny pedo joke…
The great Donal Logue shows up as a mentally unstable town Santa (the most obvious red herring ever) and he can't do much with this disaster of a script, though he's trying.
We then cut to a random character visiting his grandpa in a nursing home. I'm sure whatever's happening here will make sense later…
Jaime King finds the torture house and electrocuted victim, who turns out to be a cop, and the bound woman, a town slut (Malcolm McDowell’s assessment, not mine) whom he was having an affair with.
Killer Santa then does a killing spree at a motel porn photo shoot with a scythe. He scythes the photographer in the balls. The topless model tries to get away but he hunts her down, chops off her leg with an axe and throws her in a wood chipper at a Christmas tree farm which is conveniently empty even though it's the middle of the day right before Christmas. This is truly, truly hateful shit. I'm not holier than thou — women get gruesomely murdered in these movies all the time — but rarely in such stark fashion (Linnea Quigley getting hoisted on some deer antlers in the original film is quaint by comparison).
The creepy priest takes some photos of a random troupe of caroling sex kittens, one of which is the mayor's daughter (who was also involved with the porno crew). Killer Santa then follows creepy priest to church where he delivers a ridiculous sermon before he gets what's coming to him…
It's very funny that the creepy phase is totally unphased when the demented-looking Santa just wanders into the church.
They start investigating “Santas” and apparently there are just dozens and dozens of men moonlighting as the big guy in this little town. Nothing makes sense in this movie. Jaime King interviews one of these guys and he's totally normal…
This deranged dude ends up attacking Jaime King even though he's clearly not the killer. There are multiple violent Santas in 2012’s Silent Night, folks. Jaime calls her dad (an ex-cop) who is just sitting at home dressed as Santa too! This movie single handedly kept the Santa suit industry flowing in the 2010s. She tells him that she's not cut out for this job and she's 100% correct because nobody would be cut out for the job in this fucked-up hell world.
Jamie King tells Malcolm McDowell that she doesn't think that Santa is the guy even though he literally just tried to kill her. He tells her “don't put avocado on a burger.” Yet another Santa comes up to Jaime King while she's sitting in her car. She seems to know this guy but then he simply walks away. Then she becomes convinced that the killer is actually the Donal Logue Santa so they break into his trailer park home.
Meanwhile, the killer garrotes the mayor with some Christmas lights while he's on the phone with Malcolm McDowell (so we know it's not him, which is where I was leaning tbh). Inside the house, his hot daughter gives head to her boyfriend (dude we saw earlier at the old folks home). They get brutally murdered as well, obviously. She actually gets tossed onto some deer antlers, pretty much the only thing this has in common with the film it's purportedly a remake of. The dude gets his face axed to smithereens…
They spot Donal logue in a crowd of Santas at the parade and bring him in. He hams up a monologue in his jail cell…
Jaime King then guns down the Santa who tried to stab her earlier. He's definitely not the killer but I guess he deserved to die?
OK, this was a brilliant Easter egg…
Then Malcolm McDowell gets hit with a flamethrower…
I guess it wasn’t that big of a mistake because the flamethrower easily defeated him?
Jaime King goes to check on her parents after she figures out that all the victims have received the same present beforehand (a lump of coal, duh) and finds her dad disemboweled in the living room. What did he do? He seemed like a nice guy? They've apparently thrown the ‘only kill the naughty’ mantra out the window?
Then Donal Logue gets beaten to death, though he puts up the best fight yet. Good for him.
Jaime King does battle with killer Santa in classic final girl fashion. She burns him up with the flamethrower which he mistakenly left just lying around (whoops). She escapes the fire as we see the homemade mask and beard burning, but not the body.
We cut to some future point and see the killer badly burnt but alive and on the loose. Then we learn that he was the son of the original killer Santa from the wacko's story in the bar (sorta similar to the SNDN plot, I guess) and that he was gunned down by Jamie King's dad. But hold up…
Her dad was directly involved (he actually makes a subtle reference to it too!) but she said it was an urban legend with a straight face? Also, that scene with the freaky gramps at the nursing room had nothing to do with anything? And that one other Santa?
Man, I'm definitely overthinking this. Bad movie! Thankfully it flopped hard and we weren't subjected to any more sequels in this thread/universe.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #2,237 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #2,239 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #2,237 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #2,239 ⫸
Silent Night is a 2012 slasher film directed by Steven C. Miller and starring Malcolm McDowell, Jaime King, Donal Logue, Ellen Wong, and Brendan Fehr. It is a remake of Charles E. Sellier Jr.'s 1984 film Silent Night, Deadly Night and the sixth installment in the Silent Night, Deadly Night film series. It was released on November 30, 2012.
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