Silent Night Movie Review
A man dressed as Santa Claus is on a killing spree in a small town, and it's up to Sheriff Cooper (the legendary Malcolm McDowell) and Officer Aubrey Bradimore (Jaime King of the 2009 version of My Bloody Valentine) to stop him. This movie is labeled a "loose remake" of the 1984 film Silent Night, Bloody Night--I would put more emphasis on the word "loose" and less on "remake". Sure, there's a murderous Santa, and a couple clever nods to the '84 flick, and even its sequels, but to use the word "remake" here is very much a stretch. One similarity is Santa's tendency to carry an axe, but this Santa also has another favorite weapon.
Yeah, it's a flamethrower
The amount of comedy here is much more than in the original film, and while most of it falls flat, McDowell is hilarious. King is surprisingly likable in the lead role, and Donal Logue also stops by to play a grumpy Santa. Side note--Logue is a talented actor who has been in a million things, but no matter how hard I try to stop myself from doing it, I can only ever see him as one character...
Jimmy!
If you're looking for gore, this is certainly a movie you should check out. Many of the death scenes are nothing short of brutal, while others are oddly approached with a more comedic tone. This brings us to my main issue with this movie--if played as a straight up horror film, it would have been far more interesting. With all the comedy, most of which is painfully bad, the film is just forgettable. The end is somewhat redeeming, if not predictable. As another side note, part of this movie was inspired by a real-life mass murder known as the Covina massacre. In 2008, some moron dressed as Santa Claus killed 9 people at a Christmas party before killing himself...one could argue he was inspired by similar movies, but we'll save the trip down that rabbit hole for another day. Silent Night really isn't a bad movie...it's just not a particularly good one. Keep your expectations low, and watch it for McDowell's performance...it may be all you remember about it a month after watching.
On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5
Silent Night Movie Trailer
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