I found myself tasked with writing about a “fun Christmas horror film”. I recently saw Violent Night and while definitely fun and containing maybe the greatest death scene my eyes have ever witnessed, it wasn’t the obvious answer. The only answer was Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.
The plot is pretty slim. In fact, it’s so slim it spends the first 40 minutes of a brisk 88 minutes recapping the events of the first Silent Night, Deadly Night. Ricky is in a mental hospital and is relaying the story of how his older brother Billy meted out bloody punishment as old Saint Nick.
The gladiator academy that was St Mary’s orphanage was excellent at instilling in these brothers the rule that punishment is absolute. All it takes to set Ricky off is to see people behaving badly and conveniently Santa’s crimson color is always involved.
Ricky is played by Eric Freeman and if you are looking for fun, start here. If you draw a square and pretend that within this square is what you would call “good compelling acting” the filmmakers involved said “FUCK THAT SHIT!” and made this performance light years away from that box. And the movie is more enjoyable for it.
The highlights of preposterousness include but are not limited to: the whole movie is told in flashback except the last 16 minutes. When Ricky is a baby in the first film, he can recall with cinematic clarity the events of that night. The entirety of Ricky’s murder spree takes place nowhere near Christmastime. And, of course, the famous glorious “garbage day”rampage.
If you’ve ever found yourself on YouTube looking for worst-movie-ever-made hilarity, the chances are good you have seen this fantastic delivery. The amount of fun within Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is only limited by logic and I encourage you to seek it out and find that fun during this joyous time of year.
There are multiple avenues for emotional, inventive, and thoughtful cinema. However, to find this kind of gold you need to venture into the entrails of Pluto TV or Tubi.