More franchise fun up next, as I decide I simply must watch every one of the Silent Night, Deadly Night films in chronicle order as I am a dedicated completist and, as I’m discovering, a total glutton for punishment. This is another film series that just refused to die, starting out as another ‘killer santa’ story, before going off on crazy tangents involving psychic powers, evil insects and killer robots before returning to its roots in a grimy modern reboot. It’s quite something to behold, but before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at 1984’s part one.
I admire this one’s commitment to spending an unusual amount of time on establishing just how a normal boy could grow up to be a Christmastime killer. I mean, they really lay it on thick, which I applaud. Right after being warned by his creepy, senile old grandfather - who’s a few pigs-in-blankets short of a Christmas dinner - that Santa violently punishes naughty kids, little Billy then witnesses mum and dad get brutally murdered right in front of him by a robber in Santa garb.
I find the part with the sinister grandfather particularly effective, as it reminds me of being left alone with my wife’s grandfather around the time his mind started to go. Some pretty mad stuff came out of his mouth, including some mildly racist comments and a boast that he used to play in midfield for Borussia Mönchengladbach, which I’m fairly certain wasn’t true. For me, this movie really captures the unpredictability of leaving an innocent child alone in a situation like that.
Billy then spends years in an orphanage where Mother Superior fills his head with dodgy concepts of sin, punishment and sexual repression. For good measure, they also force him to sit on Santa’s lap right after watching a girl receive a whipping for engaging in hanky panky. They really nailed the formula for creating a psycho Santa in this one.
You’d think the sisters would avoid putting this particular child in any sort of Santa-related situation, but fast forward 18 years and hulking, handsome, grown-up Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) is given a job placement in a toy store and guess who they ask him to dress up as?
Witnessing the cute girl who rejected him about to possibly be raped at the Christmas party, Billy finally cracks and is soon running around town swinging an axe and shouting his ridiculous catchphrases “Punish!” and/or “Naughty!” with a mad look in his eye.
It's mostly very silly but with some decent moments that successfully creep me out, like the bit where, after hacking a babysitter to death, Billy is confronted by a little girl who asks him if he’s the real Santa. He asks her if she’s “been naughty” and it’s genuinely chilling, leaving you wondering if he’s really gonna go there and axe this kid.
The movie was really controversial at the time and it’s not too hard to see why. Jumping on the Halloween holiday-themed slasher bandwagon, director Charles Sellier gleefully juxtaposes festive jollity with savage killings and some pretty awful treatment of women, most of whom are overtly sexualised. Of course, it all seems tame by modern standards, but it’s well made and gets more and more fun as it goes along and was successful enough to spawn multiple progressively weirder sequels. Let’s go!
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