Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 from 1987 turns out to be a sneaky humbug of a film from director Lee Harry. Though this is purportedly the story of Billy’s younger brother Ricky (Eric Freeman) and his own decline into madness, almost half of the film is spent re-telling the story of part one, brazenly re-using a whole bunch of scenes with some added narration. For some reason, however, they skip over the freaky grandad scene. What a swizz!
Brilliantly, this is all presented as ‘flashbacks’ even though Ricky was clearly a baby when most of this was going on and then wasn’t even present for most of the rest of it. When quizzed on how he can remember his parents’ murder when he was clearly an infant in the backseat of a car at night, he just replies “Oh, I remember…” Touché.
Finally, we track Ricky’s childhood with a foster family after his psycho Santa bro was gunned down in front of him. It’s nowhere near as messed up as Billy’s story, though he does have an understandable fear of nuns. When his foster dad (who they keep referring to as ‘stepdad’ for some reason) passes away due to natural causes Ricky doesn’t take it well and is soon on his own mini rampage after stumbling across the scene of a near-rape that triggers memories of his own parents’ murder even though he was a baby.
It’s hinted that the colour red is some sort of trigger for his rampages, but never is this explained. Soon he’s running folk over in his car and stabbing people with an umbrella that he groovily then opens when it’s still inside them. Yuck.
Freeman is a pretty goofy over-acting beefcake and his performance is more funny than scary. As Ricky, he’s all bug-eyed and intense, trying to seem threatening but coming off like a dastardly cartoon villain. He’s hunky enough to score a hot girlfriend named Jennifer (Elizabeth Kaitan) but she’s unfortunate enough to take him to – wouldn’t you know it – a movie about a killer Santa. Oddly the film they watch also includes scenes xeroxed from part one, which might sound arty and clever but honestly just comes off as lazy and cheap.
Soon Ricky’s massacring folk in the cinema then wiring Jennifer’s douchebag ex up to a car battery and zapping him until his eyes explode, which is admittedly very cool. He then sets off on another rampage, just shooting people left, right and centre which is a bit on-the- nose as I’m watching this the day after a mass shooting at an American Fed Ex warehouse. This scene should feel like some sort of timely commentary on America’s gun problem, but it’s too silly and played for excitement value, with cars flipping through the air and stuff. It should be noted that none of this appears to take place at Christmas.
Eventually Ricky ends up in an asylum where he’s been narrating this tale to a doctor. It’s Christmas Eve now, so of course Ricky promptly makes his escape, finally dons a Santa suit and goes to hunt down the Mother Superior from part one who he blames for his messed-up-ness. This leads to a memorable Santa vs nun in a wheelchair finale.
It’s a dumb movie with a few moments of eccentric oddness that make it worth a watch, though if you've seen part one you can skip the first half. Most of it makes no sense but it’s definitely good for a few laughs. It takes sizeable cojones to make a film in this way and get away with it and I feel that they squeeze in just enough carnage to justify the half a movie they did make. And this time they were smart enough to keep the killer alive so that this festive franchise could keep on killing.
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