Write a commentChristmas can be a scary time.
Even if you don't count the multitudes of holiday themed ghost stories, magic reindeer or sentient snowmen, everyone has a family to deal with. Families can be difficult. Everyone with their own expectations of what the holiday should be. What is considered tactful and what is not. Clashing child rearing techniques on full display.
Sometimes, it isn't even your family. You can walk into any retail store between Black Friday and Christmas Eve to see the true nature of "Christmas spirit". Kids wanting this or that, parents directing their anger at clerks disallowed to stand up for themselves. It's a complete mess.
This is all very downtrodden on the holiday. A lot of people like tinsel and eggnog, Christmas carols and Santa. Some people can't convince themselves to accept what's being shoved down their throats for those lovely couple of weeks after Thanksgiving.
My name is Adam Sweeney. Part time film critic, full time cynic.
Given my clear issues with this time of year, I'm sure many of you would be surprised that I've dressed as Santa on occasion. Not recreationally. It's not like I just dress up and go places unannounced. I've done it for friends and a few times when I worked at Lowe's in Clay, NY.
Using the analogy of oil and water doesn't seem to portray exactly the mismatch me dressed as Santa could be. The main reason I decided to volunteer my time was because my father used to do it when I was a kid. I figured it would be a good way to honor him.
I think because my father did it for an elementary school and I did it for a retail establishment made all the difference. At Lowe's, it was a very simple set-up: I had a chair and we gave out free building kits to the kids. We had a basket of them next to the chair I was sitting in. I'd ask the kid what they wanted for Christmas, they'd tell me and then I'd give them a thing. I had two "helpers" with me as well to keep things moving along.
There was this boy that walked up. He didn't want to sit on my lap so we fistbumped instead. He said, "Why are your eyebrows so dark? You seem kinda young to be Santa."
"Mrs. Claus has Santa on a new health regimen," I responded. The parents were not amused.
Neither was the kid. He scoffed at me, looking at the basket full of kits. He starts pulling them all out of the basket.
I said, "Oh, hold on. Santa will get you one."
The mother walks up to me, putting her hand out as if to stop me. "We usually let him pick whatever he wants."
Maybe that's the problem, "Santa" thought without saying it.
The kid upends the basket, spilling the kits everywhere. "Mom, they don't have it."
The mother raises her eyebrows, annoyed. "Why don't you guys have it?"
"Have what," I asked.
The kid responds...
Wait, no. That undersells it entirely. Let me try that again.
The kid screams, "THE SHREK ONE!"
I jumped. The kid immediately goes into a rage, spreading the kits all over the floor. He stands, kicking at them. He then runs to his mother, burying his head in her waist.
"Now look what you did."
At first, I thought she was talking to her kid. It took me a couple of seconds to realize she was speaking to me.
"Yeah, you. What are you going to do about this? He wanted the Shrek kit..."
Muffled, the kid echoes, "...the Shrek one..."
I said, "I don't know what you want me to do. These are just the kits we had leftover from previous build days."
"Well, I think you owe him a gift card."
"For what?"
"I don't know. $50 sounds good."
I shook my head. "No. I meant, why should he get a gift card? There was no guarantee we'd have any specific kit and they're free anyway."
"Where's your manager?"
The manager was called up. A pasty, balding, goateed former frat dude who, on his best days, looked like a thumb in a red vest and, at his worst, looked like a paler Megamind. Because of this man's lack of spine, he immediately folded, giving the customer a $75 gift card and five of the building kits to the kid.
A few years later, Lowe's did a "Take a Picture with Santa" thing and asked me if I would want to participate. I've always been a tad camera shy, but with all but my eyes fully covered, I was okay with it. People brought their children and we gave gifts like normal. I had two "elves" helping out. They would take the picture and then print it out on a wireless photo printer. After a few people, we had it down to a science.
Toward the end of the time we were doing it, an older couple came in with their two dogs. The lady had dressed the dogs up and asked, "DOES SANTA LIKE DOGS?" (All caps, of course, because this lady screamed every word she uttered.)
I shrugged, saying, "Oh, yeah. Of course. Santa is more of a cat guy but he won't turn any animal away."
The lady's husband lingered in the back by the female elf while she was working the printer for the previous customers. The lady handed me the dogs and it turned out while Santa was dog friendly, the dogs were not Santa friendly. Teeth were bared, bladders were emptied. The female elf assisted the male elf in the chaos, leaving the printer unattended near the lingering elderly husband.
As soon as the female elf left, the old man reached into his pocket and put an SD card of his own in the portable printer. I said, "Excuse me, sir. What are you doing?"
He didn't respond. The male elf went over to the printer and the old man said, "I'm just printing out a few pictures. We have some that need to be printed and you guys are offering the service so..."
The male elf tried explaining that the printer services weren't free but the customer wasn't having it. He complained, tried blocking the male elf and the whole thing was a mess. Ultimately, the male elf yanked the SD card out, the old man said he was going to sue us and I was covered in dog urine.
All in the name of "holiday spirit".
Some believe that people should just swallow their complaints for the general comfort of others. The first lady complained that her spoiled kid didn't get what he wanted so we get the "Is it THAT big of a deal?" type of question. The old man wanted free printing services for the random pictures on his SD card. "Eh. So what? He's old. He doesn't know any better. It's Christmas. Get in the holiday spirit, you grump!"
"Silent Night, Deadly Night" deals with, perhaps not deliberately, this phenomenon. Many of the characters are doing things in the name of Christmas almost out of sheer habit. It's Christmas so we need to see relatives. It's Christmas so we have to help a Santa who is on the side of the road. It's Christmas so a guy showing up dressed in a Santa outfit to a gas station isn't that crazy.
The film has a pretty simple set-up: A man and a woman take their two kids to see a relative who is in an institution. The old man appears to be catatonic until the parents leave. He then tells young Billy that Santa punishes bad people. And not just with coal or no presents. His implication is that Santa is a psychopath. This, of course, terrifies the child. On their way back home, the parents encounter a guy in a Santa suit whose car broke down. They stop to help and the man in the Santa suit kills the parents, leaving the children as orphans.
If this isn't bad enough, the kids get sent to an orphanage with possibly the least likable character in all of human history. Mother Superior is the true villain in the movie. Under her eye, Billy gets blamed for having previous trauma. Anytime he acts out, he gets further punishment. Doesn't even matter if it was something he was given permission to do by a different nun.
Then there's a time jump of 10 years and Billy is now this strapping young man. He seems pretty well-rounded considering everything we saw happened to him in the past, but the mere image of Santa on a banner gives him flashbacks. He can't even dream about the woman he has a crush on without thinking about what happened. He gets a job at Ira's Toys where his immediate supervisor does nothing, blames him for everything. As Christmas approaches, he's asked to dress up as Santa and he finally loses it in spectacular fashion, going on a rampage, killing people he deems as "naughty".
The weird thing about the movie is the great lengths the filmmakers go through for you to have empathy for Billy. He isn't like Carpenter's Michael Myers. He's not just a force of nature or anything like that. Billy is a traumatized child whose situation is exacerbated by the sheer lack of empathy of those around him. We understand his reasons for snapping, even if we don't excuse them.
There were plenty of opportunities where Billy could have been helped by someone throughout the movie, but, much like normal society, we don't end up dealing with situations until they become as bad as they can be. One of the more prevalent trends of horror currently is how everything is trauma related. For a film made back in 1984, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is oddly modern in this respect.
All that said, many of the other elements don't really gel. Some of the acting is questionable, the near constant Christmas music can be a little silly at times as well as the gratuitous nudity. I'm sure it was made as a cash grab to capitalize on the slasher craze of the early 80s. But, just like Billy's behavior, this is a reason, not an excuse.
This has become a tradition for me to watch this every year. I'm not sure what this says about me, but, in the most non-ironic way I can think of, this movie reminds me more of Christmas than most other movies. Everyone always talks about wanting a white Christmas but this movie seems like it was shot during a warmer period. I've been around for a lot of Christmas Days where I've been able to see grass.
And maybe that's just it. There's so much stress and anxiety that happens around the holidays for a lot of families. Did we get the correct gift? Is someone going to be mad if they didn't get everything they wanted? "Silent Night, Deadly Night", in its own weird way, shows the pitfalls of such a mentality. We make our own traditions. Too many rules and regulations create sometimes seemingly insurmountable issues.
"Silent Night, Deadly Night" is incredibly cynical, for sure. It doesn't have a "happy" ending and it shows most people as being selfish. Unfortunately, that's what the holidays can be for some people.
Everyone wants "It's a Wonderful Life", but you experience one too many kids not getting what they want or older couples distracting hardware store elves with their incontinent dogs while stealing photo paper, you start realizing "Silent Night, Deadly Night" might be closer to reality.
Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
Directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr.
Cast: Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Britt Leach, Linnea Quigley, Will Hare
Runtime: 79 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language, violence, nudity and sexual situations.
Rating (out of ****): ***
"Silent Night, Deadly Night" is currently streaming on Shudder with a subscription. It is also available to rent or buy on all major streaming services as well as on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K for purchase.
