Silent Night Deadly Night 2. A film that seemingly only had contempt for its audience from its conception. Exactly why the film has ended up the way it has is up for a lot of debate, but from what i’ve been able to find, it looks like the producers basically wanted to re-release the original “Silent Night Deadly Night” in 1987 but with some newly shot additional footage bolted onto it to help sell it to audiences as some kind of “Extended cut” or “Special Edition”.

Similar to how Uli Llomel made “Boogeyman 2” by basically just bolting on some police interrogation footage to the original “Boogie Man” However; the screenwriters accidentally ended up writing a bit more material than was required. There wasnt enough for an entirely new movie…But there was enough to justify altering the idea from it being just a re-release of Silent Night Deadly Night with additional shots, to it instead becoming a new movie which was HEAVILY propped up with footage from the original Silent Night Deadly Night.

And the word HEAVILY there is doing a HELL of a lot of lifting. In essence what they’ve effectively done here is created a film that’s about a third to a half made up of footage from the original Silent Night Deadly Night with linking narrations and additional newly shot footage making up about a half to two thirds of this thing. And its here that the problems really kind of begin, but before that. Let’s get into the plot of this thing.

So the film takes place 4 years after the events of the original “Silent Night Deadly Night”. The film opens with Ricky (Billys younger brother) in some kind of prison/mental health facility where he’s clearly not playing with a full deck and is about to talk to his latest Psychiatrist Dr. Bloom, Ricky scoffs at this during the introductions as he’s already seen 12 Psychiatrists before Dr. Bloom and doesnt think anything is going to be any different this time. Nonetheless Dr.Bloom Asks Ricky about his childhood and Ricky begins to recount the events of the first movie, occasionally interrupting the film to add additional *fluffy* narrative links and to help build up Rickys character as a very angry, cold and demented character who wants to punish anyone who he deems to be…Naughty…

Now, what was the plot of the original Silent Night Deadly Night…ahh yes! I remember it as if it were yesterday! *Flashback waves as we go back to my original review*

So! That makes up about 40 minutes of the runtime and the rest of the film follows the story of what happened to Ricky. It’s revealed that after the incident at the orphanage the place got closed down and the children were all rehomed into foster care, Ricky ended up living with a family called “The Rosenbergs” a decent bunch who apparently don’t celebrate christmas, and for a time, things were going pretty well. That is until one day while Ricky is out shopping with his step mum, where he sees two nuns walking down the street. This triggers flashbacks which his mum dismisses, but when the nuns walk into a store and start messing with some red fabric, the flashbacks become all too vivid and Ricky effectively ends up seizing up in the street. His Step mum only figures out what’s going on WAY too late to do anything about it, so a couple of days later, the Rosenbergs go back to the orphanage to ask what exactly has gone on in Ricky’s past.

The Nuns reassure the Rosenbergs and tell them that, with love and support these episodes will be minimal and *should* Hopefully in time, subside completely. At which point, we then jump forwards another five years to when Rickys stepfather passes way, this seems like a bit of a traumatic turning point for Ricky. He decides to manage his grief by taking walks along the backroads around his home town, sometimes for hours at a time.

Its here that things start heating up a bit, as; while out walking one day, Ricky spots a young couple having a picnic in a clearing and decides to people watch for a bit. While hanging out, the feller; Eddie, decides hes a bit horny and basically tries to “Initiate” with his partner. When she refuses, he basically tries to rape her. When she fends him off, he gets pissed off and goes to get a beer from his truck. Which just so happens to be Red. the combination of Ricky seeing this combined with the red truck tips him over the edge and he ends up repeatedly running over Eddite with his own truck. The Doctor is surprised to learn of these incidents as they’ve never been documented before, but Ricky seems nonplussed about the whole thing. Later; The doc decides to ask Ricky about Jennifer. And this brings us more or less in line to the present day.

Jennifer was Rickys Girlfriend for a time, the pair met when Ricky was knocked off his motorbike by Jennifer and the pair quickly bonded. It transpires that Jennifer was Rickys first *proper* girlfriend and the person he lost his Virginity too. And he assumed that Jennifer was a virgin too. This however was not the case as, after a few months into dating, Ricky takes Jennifer to the movies to watch…Silent…night deadly night…hmm…anyway! Theres a loudmouthed asshole in the screening, so Ricky goes to “Deal” with him and while hes away Jennifer bumps into “Chip” an old flame who apparently treated Jennifer very badly. When Ricky returns Chip disappears to go watch the movie, but a short time later while wandering around town both Ricky and Jennifer bump into Chip again who dunks on Ricky for being a bit lame and also calls out Jennifer for having low standards and for screwing Chip in the back of his car.

Incensed. Ricky electrocutes chip with a car battery, and then when Jennifer freaks out and tries to run away from Ricky he garrots her with a car antenna before making a cop shoot himself. Ricky takes the cops gun…yadda yadda yadda…GARBAGE DAY…and after shooting several people and blowing up a rather strange car. More cops turn up and Ricky is sectioned and committed. And you’d think that was the movie…but NO! Because when we come back from that flashback, it’s revealed that Ricky has strangled Dr. Bloom with his own Reel to reel tape and escaped the facility! Leaving it down to a random detective and Sister Margret (eh?) to find Ricky before he finds a now heavily debilitated Mother Superior and gives her the old Axe to the face treatment!

In a film that honestly feels like it really shouldn’t exist, but somehow does. Will the police find Ricky in time, Will Ricky finally decide who’s naughty and who’s nice! and…How was Ricky able to tell Dr. Bloom oddly specific details about what Billy got up to in the first movie when Billy was the only person to actually see these events? Non of this and more will be answered if you take a look at Silent Night Deadly Night 2…sort of.

And given that at least 30-40 minutes of this film is either footage from the first Silent Night Deadly Night OR part of an ultra long extended credits sequence it got me thinking about my thoughts on the script from the original film *Flashback waves start* Yeh sod that, Im not doing that for the whole review, lifes too short. So the first film was a more than solid Christmas slasher, arguably not AS good as movies like “Black Christmas” or “Christmas Evil”, but solidly written, slightly campy in places and heavy enough on the gore to hold attention without it just feeling like a film going through the motions. This film however is pretty much entirely defined by a rather large issue of communication between the screenwriters and the people actively directing on set.

Y’see, The character of Ricky in this was kind of poorly defined. The Screenwriters and Eric Freeman the guy who plays Ricky, wanted the character to be cold and calculating, a harder more muted performance. The director and producer though were much more sold on a more bombastic performance, something in the same field as Freddy Kruger. And because of this disconnect, Eric had to try to do both. And this in effect absolutely defines and ruins the film in equal measures. Had they written a bombastic character, it may have come across as a bit fake because they’d be playing to that expectation, had they fully committed to playing it cold, it probably would just be seen as a bit of an oddity of a production. But the results here are just SO tonally bizarre that the film’s able to carry itself to meme status as a work of infamy.

Ignoring the fact that a decent chunk of this film is made up of another film, the new material is a bit lacking honestly, what ACTUALLY happens in this movie outside of the re-run stuff? Ricky gets adopted, scared by nuns, his stepdad dies, he kills a couple weirdos, falls in love, kills someone in a jealous rage, gets his heart broke and then kills half a dozen other people leading to a showdown with the Mother Superior…someone who, Ricky really didnt even have that much of a dealing with when all is said and done honestly.

In fact; thats pretty much this scripts biggest problem, it feels like it wants to tell the story of Ricky AND Billy, but because Billys gone, rather than settle for that loss, they’ve just given Billys lines to Ricky and then carried on with business as usual. The Scripts plagued with moments where Ricky recounts incidents that ONLY Billy was ever witness to, there are moments Ricky recounts and claims to have remembered where, not only could he have not seen what had happened, but he was like; 2 years old. So he wouldnt understand the context, retain the memories or anything like that. Even the ending with the showdown with the Mother Superior doesnt make that much sense in terms of how this films played out. Had they chosen to play it out as Ricky getting retribution for his brothers murder, then maybe it could have been a bit better accepted as an ending for this. But it isnt, they just decide Ricky hates the Mother Superior for her ruthless punishments…something that Ricky, as far as BOTH films are considered, never really went through.

That would be problematic enough, but even if you took Ricky’s supposed “Motivations” out of the equation and just decided to focus on whats explained in this film, there isnt really a lot on display…Ricky basically just sort of awkwardly bumbles from killing to killing and the final act pay off isnt worth the paper its written on because its all artificial tension. Theres basically a 10 minute story here thats been padded out to 25 minutes by using a couple of vignettes and running scenes well past the length required to tell what little plot there is.

The pacing is all over the place, mostly because this is a movie and a half thats been slammed together to try and make one coherent picture and tonally the two sides really don’t work together well. The old stuff was slightly campy, but largely trying to just be a solid enough slasher film, this thing has 50 thousand volts up it and is keeping things as camp as possible to the point that it neglects the gorier slasher elements of the first film in order to just be goofy and a bit absurdist. These two films don’t feel like they occupy the same universe. With only the final confrontation scene being in ANY way something that I feel could have happened in the original Silent Night Deadly Night. I can put part of this down to the fact that all of this additional footage was shot in a madcap 10 day shoot, so I appreciate that commitment to stylization between the two films may have been a bit thin, but even then…

And the dialogue, jesus christ…its SO basic, it really does feel like the screenwriters wrote this on a case of budweiser over a long weekend. Nothing is given any more detail than a surface level interpretation and EVERYTHING is told to us, they “show” nothing. Ricky only speaks in pseudo profound short bursts and when he does speak its usually just to say shit like “Im starting to like this film” or “Red car…very good.” i’d have preferred him to be mute honestly other than maybe his “Garbage Day” line…in fact…yeh. That would have made the film ten times better, have him say NOTHING for the full runtime and then literally out of nowhere make his one and only line “GARBAGE DAY” that would have won me back over. But yeh…its super stilted dialogue that doesnt really go anywhere, says surprisingly little and while they nail SOME aspects of “Show don’t tell” they really miss it where it counts most of the time.

To be constructive. I think, had the film ended at the point where Ricky escapes the facility. That probably would have both made the most sense AND been the more satisfying way to close. Ending things a bit open with the possibility that Ricky is still out there to this day may not necessarily have been the greatest closer in the world, but it would have at least felt like an appropriate ending for the character, but having the extra scene where he “Santas up” and goes on the rampage…while a bit more explosive a finale makes almost NO sense within the function of the rest of the film and really just left me shrugging.

The film was written by Michael Hicky, Paul Caimi and was also written and directed by Lee Harry. Both Michael and Paul have 2 credits, both for this film and the original. And thats it. Lee has 3 writing and directing credits. This was his first of the three and i’d arguably say it was his most memorable and infamous. He generally specialises in editing movie trailers.

And that would explain a lot, as on the direction front, while the cast direction is somewhat fumbled. The broad direction within a production sense is actually not too bad on these newly shot bits. Scenes generally have a coherency, the padding is fairly obvious but overlooking moments where its clear that studio intervention has taken place, there is a definite professional veneer to the technical work on hand here, and Id say Harry brings a VERY distinct vision forward that most definitely contrasts the style and feel of the original film which I totally understand may cause split room thinking. I personally didn’t *completely* get on with the jarring change in tone between the two films. I’d have rather JUST had a Ricky movie than the 45 min/35 min split we get here, but I can see how some people could just fall in love with the weirdness this film has going for it.

Thats not to let Direction of the cast get off lightly though, even with the communication issues on set around how cast members should perform and what their motivations are, its still a pretty poor showing. With the cast seemingly just being encouraged to look vaguely near the camera, stand perfectly still unless told otherwise and to read their lines AS WRITTEN and NOTHING else. And the most bizarre thing of it all is, given HOW OTT they make Eric in this, everyone else is totally muted. Which if anything just makes Eric look EVEN WEIRDER and makes everyone else look like they literally couldnt be arsed to be there. It’s such a weird choice and I feel it completely lends to the films infamy

Given the mixed direction, the cine is actually pretty solid. I feel thats the benefit of having a director on board who also works in editing is, he knows what shots are going to be needed in order to have something to work with in the edit. And here, it doesnt disappoint. We have a VERY wide variety of shot types on display composition ranges from passable to decent and sequences have been constructed utilising relatively quick cuts that DO help to show more than tell where they can. I mean, its a pain that the script “tells” anyway, but at least from a cine perspective I cant complain about how they choose to show things.

Theres a wide variety of shot types on display, my personal favourite probably being the Garbage day scene where they utilise a VERY long front facing tracking shot of Eric walking down his neighbourhood shooting people. But there’s also pans, dutch angles and other funky and interesting experimentation used throughout. It really gives off the vibe that this was a somewhat stressful set to be on, but one that wasn’t afraid to at least TRY to have a bit of fun with what it was doing. So I’d say it’s probably my 2nd favourite thing about this film.

Performances are a total flop. Eric Freeman is literally the best part of this movie, and hes only good because he commits SO wholeheartedly to whatever the hell the crew wanted him to do on a scene by scene basis that hes just utterly mesmerising to watch. Do I think he gives a good, realistic performance? Absolutely not. But do I think he’s entertaining in that performance and positively daffy duck? Yes. yes I do, and I think he’s MORE than earned his place on the board of respected bad performances in hollywood who at least tried to give the crew what they wanted.

The rest of the cast? Its a wonder they’re awake. The big issue with making most of the new parts of the film flashbacks is that it means no one actor or character outside of Eric really gets enough screen time to set ANY kind of impression other than passable or weird. And that’s basically the whole movie, actors either being just about acceptable on the performance front, or looking/feeling like they’ve just stepped out of Robocop.

And finally; the soundtrack and this films strongest element is arguably its top notch scoring. Seriously; if we’re taking calls for ‘films with scores they don’t deserve’ this has GOT to be up there. Its a creepy but relatively powerful slasher horror scoring at it’s most menacing and while it could be possibly be called a touch generic, and I could see an argument for it. At worst it’s well made generic scoring and at best it’s totally underlooked. A real winner to me, I’d say it gets my thumbs up. And it’d be one i’d quite like to own on vinyl!

Silent Night Deadly Night 2 didnt get released in the UK until November 2020. And the reason a release got stalled for this is quite possibly for the most “Silent Night Deadly Night 2” reason you could possibly believe. So bearing in mind the BBFC didnt have to ban the original “Silent night deadly night” they just told the film makers at the time that unless they made significant cuts to the footage, the film wouldnt be granted a certification and would effectively be banned. So the film makers just, didnt bother to cut the film and it just never came out in the uk. WELL.

Silent Night Deadly Night 2 almost purposefully chopped down the first film by about 50% but STILL left in those problematic scenes. So when it was submitted to the BBFC in 1987, they were basically handed the same note again saying make significant cuts or we just wont give the film a certificate. So the film makers just didnt bother releasing the film in the UK again. it was never formally banned, because they were warned off it in advance. That stayed in place until 101 films submitted both films for a bluray release and they were passed uncut and released as a special edition set in November of that year. They now also have separate solo releases that are pretty decently priced! Extras on this set are plentiful, the best for my money being a short film called “Eric Today” where we catch up with Eric Freemen in character as Ricky to see what he’s been up to since 1987! Which was nice in and of itself! So i’d say this set was definitely worth the money!

Silent Night Deadly Night 2 issss…a problematic film. I hesitate even really to call it a film as its really more of a “Best of” with a couple of short films stapled to it. I don’t think it holds together as well as the original Silent Night Deadly Night. and , if Im being honest. I think it works better as a series of moments than a film itself. Like…as a thing you can watch with friends and get some quotable lines from, this is brilliant fun. But as an actual film? Something to sit and analyse? Yeahhhh its not too good. With a score and cine that tries its best, its just that script, the performances and the mixed direction that lets this thing down ultimately, I still honestly think it would have worked better as a standalone film, I don’t think they needed to drag the first film into it at all…but I can totally see why this film has the cult following it does too…worth watching at least once. I’d say if you havent seen this one before, check it out. Though your milage may vary.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/silent-night-deadly-night-part-2/