1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night has a reputation among horror fans as being one of those “so bad, they’re good” movies. With an original working title of Slayride, its source material was a short story titled He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, written by a student at Harvard University.
It was a low budget holiday horror film, and most of the cast members (including lead actor Robert Brian Wilson, who played 18-year-old Billy) were local to Utah, where the film was made. There weren’t any big name stars involved at all.
Silent Night, Deadly Night’s producers were not overly worried about causing controversy, because the “Santa as a crazed killer” concept had been utilized before in 1980’s Christmas Evil, so they released the film in November, officially the beginning of the holiday season.
However, the producers were wrong, and Silent Night, Deadly Night caused a lot of outrage, mostly because its advertising heavily featured the killer Santa. Not only that, the trailer was aired during kid-friendly shows such as Little House on the Prairie. Parents were upset, and protest crowds began to show up at theaters playing the film.
Six days after Silent Night, Deadly Night was released, Tri-Star yanked all of the ads for it, and the film was pulled from theaters shortly after that.
While it was supposed to be released on home video in 1985, those plans were cancelled; instead, it came out on VHS and Beta in mid-1986.
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 was released in 1987 to reviews even more scathing than the first film. Much of the criticism was due to the fact that an overly large percentage of the film consisted of footage from the first one.
Part 2 is pretty much a cult favorite at this point, and a lot of that attention is due to the overly-campy performance of Eric Freeman as Ricky. His exclamation of “Garbage day!” has become a classic all on its own. But, to be fair, Freeman gave exactly the performance he was instructed to give. If you can, watch Part 2 on Shudder as part of Joe Bob Briggs’ Red Christmas special. His commentary and interesting facts make any movie better.
Now comes the news of a reboot for Silent Night, Deadly Night
The new film is set to release in theatres on December 12, and Cineverse has released an official poster and trailer. Silent Night, Deadly Night stars Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) as Billy, alongside Ruby Modine (Happy Death Day), Mark Acheson (1922), David Lawrence Brown (Dark Harvest) and David Tomlinson (Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy).
The description released by Cineverse reads: “A twisted reimagining of the controversial classic – After witnessing his parents’ brutal murder on Christmas Eve, Billy transforms in a Killer Santa, delivering a yearly spree of calculated, chilling violence. This year, his blood-soaked mission collides with love, as a young woman challenges him to confront his darkness.”