When discussing the holiday horror movie, the first place the mind goes is almost certainly Black Christmas (unless you're counting Gremlins as horror). Beyond that though, the most noteworthy titles are probably Krampus and the 1984 classic(?) Silent Night, Deadly Night. Despite being a sucker for cheesy 80s horror, I'm very much not a fan of Silent Night, Deadly Night, thanks in part to how poorly I think it fleshes out its ideas. Going into this year's remake I was expecting a lot of the same just with more impressive gore, but I was shocked by how out of left field this one is.
2025's Silent Night, Deadly Night is a remake so much as Batman Begins is a remake of Batman & Robin. Yes it bares the same name and main character, and said character has the same backstory, but the narratives themselves could not be more different. Like the original this one follows Billy (Rohan Campbell), but rather than your average tortured young man raised by nuns, now he's a serial killer with the spirit of the man who killed his parents pointing him towards bad people to kill. He must kill a bad person for each day of the advent calendar, a mission that becomes hindered by Pamela (Ruby Modine), a girl he falls for and can't stop himself from spending time with.
This is a movie that throws a lot at you, and not all of it works. There's a weird subplot with a child kidnapper that winds up being wildly underdeveloped, and the Venom-esque voice inside Billy's head telling him to kill people is really goofy. Sometimes it works, other times the film takes itself a bit too seriously. There's also a giant exposition dump towards the end of the film that comes off as pretty eyeroll inducing.
Despite the flaws though, I did have a blast with this one. The story is so wildly different than the original that I was thrown off at first, but the changes ultimately make Billy a much better character to follow. He spends the movie committing brutal murders, but with the added wrinkle that he only seeks out bad people you can't help but root for him a bit. There's one sequence in particular that just goes all the way off the deep end in the best way as he stumbles into a neo-nazi Christmas party. A lot of the kills are just him swinging an axe, but there's enough variety and brutality to satiate horror fans. I also weirdly enjoyed the romantic element of the film, even if it is rushed over the course of just a few days. The chemistry between Campbell and Modine is pretty believable and makes both characters easier to care for.
I won't sit here and tell you this is great, there's a lot of flaws on display. That being said, this is a pretty fun holiday horror movie with a demented twist on the advent calendar, and a whole lot of weird choices that occasionally work great. 3/5
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