Review of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) by Coleman H — 19 Dec 2018

Silent Night, Deadly Night is perhaps one of the most infamous horror films ever made. Upon its release in 1984, it was met with huge amounts of controversy due to its depiction of a killer Santa and thus generated a huge amount of uproar surrounding its release. However, upon seeing the film I was disappointed to be met with a by the numbers, and largely forgettable slasher.

While Silent Night, Deadly Night is by no means a total failure, it does have some memorable moments, however, these are mostly due to the unintentional cheesiness and laughability of the film rather than anything else. However, apart from this, the films greatest success is perhaps its special effects which are surprisingly good considering how low it's budget was, the rest of the film, though fails in almost everything it sets out to do. The things that Silent Night, Deadly Night fails to achieve that most stand out include; lighting, this, however, is mostly forgivable seeing as how low the budget of the film was and how the filmmakers probably couldn't afford a high-quality camera. The writing is particularly bad with the main villain, Billy, often yelling out the word "punish!" before attacking victims. I believe that the writers included this lin in an attempt to display how the trauma that he received earlier in life ultimately made him homicidal. However, this line makes what could have been a frightening or even disturbing scene into an unintentional comedy.

Overall, Silent Night, Deadly Night is an unoriginal and forgettable slasher. And despite all the controversy it recieved it really is just like anyother slasher from the era.