Review of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987) by Keenan S — 16 Jun 2014

I was really looking forward to this film. As an B-movie lover, I had always heard about how hilariously bad this film was. The first film was really enjoyable on the basis of trashy entertainment and camp value, so I was hoping for a lot more from this sequel. Hell, I was excited for this film based almost entirely on the infamous, "GARBAGE DAY!" scene which is always hilarious to watch, as it is even listed in some places as being among one of the worst scenes in cinematic history.

Plus, this an 80's slasher film sequel. I love cheesy 80's slasher films and I have enjoyed many hated sequels over the years. This seemed like it would be a divine combination for a B-movie fanatic, much like A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (Which was absolutely hilarious for all the wrong reasons. The darkest and scariest of the franchise, my ass). It should have been a total laugh riot filled with blood, bad dialogue, T&A, and everything else I expect from these kinds of films. Instead, what I got was a turd, and one of the worst horror films I've ever seen. It breaks my heart to say that because I was really looking forward to this one.

The film follows Ricky Chapman, the younger brother of Billy Chapman who was the killer in the first film. After a number of tragic events in his life surrounding the Christmas season, Ricky is now destined to follow in his brother's footsteps, even through the asylum he is kept in after he was during a murder spree.

The biggest problem with the film is not only boredom, but also how this film is a blatant rehash of the original film in the most unforgivable way: an overuse of stock footage. Thanks to budget constraints and the film studio outright not giving a fuck, they told the director to patch together a bunch of scenes from the original film and pass it off as a sequel. The director wanted to make a separate film, but an unfortunate compromise was made: a horrid combo of those ideas.

Despite being 80-odd-minutes in length, a whopping 39 minutes is dedicated to recapping the events of the first film. I get annoyed when a film has say, a 10 minute recap of events from a previous film, as I feel that such a thing should be kept to a short length. So, imagine the tremendous aggravation and irritation I felt when almost half the film's running time is spent recapping before the actual sequel kicks in. Unless you really like watching a shoddy patchwork of scenes from the first film to show you what you already knew in long detail, you're going to get bored very quickly.

By the time the sequel kicks in, it takes another 20-odd-minutes before it starts to get interesting. It only starts to get interesting when Ricky finally goes on a murder rampage and spouts off the infamous, "GARBAGE DAY!" line during the rampage which was still hilarious to watch. From the start of his murder rampage, the film becomes very entertaining and hilarious...but, alas, it only happened during the last 20 minutes of the film, far past any point of salvaging the film as a whole.

When it comes to the acting, the only reason to keep going with this film rather than quitting and finding your crappy entertainment elsewhere is Eric Freeman in his hilariously terrible performance as Ricky. He was totally over the top with every line delivery and every scene he was involved in and never once seemed believable, making for a rather surreal experience watching his god-awfully bad performance.

In the end, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is only worth watching for the last 20 minutes, because the rest of the film is a total loss. Even as a die hard B-movie fanatic and lover of horror films, this film proved to be a complete and utter disappointment that I have no choice but to pan. I wish that an actual sequel had been made instead of a shoddy combo of stock footage and half-assed sequel because there could have been some real entertainment value. What a shame.