Review of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987) by Philip J — 16 Mar 2013

"Let's go! Start the movie! Moooovie! Moooovie!".

Okay, I might as well start off by confirming that Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is indeed two movies scotch-taped together to one so-called "cult classic." I kid you not; around the first half of this sequel is actually recycled footage from the original Silent Night, Deadly Night film. Why did the filmmakers choose to do this? Reportedly due to a lack of financial support, but more likely, perhaps due to a lack of ideas and/or laziness on the part of either the filmmakers themselves or the producers...

Behind the walls of this psychiatric treatment facility for the criminally insane and the mentally ill, one patient stands out. Don't let his devilishly handsome appearance deceive you. Ricky (Eric Freeman) is your typical mental patient, right? No. Ricky just happens to be the younger brother of the infamous Billy Caldwell, known otherwise as the killer dressed in a Santa Claus suit. Ricky is a very angry young man. Ricky is awaiting judgment for the rash of killings he has committed. But Ricky is about to tell you the story of his life and how he became the man he is today...

Dr. Bloom (James L. Newman) is the court-appointed psychiatrist tasked with finding out what makes Ricky tick. The two get off to a great start: when Dr. Bloom introduces himself to Ricky, Ricky promptly tells him to fuck off. But once Ricky settles down, Dr. Bloom gets Ricky to open up the painful wounds of his traumatic childhood.

(Insert original Silent Night, Deadly Night footage here.).

For the next 35 minutes or so, we are treated to extensive footage from the first Silent Night, Deadly Night movie with Ricky narrating the events to Dr. Bloom. In short, Billy and Ricky's parents were killed by a maniac dressed as Santa Claus. This horrifying event permanently scarred Billy as he witnessed everything unfolded. The Caldwell brothers are then raised in a Catholic orphanage. The orphanage is run by Mother Superior, a domineering figure who rules the orphanage with an iron fist. Mother Superior is very abusive towards Billy due to Billy's naughty behavior, e.g. Billy sneaking around and witnessing young people having premarital sex. Eventually, Billy gets a job working in a department store. But Billy is not in the Yuletide spirit; everything about Christmas he associates with the tragic murders of his parents. Billy is upset at having to dress up as Santa Claus to the point that he scares away kids wanting to sit on his lap.

One night, while partying with his co-workers, Billy snaps and kills all of them. He dresses up as Santa Claus and goes on a killing spree. Despite the fact that Ricky was not even at the scene of those crimes, he still manages to remember "witnessing" his older brother commit gruesome killings as a Santa Claus look-alike. Now unless Billy told his brother specific details about events in Billy's life, it's impossible for Ricky to be able to recall Billy's misdeeds while dressed as Santa Claus. Ricky wasn't even present during most of the events in the first Silent Night, Deadly Night movie, yet he seems to be able to remember them as if they occurred yesterday. It's a major plot hole and one that is difficult to overlook. But, whatever.

After killing more dumb teenagers, Billy returns to the orphanage where it all started to confront Mother Superior. Only Billy has a nice surprise for Mother Superior: a giant, razor sharp axe. Just when Billy was about to execute Mother Superior, the police arrive in the nick of time and shoot Billy dead. Billy's younger brother Ricky witnesses Billy's death in the hands of Mother Superior and vows to avenge him. He blames Mother Superior for what she did to Billy...

We are then treated to more flashbacks, this time involving Ricky's own adolescence, through new, exclusive footage to this movie. Ricky is adopted and raised by a Jewish family so he doesn't have to be bombarded by images of Christmas decorations every winter season. But the color red sets Ricky off for whatever reason. Ricky shares his older brother's homicidal tendencies, as evidenced by him running over an abusive creep repeatedly with his jeep. The former girlfriend of the creep even thanks Ricky afterwards! Otherwise, Ricky is just a well-adjusted, normal lad. Ricky even meets and falls in love with a pretty young lady named Jennifer (Elizabeth Kaitan). But Ricky's chances at a normal life are for naught when the two encounter Jennifer's ex-boyfriend and Ricky reverts back to his violent ways...

Ricky is taken into custody by the police and is placed in the mental institution. Cue to the present. Ricky is tired of talking about his past, he wants to take action. Ricky eventually breaks out of the mental institution with only one goal in mind: revenge for his brother's death. And the target of his anger is Mother Superior, who is now wheelchair-bound due to a stroke which also left her disfigured. For Mother Superior is the one responsible for Billy's demise and she must be PUNISHED!!! Ricky intends to finish what his brother started. Can Ricky be stopped before he puts Mother Superior's head in a naughty kid's Christmas stocking?

In 1984, Silent Night, Deadly Night caused a lot of controversy due to its "depiction" of Santa Claus as an axe-wielding murderer. In truth though, it was actually a psychopath in a Santa suit who was the axe-wielding murderer. Three years later, the sequel nobody asked for has arrived. I first saw this movie sometime in the late 1990s when I rented it from the local video store. What attracted me to this movie was the nifty VHS cover stylishly showing a reflection of a gun in a Christmas ornament. Though I've watched clips online, I haven't seen the movie in its entirety since. Yet, it's a film that I have never forgotten. It stays in your conscience. For whatever reason, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 has maintained some enduring popularity. Perhaps this is due to Eric Freeman's mother of all bad performances which I will touch upon shortly.

This is a true nightmare before Christmas. This movie is like receiving a giant lump of coal in a Christmas stocking. I mean this movie is wretched, period. Don't get me started on Eric Freeman's dreadful performance or the lousy script with a barely coherent storyline. I can at least put up with those two if the movie is even marginally entertaining. But the one thing I cannot forgive is the extensive use of recycled footage. The filmmakers-for some indiscernible reason-chose the easy way out by using a lot of flashbacks from its predecessor to pad out the running time. Literally half the movie is just scenes lifted from the original Silent Night, Deadly Night! The flashbacks go on for forty minutes or so with Ricky rambling about how vengeful Billy is, taking innocent lives while trying to pursue Mother Superior. Hell, the end credits are like ten minutes long because it includes the cast and crew from the original Silent Night, Deadly Night! The recycled footage kills whatever enjoyment factor this movie may have had.

Director Lee Harry doesn't seem to have a clue about filmmaking. He went on to direct only one other movie, Street Soldiers, before specializing in editing film trailers. I've heard that in real life, Lee Harry is a very nice guy, but that doesn't excuse the fact that this movie is amateur hour. Sorry, Lee. I understand the filmmakers didn't have a lot to work with in terms of budget, but if you can't bother to make an entire movie, why bother at all? Some of the best movies out there have low to minimal budgets, but the filmmakers find a way to work around that. Here, they just seem to throw in flashback footage to shortcut the whole filmmaking process. It's lazy filmmaking at its worse. Put it this way, not even Godfrey Ho would be impressed with this patchwork.

I guess one good thing comes out of all this. For those who haven't seen the original Silent Night, Deadly Night, you can save money by renting or buying the sequel instead, and you get two movies for the price of one! And in case you are wondering, all the gory and naughty bits from the first film have been included in the recycled footage here.

How can I describe Eric Freeman's performance as Ricky Caldwell? I will say that it's a surprisingly earnest performance. I mean, the guy tries very hard, much like how a puppy tries to please its owner or a student does extra credit work to try and curry favors from a teacher. But to be quite honest, Freeman comes across as a bit desperate. Like he's trying to prove to audiences that he can portray a crazed psycho. He's overacting in order to overcompensate. He must have watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in order to study for his role. He probably thinks he knows all about mental patients from watching that movie. Freeman is not really a talented actor, but he tries his best and gives his all. And what is up with the dude's eyebrows? Freeman's eyebrows have a personality of their own. His eyebrows were trying to outperform Freeman himself.

Where did they get this guy? Freeman is handsome and muscular, who resembles a fitness model instead of a spree killer. He doesn't seem like the type who could pass for a psycho killer. What he has in the looks department he's clearly lacking in acting ability. I read that in real life, Freeman was a personal trainer so maybe acting was his hobby. Or maybe he was a trainer to pay the bills while hoping to pursue greater acting glory. Which clearly never happened despite some memorable roles in the TV series In Living Color.

O Eric Freeman, where art thou? Freeman seems to have dropped off from the face of the Earth. He's never going to be able to live this down so he might as well embrace it. Yeah, it may have been an embarrassing chapter in his life, but he's gained some notoriety from it.

GULP! Uh-oh! Elizabeth Kaitan was clearly hired for her looks and not her acting ability. I will say she's extremely gorgeous and easy on the eyes though. James L. Newman goes through the motions as the psychiatrist trying to get inside Ricky's head. Of course none of the cast members have gone on to a viable film or television career though Elizabeth Kaitan has gained a mild cult following as a scream queen and a late night softcore film star. Like Freeman, she has quit acting altogether and seems to have disappeared.

Compared to its slasher movie peers, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 doesn't have much in the way of unique death scenes. Ricky kills Jennifer's scummy ex-boyfriend by electrocuting him via jumper cables attached to a car battery. The high voltage causes the guy's eyes to explode, shattering his sunglasses and creating a splattery mess. One amusing death scene has Ricky using an umbrella as a deadly weapon to impale a loan shark. The umbrella then opens up on the other end! It's raining blood. A dim-witted cop gets his brains blown out. There are also a couple of deaths by strangulation including one with a broken car antennae and another with magnetic tape from a recorder. See folks, one can utilize any household object as a weapon. You learn something new every day. There's the infamous "Garbage Day!" shooting spree, where Ricky single-handedly shoots several suburbanites. It's a pretty tasteless scene punctuated by Freeman's hammy acting and line shouting.

I'll try to be generous here and acknowledge that the filmmakers probably knew their limitations here. They seem aware of how inept the storyline is and attempt not to take it too seriously. Put it this way, the filmmakers knew that this movie was not going to compare favorably to the likes of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. There are actually moments of macabre humor that work. One of the more amusing parts of this movie is Ricky talking about how people dressed in Santa suits were being profiled by police. One guy dressed as Santa Claus even gets shot by the police while trying to give presents in a case of mistaken identity! I can just smell a lawsuit coming. I don't know what's more traumatizing for a young child: watching somebody dressed as Santa Claus viciously murder their parents, or watching the police shoot an unarmed man dressed as Santa Claus. There's also a very funny scene where Ricky and his girlfriend are watching a horror movie - which just happens to be the first Silent Night, Deadly Night film! Ingenious use of recycled footage there. His girlfriend is all excited about how it's a movie featuring a killer Santa Claus, and the way Ricky reacts to this revelation is priceless. In addition, both Ricky and his girlfriend have to put up with an obnoxious movie theater patron. I liked how Ricky dealt with that annoying douchebag.

A half assed movie deserves a half assed review. Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 fails as a horror thriller as it doesn't generate an iota of suspense or thrills. Besides the lukewarm scares and mostly ho-hum deaths, even the climactic confrontation between Ricky and Mother Superior seems so...anticlimactic. It doesn't quite succeed as a dark comedy though with a little more effort, maybe it could have worked in that direction. To be perfectly candid, I probably would have given this movie a half decent rating if it weren't for the excessive use of recycled footage from the first movie.

Prayers won't save you from the atrociousness of this movie. Ultimately, the ridiculous amount of footage from the first movie that was used for this sequel ruins the proceedings. And the filmmakers have nobody to blame but themselves. It's frustrating because the new footage has a few "so bad it's good" moments that are mildly enjoyable on a base level.

I know this film gained a fairly significant cult following, and yes, Eric Freeman is uproariously bad as the grown up Ricky, but this film is just plain awful. Despite a hilariously unhinged performance by Eric Freeman, and a couple of creative kills here and there, I can't really give the filmmakers any points due to their lack of effort. There's a shell of an entertainingly bad movie in there, but it's wasted potential.