As I travel down the road to grandmother’s house (hope she doesn’t get run over by Rudolph again), where the family gathers for the yuletidings for one and all, I can’t help but notice all of those lights shining bright inside the living rooms of the house, caked in festive garb. I certainly can hear the sleighbells ring (or it’s just my Uncle Bob snoring in the next room), but maybe it’s the children screaming from what’s playing on their local WWOR TV station! Oh, Santa, this year won’t you really bring me what I need? I don’t want a lot of the Christmas season, but if you were to ask me for what I need, it would be for the world to stop making terrible movies. In fact, what I want is for the world to stop making Christmas horror movies! For every great holiday spirit of a Christmas magical movie (only the best ones were from long, long ago), there are several filled with maniac Santa and his bloody reindeer sleighing the night away (but not attached to the sled). I don’t care about a ton of presents underneath the Christmas tree, but please make my Christmas wish come true, because all I want for Christmas is for no more holiday slashers like the 1970s raspberry-filled chocolate nugget Silent Night Bloody, Night (more than you could ever know)!
Yes, Virginia, there are hundreds of terribly wrapped holiday cinematic cheeselogs like this one. Ever since Charles Dickens felt the need to chill us further on cold December mornings, tales of the horrific glories of mass murders, killer dolls, and ghastly ghouls from every tomb chimney hoping to seal your eggnog doom have tinseled our large (and small) screens. From Jack Frost to Christmas Evil to the very protested (and largely liked for some reason) Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise (yes, there are many of those movies… too many if you ask me), and though many will wassail the tales of Black Christmas being the first modern serial killer holiday slasher, Silent Night, Bloody Night beat it by two years (guess who’s on the naughty list now?). Although not a stocking stuffer filled with body counts, it does take on a slow crackling approach to kills in the style that Bob Clark tried to homage (rip-off like it’s co-ed college murderer) and John Carpenter would use (carve) in his pumpkin of a slasher Halloween. Made under a tithing of around $250,000, and featuring a slew of the Andy Warhol factory actors (thanks to the presence of actress Mary Warnov, a Warhol darling and future muse to Paul Bartel of Death Race 2000 and Eatin Raoul fame), the film was plagued with constant production delays, yielding the cast to wait endlessly between takes for the power outages to be fixed in the freezing house, but Warnov has gone on record of saying what a champ John Carredine was, never complaining (as long as the check cleared). Another thing plaguing the set was a wild and often confusing script co-written by Ira Teller and former talent manager Jon Konvitz, who would go on to be a successful writer and producer himself, hacking such classics as Cyborg 2, Spy Hard, and The Sentinel (again starring John Carredine – as long as the check cleared). Filled with better-than-average cinematography by Adam Giffard (who lensed classics like The Witches of Salem: The Horror and the Hope) and making good use of the killer POV perspective, the eventual reveal is hard to swallow like so many holiday fruitcakes! Similar to how many names Santa Claus goes by, this film was released theatrically under several different titles including Deathouse, Night of the Full Dark Moon, and finally as Silent Night, Bloody Night with very little success, until selling to CBS for $300,000, waiting under the mistletoe of (non-lethal) homes across the nation during the December ratings for years to come.
On a Christmas long, long ago, William Butler, the prestigious loner and owner of the beautifully historic Butler Mansion, died in a mysterious fire that cost him his life, but luckily not the mansion. Twenty years later, the rightful heir to the mansion, Jeffery Butler, the grandson, wants to sell the house and be done with it once and for all. But there is something the realtor forgot to mention in the listing: Not a creature was stirring except someone mysteriously killing anyone who gets in the way of the sale (talk about a hard negotiation – maybe they should have asked above listing price)! For example, when Jeffery’s lawyer (played by Patrick O’Neil of Chamber of Horrors and The Stuff) makes an offer for the town to buy the historical property for a little sum of $50,000, as he stays the night with his (way out of his geriatric league) girlfriend, they are visited by the ghostly axe of Christmas Past! One by one, the elders of the town are wiped away (including Carredine, whose check never cleared), eventually leading Jeffery and his wife Diane (Warnov) to investigate, which leads to the secret Diary of William Butler. Within the confessions of his grandfather, will Jeffery and Diane find out the truth of the past, present, and future to come, or will they discover the true meaning of Christmas inside their (literally and figuratively) bleeding hearts?
Ice skating your way at a thick eighty-three minutes, and directed by Warhol alum Theodore Gershuny (who would go on to direct the likes of Sugar Cookies and episodes of Tales from the Darkside), the film would be one of the earliest projects to be associate-produced by future head of Troma Entertainment Lloyd Kaufman (maybe it was The Toxic Avenger lurking near the Advent candles). With a post-production original title of Zora (another one?), the film was cast out to the island of misfit and forgotten films in the land of Public Domain, so this film can be a cheap gift for anyone on your naughty or nice (to know you) list! So, I won’t stay up all night to hear the reindeer click on the remote to the local cable channel playing free copyrighted seasonal junk. I don’t care if a homicidal maniac is standing right outside my door. Make my wish come true and don’t place cracked chestnuts like this underneath my terribly sappy horror holiday tree (and be sure to clean up the bloody pine needles and spilt popcorn by January 1st).
