About ten years prior to the film Silent Night Deadly Night, a low budget Christmas themed film came out entitled Silent Night Bloody Night. The film was rated R, and starred a lot of friends of one reclusive and weird artist Andy Warhol. I’m going to try and do my best here, to review this lesser known movie.
The movie is about an escaped mad man who is now killing people at a mansion. There is also a subplot of who will take ownership of an abandoned insane asylum, and as things start to heat up within the main characters, a mad man kills without warning.
This movie is very difficult to watch. This movie sucks, I had such a hard time with this movie that I almost turned it off. I give a lot of movie a fair chance, and though I sat through this steamy pile of horror film, I couldn’t find a lot of saving graces.
The sound sucks on this film. The foley is terrible, the voices are sometimes muted and overdubbed, and the kill scenes are done with such a stupid lazy effort, it makes me hate horror. The only backdrop to Christmas found in this film is through the films score which features Christmas carol’s. We also see Christmas lights hung on the exterior of the mansion that we are at.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the film really solves nothing, and then gives the audience a sepia toned flash back to finish off the plot and then tie up loose ends, it doesn’t do anything and really frustrates me as a horror movie fan. This film is terrible.
The saving grace to Silent Night Bloody Night has to be the make up effects. The make up is well done and you see a lot of good overall “zombie” and “death” effects. I liked that a lot, and thought it really carried the film a little, when the acting and overall story was convoluted.
Here is a trailer for Silent Night Bloody Night:
1974 is not a good excuse for such a bad movie both in style and delivery. The films of 1974 were not terrible and showed a lot of promise. Consider the year in film that year, we had: Young Frankenstein, The Longest Yard, Blazing Saddles, The Godfather Part 2, Gone in 60 Seconds, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, The Street Fighter, Vampyres, Way of the Dragon, and of course The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The year did not reflect such poorly done film making, and while this is a low budget film, there’s no excuse for such terrible plotting and pacing, and terrible lighting. Maybe this film was meant for the art house, as Warhol might have had influence on its style. However, this film is horrible and I do not recommend it at all.
While consider the scary parts of this film, I decided not to go too much into a psychological analysis. This film is so hard to watch that the notions set forth by the film, and its intentions are lost on me. I don’t want to do it too much justice, because it really was not a good movie and while I have seen some terrible films, this one takes a whole new standard. Silent Night Deadly Night is a terrible, terrible, Christmas horror movie. As far as holiday films are concerned, I would much rather recommend Silent Night Deadly Night as the go to Christmas horror movie.
Looking for grindhouse, horror, or sci-fi films? Please check out our amazon astore featuring all things horror. Don't trust astore? Check out amazon.com, surprisingly they have more grindhouse,horror,and rare sci-fi than you may not have thought possible.
Well said Jorge ~ I definitely have to agree with you on this one!
ReplyDeleteyour overall anylisis of this movie could not be further from the truth- this movie is a perfect movie to watch on a rainy nights, a true horror films lovers gem- and it's a hidden gem, 5x's better than the shit they put out from 74' till now, U can watch the rest of that crap.
ReplyDeleteWell, everyone has an opinion, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I disagree w/you, Sir Jorge. SNBN was quite influential, predating 1974's "Black Christmas," a slasher classic, and 1979's "When a Stranger Calls" and the killer-in-the-house-on-phone schtick by nearly a decade, and was first in the graphic blood and gore dept and killer's point-of-view shots, too. The film has been treated badly, and it sounds as if you might have seen a bad print. They are everywhere, and a true uncut print may no longer exist. A guy had a Website devoted to SNBN before he found religion, and he listed all the different VHS releasing co's that had different versions. One VHS print I saw was missing a very bloodthirsty bedroom scene (I saw this in a trailer as a kid and had nightmares for years). Other scenes seem to have been cut badly. I don't remember the version shown on YouTube, but much of the violence seems to have been cut. The movie seems to have been a precursor for "Friday the 13th" and its ilk, but you'd hardly know it as it's pretty anemic! I could explain the plot if you're unsure of it. I just saw it on DVD about a year ago, and it was pretty good. From your review you sound pretty young (I'm 42, and I guess you're 30 or younger). That's not a bad thing! Keep in mind that SNBN was typical of horror movies of its day (low budget, not-so-great lighting). Horror movies didn't have the big budgets of today, the pacing of films was slower, and movies weren't as graphic. These movies made oodles of money. Ever see the original "Last House on the Left"? It played for 15 years and made $55M (it cost $90K to make). The studios took notice and made big budgeted movies that used to play drive-ins and today we have "Die Hard" and the like and no one remembers how they started.
ReplyDeleteSNBN was made for drive-ins, not art houses, and it really did tie up its loose ends. The sepia imagery was for events that had happened in the past. Keep in mind that movies like this were made by filmmakers w/o much money, and the sepia imagery kept costs down and enabled them to tell their story....
I'd be happy to fill you in on the plot details if you email me. I won't spam you I promise!
Glenn Allen (NJ, U.S.)
apchat@hotmail.com
Shameful review of a much beloved, underrated horror film from 1972, though only released by '74. All video copies are difficult to view, but DVD releases feature much improved picture quality. My REEL CLASSIC FILMS DVD runs 85 minutes and appears to be the original theatrical print. If you cannot read the opening credits, you are viewing a poor quality print, my version has everything clear and distinctive. The plot involves insanity, rape, incest, bloody mayhem perpetrated by an escaped maniac, and nothing is as it appears to be. The nominal hero is played by Patrick O'Neal, who takes top billing. John Carradine is totally wasted as a mute newspaper editor, but his presence gives every low budget filmmaker some stature. Walter Abel plays the town mayor, while cult favorite Mary Woronov is his admiittedly "pushy" daughter, who tags along until all is revealed in a mysterious diary, from which the eerie black and white flashbacks reveal the evil that never really died. All negative reviews of this film cite the poor picture quality, not due to the original film stock, but the numerous home video releases, and these reviewers also fail to adequately explain any plot details. I first saw this cult classic in the 70's, and agree with others who viewed it then that it remains a neglected gem.
ReplyDeleteI want to bugger Mary Woronov (as the bird was in 1961 when the bird was 18, not as the bird is now obviously)
ReplyDelete