in

Silent Night (Review)

You know, there’s just not a lot of Christmas themed movies out there. Just glancing over my movie collection now, the only ones I can find are Silent Night Bloody Night, the original Black Christmas and its remake, Santa’s Slay, and Jack Frost 2: The Revenge. But that could just have to do with my film buying habits… Anyway, when I saw that Silent Night Bloody Night was being remade as Silent Night, I was pretty excited. Then I saw it was made by kick-ass Automaton Transfusion director Steven C. Miller, and I was like, “Oh, Hell yeah!” So, did Silent Night do well in my opinion? Read on to find out.

In Silent Night, “The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas Eve.” The film is written by Jayson Rothwell and directed by Steven C. Miller. The cast features characters portrayed by Jaime King (My Bloody Valentine 3D), Malcolm McDowell (Rob Zombie’s Halloween), Ellen Wong (“Combat Hospital”), Brendan Fehr (“CSI: Miami”), Lisa Marie (Sleepy Hollow), and a brief appearance by scream queen Jessica Cameron (Mr. Hush).

I’m left a little blank-minded when trying to start this review because I really don’t know which direction to go in. I mean, it wasn’t a complete mess, but I was still left feeling a little like someone put coal in the DVD box instead of a great movie. I did enjoy a lot things – especially the death scenes and gore – while other things really let me down. As I said above, Steven C. Miller is an awesome director. I own both Automaton Transfusion and Scream of The Banshee. Do I think this dud will hurt his career? Absolutely not! I seem to be one of the few people to not receive this film well, and I do think it will end up being another cool notch on Miller’s directing belt.

My biggest problem with Silent Night is the script and the acting performances. The script is shaky at points and kind of confusing. I had to watch it a second time (if not only to see my friend Jessica Cameron) and only then did it begin to come together as a story. The characters were all written very unlikable too. There was not one character I connected with and wanted them to survive. Unlikable characters, slightly above average production quality, and a sometimes confusing script…with the final nail in the coffin being the below average performances from the actors. Holy crap did Silent Night have an excellent cast of seasoned actors, but none of them delivered a memorable performance here.

But maybe I’m being too difficult on the film. I did, obviously, suspect some things, but I still went to the store and bought my DVD copy. I enjoyed the death scenes, the gore, the way it captured the Christmas season… Hell, the film even started off FANTASTIC. I remember thinking Rothwell and Miller turned Santa into the Christmas version of Michael Myers! Unfortunately, the film seemed to run out of momentum the further into the plot it went. But, that doesn’t mean my opinion won’t change and I know I’ll certainly watch this again next Christmas; and I suspect my opinion will have changed. I didn’t like Scream 4 the first two times I watched, but now I love it. Hopefully, Silent Night will grow on me because I really am a big fan of everyone involved.

Go pick up your copy – it’s in retailers such as Walmart, Target, Bestbuy, and Amazon.com. As I said, everyone else seems to be enjoying Silent Night so don’t let my opinion deter you from checking it out. I guess this just means I’ll be on Santa’s naughty list this year.

Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

2 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. I thought that if the soundtrack was just a little more sinister, creepy and more on que it would have really made the film much better!

  2. I thought that if the soundtrack was just a little more sinister, creepy and more on que it would have really made the film much better!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.