Tag: Silent Night Deadly Night

2025 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Clown In A Cornfield
Ups: Some nice subversive character choices.
Some pretty decent shots; always looks clear.
Downs: Kevin Durand looks like a poundland Elon Musk
Predictable.
Doesn’t build up the villain.
Best Performer: Katie Douglas
Best Moment: The reveal that Cole and Rust are former lovers.
Worst Moment: The parade. Feels weak.
Opening: Party in a cornfield. Well, in a barn next to a cornfield. Close enough. Like all cool parties, there’s a teen playin with a windup doll. Her and a random dude strip off to fuck in a cornfield (feels like that’s how you’d get diseases). They die, obviously.
Closing: A damn sequel hook.
Best Line: You do realize that the ’80s are as far away from me as ’40s were to you, right?
Original review here

Ella McCay
Ups: Charming.
Some interesting moments.
Downs: Too unfocused.
Doing a political comedy this toothless feels cowardly.
Feels dated.
Inconsistent characterisation.
Best Performer: Jamie Lee Curtis
Best Moment: Ella’s freakout/monologue.
Worst Moment: The security working their way into overtime. Mainly because it has the air of something important and monumental, but really it doesn’t matter.
Opening: Narration by Julie Kavner giving us the history of Ella; basically, her dad was a dick.
Closing: Ella has started a non-profit that offers legal aid. Nice, but feels tacked. on.
Best Line:
Original review here

Nosferatu
Ups: Tense
Technically good.
Downs: Dull.
Feels too in debt to the original to really leave its own mark.
Uninteresting characters.
Best Performer: Nicholas Hoult
Best Moment: Orlock on the ship.
Worst Moment: The death of Friedrich feels a bit weird.
Opening: Ellen doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. She awakes an ancient creature and vows to pledge herself to him.
Closing: Nosferatu gets distracted and feeds until sunlight.
Best Line: God is beyond our morals! In vain! In vain! You run in vain! You cannot outrun her destiny! Her dark bond with the beast shall redeem us all, for when the sun’s pure light shall break upon the dawn, redemption! The plague shall be lifted! Redemption!
Original review here

Renner
Ups: Good performances.
Pretty visuals
Downs: Terrible script. I mean, there are moments where the visuals aren’t great, but the major problems (consistency, bad characters, genre confusion) are ALL down to the script, which is poor.
Best Performer: Violett Beane
Best Moment: Just after the monopoly scene there’s a wonderfully lit sequence.
Worst Moment: When he attacks the thieves. Purely because the way its shot (quick flashes whilst he’s asking what to do) makes it come off as a fantasy sequence rather than reality. The visually unclear storytelling happens a few times, but its most clear then.
Opening: I know it’s a common joke to make that the vanity cards that open up films are so long they seem like an actual movie, but the opening credits for this legit seem like a vanity card.
Closing: He gets shot. Reminds me of the original ending of Clerks where Kevin Smith was told “you killed off your character because you have no idea how to end your story”.
Best Line: Do you have a desire that remains unfulfilled because of your non-existent confidence?
Original review here

Silent Night, Deadly Night
Ups: Some decent kills.
Potential
Downs: Too bleak, stopped caring.
Falls apart if you think about it for more than a minute.
Best Performer: Ruby Modine
Best Moment: The many deaths of Nazi’s.
Worst Moment: When they encounter the snatcher. I’m still not sure whether we were supposed to recognise who they were.
Opening: The death of Billy’s grandparent, and parents. Sets up his character well, and pays homage to the original.
Closing: Billy dies, Pam is now the new Billy. So you have a non-white woman taking over a white male role. I’m sure the internet loved that.
Best Line: Punish
Original review here

The Alto Knights
Ups: Fans of the genre will enjoy it.
Well crafted atmosphere.
Good performances.
Suits the period.
Downs: Doesn’t bring anything new.
Maybe should have been made decades ago.
Best Performer: De Niro
Best Moment: Barber shop assassination.
Worst Moment: People testifying in front of congress. It’s edited terribly.
Opening: Frank Costello is shot in an elevator, then explains the history between him and Vito Genovese.
Closing: The Apalachin meeting. Much rather see a film about that.
Original review here

The Electric State
Ups: The robots look spectacular.
Downs: Bland story
They don’t seem like brother/sister. To be honest, the way they react is more like lovers. Hard to explain why.
Chris Pratt REALLY wants to be Harrison Ford doesn’t he?
Best Performer: Millie Bobby Brown
Best Moment: The Christopher reveal. Horrifying.
Worst Moment: The death of Clark Amherst. Has no emotional weight.
Opening: It’s 1990, “before the war”. Well it says “before the war”, but war is on the horizon and humanity already hates robots. Sweet interactions between the sibilings. We then get a background on the world, how robots were invented and came to take part in an uprising. I kind of think the “robot uprising” part of should have come first, the siblings part didn’t accomplish anything that couldn’t have been accomplished better elsewhere.
Closing: The robot character we thought was dead stands up so is still alive. oh no, what a shock.
Best Line: I have a condition where I can only live in reality. Sucks, but you go right ahead!
Original review here

The Toxic Avenger
Ups: Bloody
Fun
Actually helped people.
Downs: Too self-aware at times.
Oddly restrained in parts.
Needs a better soundtrack.
Best Performer: Dinklage
Best Moment: The diner robbery. Political, violent, and fun.
Worst Moment: The random guy in the woods. Mainly because it feels like a diversion.
Opening: Dramatic voiceover, met with quick highlights of what we’re about to see. Perfect for this.
Closing: The bad guys die, good guys win.
Best Line: My God you people are tedious!
Original review here

Y2K
Ups: Full of nostalgia.
Some good music choices.
Downs: A little too dumb.
Some unrealistic deaths.
The main character comes off a bit too “nice guy” at times.
Who is it aimed at?
Best Performer: Rachel Zegler
Best Moment: The sing-along to Tubthumbing. Kind of cute.
Worst Moment: The skating death. After seeing people being impaled and set on fire, a 1 foot drop while skating will always seem shitty.,
Opening: The “internet connection” noise. Then AOL. What ever happened to them? They WERE the internet.
Closing: Five years later, the glitch face appears on an iPod. Because God forbid a horror film be self-contained and not aim for a sequel.
Best Line: You think this’ll work because you saw it in a movie? I think movies have warped your mind. God damn, now I’m sounding like Tipper Gore.
Original review here

Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Billy is traumatised by the death of his parents, so every December he kills 24 people in the build-up to Christmas, as you do.

There are a lot of iconic horror franchises; I haven’t watched them all. Silent Night, Deadly Night (or SN, DN, pronounced Seen Deen) is one of those I have no history with. I’ve seen the Kill Count videos on them, so I’m aware of them, their memes, characters, and kills. Basically, I have no personal stake in this movie. I’m not going to be personally offended at the changes, but equally, I’m not going to geek out over references beyond just going “I recognise that reference”. The last movie I was in that situation with was Black Christmas, back in 2019. That was the second remake of a Christmas-themed horror franchise that featured a killer named Billy that originated in a realistic 70’s movie, but for the second remake, it decided to make it supernatural and weird. Silent Night, Deadly Night is completely different; it’s based on an 80’s movie.

I am aware of the changes made to the lore, and it would be weird to not comment on them. Basically, the main character in this only kills people because if he doesn’t, a random person will die. So he decides to only kill bad people. Essentially, it’s Dexter Claus. I can see why they did it, and it does lead to a roomfull of nazi’s being brutally murdered in a scene I’m sure we can all hope to see recreated. But it does mean that this becomes the kind of horror film I don’t particularly like: bad things happening to bad people, where we’re supposed to cheer the murderer and think of how cool he is. At no point in this are you scared for any character’s well-being. At no point are you disgusted by the brutal killings. How can you be? If you witness someone go into a room of Nazi’s carrying a weapon, then you’re not going to sit there like “noooooo. Get out of their nazi’s! He’s going to kill you”. It also leads to my other problems; how many fucking killers are in this small town? It’s the kind of horror film which falls apart if you think about it too long. How does nobody notice people being killed? Compare it to Heart Eyes, where we saw news anchors talk about the horror of the killer striking every Valentine’s Day. There’s nothing like that in here. There’s no “every year, a random town in America is struck by a killer in a Santa costume”. It’s almost as if it doesn’t happen. This is most evident in the Nazi scene. A LOT of people die in that; the building is set on fire. It’s NEVER referenced again. There are no “wow, a lot of people didn’t turn up to work today” comments. No news reports about the Nazi paraphernalia that turns out to belong to beloved town figures. It has no impact. Also, if he has the power to see people who are evil, why was it he had no idea there were A LOT of nazi’s in that town? Does the person possessing him not see “being a racist POS who calls for the death of all non-whites” as evil? That’s fucked up.

I am fully aware I’m missing the point of this. This is not meant to be taken seriously. But everyone is allowed personal opinion, and this is not the kind of horror film I’m into. For the kind of people who like that kind of thing, that’s the kind of thing that those people like. But it’s not for me. It’s too dark to be fun, and too ridiculous to be scary. Also, I didn’t buy the romantic part; I saw no reason for her to be into him. Very minor complaint: he gets a job at her shop. It’s a Christmas-themed shop, selling ornaments and baubles etc. He starts there on 20th December. Forget the “he’s haunted by a ghost that tells him who’s naughty, and warns him of danger (unless it’s plot convenient)”, forget the “almost 100 people died in one night, and nobody notices”, him starting a Christmas job that late in December is the most unrealistic part of the whole darn thing.

The performances are okay. Rohan Campbell is fine, but not spectacular. I liked Ruby Modine; she has a weird likability, even when she’s displaying ultraviolence. On the subject of violence, the kills are good. If you like brutal deaths, then you’ll love this. Many of the deaths contain references to the original movie. Fans might not be so pleased with the supernatural elements, and I have a feeling some of them REALLY won’t be pleased with the ending. I can almost hear the “it’s gone woke!” complaints from here. On the plus side, it means that if there is a sequel, it will be guaranteed to be very different.

I kind of hope there is a sequel, as there’s potential. And once the writers stop trying so hard to make it different from the original and instead focus on just telling a coherent story, they could be onto a winner. Because the lore and characters have been established, the next step should be a lot cleaner to execute. So in summary, I really was not a fan of this. It was an overstuffed mess that lacked any sense of identity and was too focused on unlikeable characters. But I’ll still watch a sequel if it comes up. I probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I saw it in an almost empty room, so there wasn’t much audience reaction, which it feels like this film was made for.