Silent Night (2012)

"He Knows Who's Been Naughty"

RATED- R
RUN TIME- 94 MINS
WRITER(S)- JAYSON ROTHWELL
STARRING- MALCOLM McDOWELL, JAIMIE KING AND DONAL LOGUE
DIRECTOR- STEVEN C. MILLER

Synopsis taken from IMDb

The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas eve.




STORY: If you've followed my blog over the last year you've seen that I've watched and reviewed all of the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" films. While I'll never watch any of the sequels again, the first became one of my favorite slasher films ever. I loved it. When I heard of the remake I was indecisive on how I felt, I wanted to know if this film would do the original justice.

The story of this film is fresh and not copycatting the original, I liked that. This story centers around a guy who goes around wearing a Santa suit and is murdering townsfolk who've been naughty. In the original they spend a lot of time on the killer and on this one they just throw you right into it. Not to be discouraged, they do show you back story and the murderers past. In this one instead of knowing who the killer is the whole time, you gotta wait until the end to find out and that was something I liked as well. He leaves a track of bloody footprints after every scene, showing he's a massive guy.

Aubrey Bradimore (Jaimie King) is local law enforcement trying to take down the mad Santa and get a lead on who he is, how to stop him. Her superior, Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell) has the same intent on catching the Santa, but he has his own way of running things that cause tension between him and Aubrey.

He knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.

ACTING: The acting in this film was fairly decent, the leads (King and McDowell) do a good job in their roles. The acting suffers a bit with some of the minor cast, but the movie has a bit of dark humor to it so it makes even the weaker acting go over just fine. The actors this film has works with the type of movie this is and the environment created for it.



KILLS/GORE: This film didn't hold back on the violence, brutality or bloodshed.  It's a real treat for you gore-hounds out there. This film is easily the bloodiest Christmas movie you'll ever see. Blood flows throughout the entire film practically and this Santa doesn't care how old you are, he targets little children as much as adults. There's flamethrowers, axes, scythes, knives and even fire pokers and a wood chipper (which is probably my favorite).



OVERALL: The story isn't as strong and important in this film as it was in the original, but this film is definitely scarier and more suspenseful. It doesn't surpass the original to me, due to the charm 80's horror films have on me, but this film here delivers. I was very pleased with "Silent Night", it will make even adults scared of Santa.

THIS FILM GETS 3 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5