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

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (Video 1991)

RATED- R
RUN TIME- 90 MINS
WRITERS- MARTIN KITROSSER AND BRIAN YUZNA
STARRING- WILLIAM THORN, JANE HIGGINSON AND VAN QUATTRO
DIRECTOR- MARTIN KITROSSER




Synopsis taken from IMDb
A young boy sees his father killed by a toy that was anonymously delivered to his house. After that, he is to traumatized to speak, and his mother must deal with both him and the loss of her husband. Meanwhile, a toy maker name Joe Peto builds some suspicious-looking toys, and a mysterious man creeps around both the toy store and the boy's house...but who is responsible for the killer toys?




Finally at last I bring to you the final installment of the Silent Night, Deadly Night series. I'm glad to say it, as I'm sure you've read my reviews of the others, because I thought the series was dreadful. Unsavable. The original is one of the greatest slasher films ever made and was followed by half-assed attempts of sequels that only got more horrifying due to how horrible they were. The original deserved better sequels than this.

Now The Toy Maker actually was enjoyable and not too bad. It wasn't great but nothing about it made it horrible. It actually had to do with Christmas time and the spirit of Christmas like the original. It was a Christmas movie that is a horror movie, not a horror movie trying to be a Christmas movie, if you follow me.

It's a stand alone film which I think saved it because it wasn't a crappy sequel to a series that already milked the cows dry. It was it's own movie with just the title of Silent Night, Deadly Night on it. I think this was to ensure more sales for the movie but I think I'd enjoy it better if it were it's own film and not part of a series with the same title.

That being said let me warn you that below are spoilers. I don't usually do spoilers but with this one I kind of have to. So stop reading if you really plan on seeing this movie (laugh).

I thought Mickey Rooney did a great job as Joe Petto, the toy shop owner. You see how evil and wicked his toys are from the get go. He has to send his customer off with a cheap toy due to the other toys being unfit. You can instantly see the tension between him and his son.

We see some pretty decent deaths, this movie came off as more like a Tales From The Crypt episode. But that's okay, do you know why? Because Tales From The Crypt was AWESOME. This wasn't as awesome though. But it felt very similar to watching an episode of that than a horror movie.

The gore was sparse. Nothing worth mentioning or memorable.

The acting is decent, everything you'd expect from a straight-to-video movie.

We're led to believe and suspect Joe as the evil and wicked toy maker who's brutally killing people through toys. We even see some signs of aggression from him to help convince us that he's our man. I didn't think it was even a question, I suspected him from the go. Especially since he is the toy maker.

So I was surprised to see that there was a twist and it wasn't a bad one.

We find out that Joe isn't the killer and evil toy maker. It was his son! His son who is also a robot that Joe made with his awesome toy making skills. His exterior looks like a doll. Joe made a living doll as a son and it is making evil toys.

I liked the way it looked, it didn't look bad. Didn't look like it costed alot of money either but it was effective and a way to add a little humor into the mix.

So this film was my 2ND favorite in the series. I thought it was fun and enjoyable. It was a decent watch and I'm glad it wasn't as bad as the other sequels. This is the only one I like. It isn't anything I'm going to watch again anytime soon. But it lessened the hurt the other sequels did to this series.

THIS FILM GETS 1 1/2 REAPERS OUT OF 4