Did you people see the same film I saw?

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I usually watch the obvious festive films every year, and occasionally I try to find the ones I have missed out on, especially the alternative ones, this was far from any of the usual cuddly and feel-good Christmas movies I have seen. Basically on Christmas Eve 1971, five-year-old Billy (Jonathon Best) and his family visit catatonic Grandpa (Will Hare) at the nursing home where he stays. Billy is left alone with the grandfather for a few minutes, suddenly he awakens and tells Billy he should be afraid of Santa Claus, saying he only gives presents to good children, but punishes those who have been naughty. A criminal dressed in a Santa outfit (Charles Dierkop) has just robbed a liquor store and killed the store clerk, while driving home, Billy's family see him seemingly having car trouble. As Billy's parents, mother Ellie (Tara Buckman) and father Jim (Geoff Hansen), pull over to help, the criminal shoots the father in the head, then pulls out the mother, attempts to rape her, and slits her throat with a switchblade, Billy runs away, leaving his baby brother Ricky (Melissa Best) in the car. Three years in 1974, eight-year-old Billy (Danny Wagner) and four-year-old Ricky (Max Broadhead) are celebrating Christmas in an orphanage, run by strict disciplinarian Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin ), who persistently strikes children who misbehave, she considers punishment for their wicked actions a good thing. Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick ), the only one who sympathises with the children, tries to help Billy interact with the other children, but he is constantly scrutinised and punished by Mother Superior. Billy does a drawing of Santa and a reindeer being slaughtered, he is beaten, then on Christmas morning, a man invited to the orphanage dressed as Santa Claus gets attacked by Billy, who is still haunted by the deaths of his parents, he is dragged away by Mother Superior. Ten years later, in spring 1984, eighteen-year-old Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) has left the orphanage for a normal life, he finds a job working at the local toy store with the help of Sister Margaret. Billy develops a crush on co-worker Pamela (Toni Nero), he has sexual thoughts of her, but he continues to suffer morbid visions of his parent's murder. On Christmas Eve, the employee who usually dresses up as Santa Claus has been injured the night before, so the boss Mr. Sims (Britt Leach) makes Billy take his place. The store closes, and staff attend the Christmas party, Billy (still dressed in the Santa Claus suit) tries to enjoy himself, he the memory of the death of his parents continue to haunt him and make him feel depressed. At one point, he sees co-worker Andy (Randy Stumpf) making out with Pamela, then he sees him trying to rape her in the back room, this psychologically triggers his insanity; he hangs Andy with a set of Christmas lights, and stabs Pamela with a utility knife, uttering darkly that punishment is good. A highly intoxicated Mr. Sims hears noises and goes to investigate, he is shocked to find the corpses, Billy murders him with a hammer before he can leave. Billy then turns the store lights off, his manager Mrs. Randall (Nancy Borgenicht) goes to see what is going on, she screams seeing Mr. Sims dead, Billy cuts the phone line before she can call the police, after a chase around the store, Billy kills Mrs. Randall, shooting her with a bow and arrow. As Sister Margaret discovers the carnage and returns to the orphanage to call for help, Billy breaks into a nearby house, he finds a young couple named Denise (Linnea Quigley) and Tommy (Leo Geter) having sex; Billy impales Denise on the antlers of a deer on the wall, and throws tommy through the window, he is impaled by broken glass. This wakes up the little girl named Cindy (Amy Styvesant), either a younger sibling or daughter of the couple, Billy confronts her and asks if she has been naughty or nice; she says nice and Billy gives her a utility knife as a present. When he leaves the house, Billy witnesses bullies picking on two teenage boys sledding, they steal their toboggans, he decapitates one of the bullies with an axe, the other screams in horror seeing his headless body. The next morning, the orphanage has been secured by Officer Barnes (Max Robinson) and Captain Richards (H.E.D. Redford), aided by Sister Margaret, who knows Billy has been committing the murders. Deaf pastor Father O'Brien, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, is mistakenly shot by Barnes approaching the orphanage, then when distracted Barnes is axed by Billy. Due to his Santa outfit, Billy gains access to the orphanage, he confronts Mother Superior who is in a wheelchair, she taunts Billy due to her disbelief in Santa Claus, he prepares to kill her with his axe. Richards appears and shoots Billy in the back, to the disapproval of Sister Margaret, dying Billy lays and utters to the children "You're safe now, Santa Claus is gone.", then succumbs to his wounds, the children gather around him, including Billy's fourteen-year-old brother Ricky (Alex Burton), he stares coldly at Mother Superior and utters "naughty". Also starring Eric Hart as Mr. Levitt (Storekeeper) and A. Madeline Smith as Sister Ellen. This movie caused a lot of controversy at the time of its release, with American parents protesting about the effect that portraying Father Christmas as a mad murderer would have on children, other than that it is a routine slasher style scary movie. It's a simple story of a troubled boy who had a horrible childhood trauma at Christmas, then goes mental and ends up on going on a killing spree as a demented Santa to punish "naughty" people, the deaths are certainly gory, so you get what you expect, it's cheesy and a bit laughable, but at the same time it's kind of a fun, and it spawned a franchise, a reasonable seasonal horror. Okay!

This movie became infamous because of how controversial it was in that it featured a serial killer dressed as Santa Claus. The idea of an evil Santa has been done many times before, especially with the legend of the Krampus. The Krampus was a demon that punished naughty children that worked for Santa. I know he's not the same person as Santa, but it still comes off as strange people were so offended by this. That being said, this is still a really bad movie, at least for me. It's just amazing how trashy this film gets. I swear that there's four sex scenes in it! Two of them are rape scenes!There's a scene where a topless woman is impaled by deer horns. This movie just came off as rather offensive to me. I guess it is a little good with how they didn't get into the violence right away, but then the movie just came off as boring to me! Well, some people seem to like this and that's fine. For me, this is a pointlessly cruel film with gore galore. I admit that it's not as bad as the sequel, but for me it's still dumb. I know a 5.9 isn't that high of a rating, but I think we're being way too kind to this film. *1/2

Silent Night Deadly Night is so brilliant in terms of its offensiveness and its storytelling that I $#!+ with happiness and joy. For one thing, the plot development from Billy's devastation to the point of his murderous rampage was very well told and coherent and in a sense logical. Of course the absurd part is him assuming he is Santa which I believe is a ridiculous development of processed schizophrenia but eh, whatever. My favorite scene is when 10 year old Billy knocked the living s#!+ out of Santa. But what I like most is when an effigy of Santa was killed in front of stupid happy children! Oh baby! I love it! And we should point out it happens twice. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! F@!# children! Among other things the film has bloody violence (a lot better if you watch the unrated/extended version), the kills are neat,the acting ranges from good to retarded and so forth. My 2nd all time favorite Slasher movie ever.

I've watched numerous 'slasher' films over the years, so I flatter myself I've seen most things when it comes to the genre, but 'Silent Night, Deadly Night' kind of left me speechless. Yes, there's nothing that new about what you get here – killer stalks various people and despatches them in bloodthirsty ways. However, the whole feel of the film just left me unsure of what I was watching.This 'vibe' I'm talking about is either a deliberate attempt to do something a little different with the genre, or just bad film-making. I think there are arguments for and against each of these. I'm not sure whether the structure was supposed to be all over the place, but I was left never really sure where this film was going until about the final third (where it does start to conform to a more generic slasher film structure).You've probably seen the promotional material depicting a 'killer Santa' so I'll just leave it at that and I won't go into too much detail regarding the plot because I'd never seen the film before and I genuinely didn't know what to expect (besides the obvious slasher stuff). There are some bits that are actually quite neat and offer a slightly more refreshing take to a genre which was already pretty old when this film was released in 1984.Then you have bits of the film which suddenly become so damn cheesy and daft that you wonder whether this is a film that's a little more 'self aware' than you gave it credit for. Bits of it are so over the top I could see them being parodied on something like South Park.The gore isn't great, most likely due to budget restraints, so don't expect too much of the red stuff or any death scenes that you haven't already seen before. It may all be a bit tame (and very dated!) by today's standards, but, if you're looking for a classic slasher film with a few weird quirks and things you might not expect, this one may do the job.