Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025)

Silent Night, Deadly Night a Nicely Naughty Jolt of Holiday Horror Carnage

I have a theory about remakes. The best ones tackle an interesting idea or narrative thread that never lived up to its intriguing potential the first time around. John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, Tony Scott’s Man on Fire, Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, and David Lowery’s Pete’s Dragon are just five examples that immediately leap to mind. All are fantastic, each born from the ashes of a predecessor that, for whatever reason, didn’t rise to the occasion.

There are exceptions to the rule, instances in which one classic spawned an equally strong doppelgänger. Both versions of True Grit (Henry Hathaway’s 1969 incarnation and Joel and Ethan Coen’s 2010 adaptation) fit that bill, as do Don Seigel’s (1956) and Philip Kaufman’s (1978) Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But by and large, if a remake must be made, I would still rather adventurous filmmakers turn their eyes to the noteworthy failures.

Still, I didn’t envy writer-director Mike P. Nelson when it was announced he would make a modern interpretation of the controversial, Christmas-themed 1984 cult slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night. While it may seem like that low-budget shocker would fit my criteria for a redo (good idea; not particularly well executed), its legions of fans would beg to differ. From its memorably iconic poster art of an axe-wielding Santa descending a rooftop chimney, to its lead character, Billy, passionately screeching, “Naughty!” before every kill, the film’s uncanny ability to remain firmly planted within the holiday horror zeitgeist is frankly astonishing.

Not that I should have worried. The filmmaker, who already did a bang-up job resurrecting a popular franchise with inspired aplomb with 2021’s Wrong Turn, works similar magic with his take on writers Paul Caimi and Michael Hickey’s source material. While the events setting up the grisly carnage in this new version is eerily similar what transpired in the earlier one (on a secluded, snowy highway, young Billy witnesses his parents’ deaths by a killer dressed as Santa Claus, scarring him for life and transforming him into a violent murderer), Nelson stills shakes things up. He takes the story in new, fascinatingly thrilling directions, with the line between good, evil, and all that lurks in between resting in a murky yuletide playground in which the director is well equipped to frolic.

This time out, when we first meet an adult Billy Chapman (Rohan Campbell), he’s been working hard as a clandestine seasonal serial killer for nearly a decade. Each day of the Advent calendar, he’s compelled to murder an unsuspecting victim in as brutal a fashion as possible. To make things easier, he wears a brand-new, bright red Santa suit when he does it, believing this produces distance between his heinous acts and the otherwise good person he strives to be.

With only a few days left until Christmas, Billy wanders into a new town and runs into Pamela Sims (Ruby Modine). He is immediately smitten. Against his better judgement, the young man makes friends with her kindly father (David Lawrence Brown) and takes a stock clerk job in the pair’s holiday-themed curiosity shop. But Billy’s clandestine killing spree cannot be interrupted, at least not until the day after Christmas, and how he’s going to keep his gruesome side gig hidden from Pamela, especially after the pair spark up a romantic connection, is a perplexing question with no easy answer.

Nelson flips things sideways by adding a supernatural angle. While his affinity for the original is apparent (there’s a wonderful montage near the end of the second act, showcasing several of Billy’s first kills, and diehard fans of the franchise will be in for a treat), this isn’t a gore-drenched nostalgia play. Nelson deepens the character arcs for his two leads, increases the emotional complexity, and inserts a politically astute layer of pitch-black satirical social commentary that’s often as funny as it is prescient. It’s all strangely, almost cathartically, compelling.

This does not mean the remake skimps on the nastiness or refrains from uncomfortable bursts of ugliness some viewers will undoubtedly find objectionable, maybe even indefensible. There are virulent screeches of homophobia, sexism, racism, misogyny, and even transphobia that made my skin crawl. It is these verbal tirades that I found the most egregiously violent, and one moment at an overly White (i.e., Caucasian) Christmas party is acutely unsettling.

But all of that is precisely by design. Nelson has several tricks hidden in his Santa sack, not the least of which are the reasons behind Billy’s choice of victims. There’s no equivocating: the people he singles out are undeniably naughty, and most richly deserve the dismemberment, evisceration, or impalement coming their way.

Not everything works, though. The supernatural angle is ham-fisted and pugilistically clumsy, and the ending, while strong, is sadly the least surprising aspect of the entire endeavor. While the practical makeup effects are impressive, the digital elements stick out like a herky-jerky cut scene from a PlayStation 2 video game circa 2001. Most egregiously, Campbell’s introspectively internalized performance frustratingly keeps Billy from being as compelling an antihero protagonist as he should be, at least during the first half. It isn’t until the character finds himself at that aforementioned shindig that the actor finally physically and emotively springs to life, and I won’t begrudge anyone who finds that a bit too late for their liking.

The same cannot be said about Modine. Much like she did in Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, and Satanic Panic, the crafty actor steals practically every scene she’s part of with an insidious, side-eyed glee that’s infectious. Pam plays a giant role in the mayhem, and I while I’ll refrain from revealing exactly why that is, Modine’s sensational ability to give her dangerously entrancing agency is never in doubt. She turns events on their head over and over again with confident gusto, and out of all her performances I’ve seen, this one might just be her best yet.

Other highlights include the energizing score composed by Blitz//Berlin (band members Martin Macphail, Tristan Tarr, and Dean Rode), cinematographer Nick Junkersfeld’s kinetic camerawork, and Geoff Klein’s invigoratingly intense editing. There’s also a pleasantly gruff vocal performance delivered by veteran character actor Mark Acheson that’s all grizzled menace and grandfatherly concern, but I hesitate to say too much more as to avoid inadvertently revealing the picture’s more agreeably goofy secrets. All of which makes this Silent Night, Deadly Night remake a nicely naughty jolt of blood-soaked holiday horror worth unwrapping.

– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle

Film Rating: 3 (out of 4)