As we heard behind the last door yesterday, Silent Night, Deadly Night caused such a furore that it seems like no one would dare make another Christmas horror movie ever again. But you can’t keep the darkness out of Christmas forever, even in the neon-drenched 1980s! And on April 10th 1987, arguably nine days too late, unto us was given a sequel - Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.
After pulling the first film from theatres in the face of a furious backlash, Tri-Star didn’t bother trying to re-release it. They even shelved plans to distribute it around the world, hence most countries would not see the original Silent Night, Deadly Night until it was released on home media often many years later. However that didn’t stop them from trying to make a bit more money out of it, for they sold the movie to a third party, Lawrence Appelbaum Productions. And in league with the just created Silent Night Releasing Corporation, a cunning plan was hatched.
Producer Lawrence Appelbaum reckoned the movie could escape the controversy around it if it could be released in a slightly different form. And so, he hired editors Lee Harry and Joseph H. Earle to recut the movie. Appelbaum’s big idea was to film a couple of extra scenes of someone in a mental hospital supposedly retelling the story of the film and splice these scenes in.
Lee Harry, who took the lead on this project, was not particularly enamoured with this plan. So he shot a lot more footage, squeezing every dime he could out of the producer, and attempted to make a proper sequel. As it was, there just wasn't enough cash, and Harry still had to use a good deal of the first movie, over half an hour in fact. Also he had to extend the credits sequence to over five minutes in order to get the picture to minimum feature length.
Now all of this is obviously the recipe for a terrible movie. And Silent Night Deadly Part 2 is incredibly bad, and unsurprisingly, did terribly at the box office. Released on the massively unseasonal 10th April 1987, the movie managed to scrape a meagre $154,323, which was something of a disaster as the budget had been $250,000.
Now usually such a flop would then vanish without trace. But in this case, something magical happened - the movie gained a cult following. And why? Well, let's have a plot summary and find out!
It's four years after the events of the first movie, and Billy's little brother Ricky, played by Eric Freeman, is now an adult and incarcerated in a mental asylum. He is being interviewed by psychiatrist Dr Bloom, and he tells the story of how he ended up there. Now this involves going through his troubled family history; and by the magic of flashbacks; we effectively get a rerun of the first movie in a condensed form. No, seriously; we get a forty minute version of the first film with occasional asides and voiceovers from Ricky.
Then we get Ricky's story proper, in which he is adopted, grows up with a nice family. But unfortunately has inherited Billy's insanity and ends up committing a string of murders. At first he is punishing the naughty, but then just anyone he sees. This culminates with him being captured by the cops and hence his current incarceration in the asylum.
But we are not done yet, for Ricky kills Dr Bloom, and escapes. He slays a Salvation Army Santa and steals his costume, and now dressed as Santa, Ricky goes after Mother Superior, now played by Jean Miller, for a final showdown to avenge Billy…
Now all of this is very clearly shot on a shoestring, and the script is functional at best. It was made as a cynical cash-grab and should be one of the worst movies ever made. I mean’ rerunning the first movie in its own sequel does beggar belief. But, despite all the multiple issues this movie has, somehow, this is one of the best sequels ever made. A Christmas miracle? Well, maybe!
Firstly the business of reshowing the first film - in fact, this edited down version is actually an improvement! All the meandering pointless scenes are gone and you're left with all the good bits effectively. Plus shearing the first film of its pretensions to explore the making of a killer and boiling it down to just the tale of a killer Santa removes all the tonal inconsistencies, and trims down some of the more distasteful elements.
Secondly the film manages to up the ante once we get to Ricky's story, becoming even more ridiculous and serving up hilarious kills, such as death by car jumper cables and even death by umbrella. And the final climax of Ricky battling a now wheelchair-bound Mother Superior is comedy gold.
However what makes all of this insanity so entertaining is the incredible performance by Eric Freeman as Ricky. Now some will say he gives one of the worst performances ever captured on film, but I for one would disagree. Rather Freeman goes so far over the top, he reaches escape velocity, and now travelling at the scenery chewing equivalent of warp speed, going where no actor has gone before, ends up with the gravitational mass of a black hole, forcing the entire movie to orbit his performance. And it is both incredible and hilarious to behold.
But credit must also be given to director Lee Harry, who pushed to make this a movie in the first place. And considering the severe limitations he was working with, there are some fantastic sequences. Yes, the interview scenes with Ricky and the shrink looks like they were filmed in a store room, but once we get outside the hospital, there are some wonderfully shot and staged sequences where Harry clearly was having a lot of fun. Highlights to watch out for include young Ricky being menaced by nuns in the street, the picnic scene kill, and best of all Ricky’s suburban shooting spree. Now this is the sequence that gave us the famous “garbage day” meme, but it also includes a genuinely amazing car stunt where a flipping vehicle misses our hero, or rather a stunt man, by literally inches.
And so, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, despite all the odds, becomes not just a good sequel, but a superior film to the original. In fact, thanks to the reused footage, this is a sequel which gives you the luxury of not having to bother to watch the first. The original might be a notorious slasher flick, but the second is the stuff of cinema legend.
It is easily the best movie in the franchise, for yes, there would be further sequels, but that's a story for another day and another door… But if you want to hear more about Silent Night, Deadly Part 2, last Christmas we covered it in Commentary Club 86, where you can hear our live reaction to this incredible festive nonsense!
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