Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) Cineverse/Horror RT: 97 minutes No MPA rating (strong graphic violence and gore, language) Director: Mike P. Nelson Screenplay: Mike P. Nelson Music: Blitz/Berlin Cinematography: Nick Junkersfeld Release date: December 12, 2025 (US) Cast: Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson, Mark Acheson, Logan Sawyer, Erik Athavale, Rick Skene, James Durham, Sharon Bajer, Tom Young, Krystle Snow.
Rating: ***
What a difference 41 years makes. In 1984, parents were up in arms about the holiday-themed slasher flick Silent Night, Deadly Night. The ads and TV commercials prominently featured an axe-wielding homicidal maniac in a Santa Claus suit. Parents claimed it traumatized their children. They picketed theaters showing the movie prompting TriStar to pull it from most cinemas after two weeks even though it was doing pretty good business at the box office. The studio ultimately disowned it and sold off the rights.
I haven’t heard so much as a peep from parents about the new remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night. Is it possible today’s parents have thicker skin? HA! If anything, they’re more reactive these days. I think the most likely reason for their silence is that they don’t even know it exists. Released by indie studio Cineverse, it hasn’t been promoted all that aggressively. Not like the original one was back in ’84. I saw a trailer for it some weeks back and my local AMC had the poster hanging in their lobby even though it ultimately did NOT play there. I had to go to another theater where it only had two showings, one in the afternoon and the other in the early evening (the one I went to).
We all know remakes are generally a no-win situation. Audiences complain they’re either too similar to or too different from the original. Some of us wonder why they bothered at all. The new Silent Night, Deadly Night falls into the latter category. It retains the same basic premise (a killer Santa), but goes in a completely different direction. This psycho Santa still punishes the “naughty”; however, the victims in this case really are bad people. He’s an instrument of vengeance. He’s kind of like Dexter.
Billy Chapman (Campbell, Halloween Ends) is one screwed-up dude. As a young boy, he looks on in horror as his parents are murdered by a guy dressed as Santa. To nobody’s surprise, he grows up to become a serial killer. Every year around Christmas, he puts on a Santa suit and takes out people recommended to him by the voice in his head, a guy he calls “Charlie”. He’s always on the move, going from town to town, dispatching those deemed naughty.
Billy ends up in a little town called Hackett (get it?) where he gets a job stocking shelves at a Christmas trinket shop. He becomes intrigued by the owner’s daughter Pam (Modine, Happy Death Day 1 & 2), an attractive girl who suffers from EPD (Explosive Personality Disorder). Yes, she’s mentally imbalanced too. What a lovely couple they make. At least Billy is nicer than her ex, an abusive local cop named Max (Tomlinson, Fellow Travelers). He’s a real POS.
Love may be a powerful force, but it’s not quite strong enough to stop Charlie from urging Billy to go out and kill. And does he ever! If there’s one thing this Silent Night, Deadly Night has over the OG, it’s the gore. Writer-director Mike P. Nelson, best known for the 2021 Wrong Turn reboot, ups the ante in that department. He opted to release Silent Night, Deadly Night without an official rating because the MPA surely would have slapped it with the dreaded NC-17. There are some incredibly bloody scenes, yet it’s not as OTT gory as you would expect. It doesn’t quite reach the delirious heights of the Terrifier movies. Still, it has a few cool scenes. Once again, somebody is impaled on a set of reindeer antlers. Unfortunately, the victim isn’t a topless hottie like Linnea Quigley. One guy gets an axe to the skull. Another has his head smashed to a bloody pulp with a hammer. Somebody is decapitated while riding a snowmobile. The centerpiece has to be the White Power Christmas party where Billy makes short work of the Nazi guests decked out in Santa suits. This scene is the closest Nelson comes to making any sort of socially relevant statement.
The performances in Silent Night, Deadly Night are exactly what you’d expect. They’re exactly what the material calls for. Campbell comes off more as socially awkward than dangerous. Modine gives off more of a dangerous vibe as a young woman with a huge violent streak. When her young nephew is bullied by other players at a hockey game, she goes off on the attackers with a hockey stick. Hey, who doesn’t love to see an adult beat down a couple of rotten kids? BTW, if the actor playing Charles looks familiar to you, that’s because he is. His name is Mark Acheson and he played “Mailroom Guy” in another beloved holiday classic, the Will Ferrell comedy Elf (2003).
There are plenty of references to the original Silent Night, Deadly Night in the new one. You might recognize songs like “Christmas Fever” and “Santa’s Watching”. I, however, got the biggest laugh out of the reference to the 1987 DTV sequel. Somebody uses the most famous line from that movie. I won’t say what, but it’s been used in many Christmas memes. Oh, you know the one! Or maybe not. I was the only one in the theater laughing. There’s also a quick throwaway nod to another holiday horror, Black Christmas, either the 1974 OG or the 2006 remake, it doesn’t matter.
I wouldn’t say this Silent Night, Deadly Night is better than the original. It’s NOT. It is, however, different enough to make it stand out. I won’t go into detail about it, but it’s WAY OUT THERE. It’s freaking crazy, in fact. I love how they work in a subplot about the missing children supposedly taken by local urban legend “The Snatcher”. I just wish it had gone more OTT with the killings. Nelson doesn’t cut fully loose. It’s okay though. The fact that this Silent Night, Deadly Night doesn’t completely suck is a triumph in and of itself.
