{"id":13633,"date":"2025-12-16T23:14:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T04:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13633"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:48:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:48:58","slug":"silent-night-deadly-night-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/12\/16\/silent-night-deadly-night-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cineverse\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPA rating (strong graphic violence and gore, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mike P. Nelson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mike P. Nelson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Blitz\/Berlin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Nick Junkersfeld\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 12, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0What 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I haven\u2019t heard so much as a peep from parents about the new remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/strong>. Is it possible today\u2019s parents have thicker skin? HA! If anything, they\u2019re more reactive these days. I think the most likely reason for their silence is that they don\u2019t even know it exists. Released by indie studio Cineverse, it hasn\u2019t been promoted all that aggressively. Not like the original one was back in \u201984. 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).<\/p>\n

\u00a0We all know remakes are generally a no-win situation. Audiences complain they\u2019re 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 <\/strong>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 \u201cnaughty\u201d; however, the victims in this case really are bad people. He\u2019s an instrument of vengeance. He\u2019s kind of like Dexter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Billy 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\u2019s 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 \u201cCharlie\u201d. He\u2019s always on the move, going from town to town, dispatching those deemed naughty.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Billy 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\u2019s daughter Pam (Modine, Happy Death Day 1 & 2), an attractive girl who suffers from EPD (Explosive Personality Disorder). Yes, she\u2019s 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\u2019s a real POS.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Love may be a powerful force, but it\u2019s not quite strong enough to stop Charlie from urging Billy to go out and kill. And does he ever! If there\u2019s one thing this Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/strong> has over the OG, it\u2019s 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<\/strong> 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\u2019s not as OTT gory as you would expect. It doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The performances in Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/strong> are exactly what you\u2019d expect. They\u2019re 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\u2019t love to see an adult beat down a couple of rotten kids? BTW, if the actor playing Charles looks familiar to you, that\u2019s because he is. His name is Mark Acheson and he played \u201cMailroom Guy\u201d in another beloved holiday classic, the Will Ferrell comedy Elf (2003).<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are plenty of references to the original Silent Night, Deadly Night in the new one. You might recognize songs like \u201cChristmas Fever\u201d and \u201cSanta\u2019s Watching\u201d. 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\u2019t say what, but it\u2019s been used in many Christmas memes. Oh, you know the one! Or maybe not. I was the only one in the theater laughing. There\u2019s also a quick throwaway nod to another holiday horror, Black Christmas, either the 1974 OG or the 2006 remake, it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t say this Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/strong> is better than the original. It\u2019s NOT. It is, however, different enough to make it stand out. I won\u2019t go into detail about it, but it\u2019s WAY OUT THERE. It\u2019s freaking crazy, in fact. I love how they work in a subplot about the missing children supposedly taken by local urban legend \u201cThe Snatcher\u201d. I just wish it had gone more OTT with the killings. Nelson doesn\u2019t cut fully loose. It\u2019s okay though. The fact that this Silent Night, Deadly Night<\/strong> doesn\u2019t completely suck is a triumph in and of itself.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cineverse\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 97 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPA rating (strong graphic violence and gore, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Mike P. Nelson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Mike P. Nelson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Blitz\/Berlin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Nick Junkersfeld\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 12, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson, Mark Acheson, Logan Sawyer, Erik Athavale, Rick Skene, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Silent-Night-Deadly-Night-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C775&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13655,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13633\/revisions\/13655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}