In November 1984, the original Silent Night, Deadly Night was released to theatres across the US. The film’s key conceit of an axe-wielding maniac dressed as Santa Claus managed to immediately offend the sensibilities of both mainstream critics and those who felt it violated the sanctity of the holiday, resulting in picketing in some locations and the film being pulled from cinemas by the end of its second week. It made money though – doubling its budget during its short release window – and many fans of the slasher genre loved it for all the same reasons the film’s detractors hated it, resulting in a cult fandom with a long tail. Several sequels and a 2012 remake followed. Now in 2025 filmmaker Mike P. Nelson (responsible for the competent-but-boring 2019 remake of Wrong Turn) is the latest to have a squeeze at the franchise orange to see if there’s still some juice there.

Like the original, Silent Night, Deadly Night opens by introducing us to young Billy Chapman (played by Rohan Campbell, best known as the much maligned Corey in the similarly maligned Halloween Ends). While driving home from a traumatic visit to see his grandfather at Christmas, Billy’s parents are brutally murdered at a traffic light by a stranger dressed as Santa. Billy is seemingly spared his parents’ fate, and when we cut to the present day he is something of a drifter – travelling by bus and looking to pick up odd jobs in small towns.

He’s kept company by a gravelly disembodied voice named Charlie, who has strong views about the people Billy comes across and seems concerned to ensure that he remains on the move. Billy however likes the idea of settling down for a while. He takes a job at a local store in the town of Hackett in the lead up to Christmas, where he quickly falls in love with his co-worker Pamela Sims (Ruby Modine, daughter of Matthew) and perhaps starts to dream of a life beyond the wounds of his past.

There’s an exciting weirdness to the film’s first half. The cinematography has a handheld simplicity that stands in refreshing contrast to the mushy flatness of much modern horror. Campbell’s face brings a sort of crumpled, soulful expressiveness which we’re often drawn in to via closeup. His awkward jitteriness and Modine’s warm but staunch self assurance play well against each other. The early hits of violence are gory and not overexplained. It’s a clever setup for the mayhem you know must be round the corner.

How much enjoyment you get from the second half, however, will centre largely on how much you like your horror couched in a heavy moral framework. If you do, the key narrative reveal in the second act may work. For everyone else it sucks all tension from the film.

One of horror’s most effective tools is the knowledge in the audience that in the real world bad things happen to good people. The challenge with vigilante/revenge films is that once you tell the audience the victims deserve it, it takes away all suspense that someone you like or relate to may be next (or that it could be you). It places a huge onus on the entertainment value of the kills and action themselves to justify the film on their own. While there are moments of fun gore here, it’s just not enough to maintain your interest, and Nelson makes some odd choices in the way he doles it out. This is starkest during the well introduced set piece at a theatrically evil Christmas party, which is then thoroughly neutered by the inexplicable decision to pull back from the level of grisliness present at other less consequential moments of the film.

If the 1984 original were released today, it’s likely any controversy would stem more from the film’s depiction of its lead’s comically violent response to trauma than any piety about the holiday itself. You almost certainly couldn’t remake the original plot and get a mainstream cinema release. But what you could safely keep from the original is the sense of unpredictability that has been sadly jettisoned here in favour of ensuring the audience feels morally comfortable with its protagonist. Something you can’t help but feel is more an anxiety on the part of the filmmaker than a genuine precondition for the audience.

 

Silent Night, Deadly Night is currently playing in cinemas.