Silent Night, Deadly Night (18)
Cast: Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, David Lawrence BrownGenre: Horror
Author(s): Mike P Nelson
Director: Mike P Nelson
Release Date: 12/12/2025
Running Time: 96mins
Country: US
Year: 2025
Young Billy Chapman witnesses nursing home janitor Charlie murders his parents while dressed in a Santa Claus outfit. Charlie's tormented spirit transfers into Billy's body, providing the orphan with a murder-fixated guardian angel. Billy arrives in the sleepy town of Hackett in the midst of a 10-year killing streak. He develops an infatuation with antiques store worker Pamela but her jealous ex, police officer Max, is watching.
LondonNet Film Review
Silent Night, Deadly Night (18) Film Review from LondonNet
In the lyrics to Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, we’re reminded that the man in the red suit knows if we have been bad or good, “so be good for goodness sake!”. Director Mike P Nelson’s remake of the 1984 slasher horror Silent Night, Deadly Night decks the halls with blood and entrails when a serial killer dressed as Santa takes his trusty axe to anyone who strays onto the naughty list…
Young Billy Chapman (Logan Sawyer) visits his ailing grandfather in a nursing home with his parents (Erik Athavale, Cora Matheson) in tow. “Naughty boys get punished. Santa is always watching,” whispers the old man, shortly before he coughs up blood in front of the traumatised urchin. Care home janitor Charlie (Mark Acheson) subsequently murders Billy’s parents while dressed in a Santa Claus outfit and his tormented spirit transfers into Billy’s body, providing the orphan with a murder-fixated inner monologue a la symbiote Venom from the Marvel Comics universe.
Billy tumbles through the care system and Charlie educates him to become a serial killer. When he turns 17, the youngster begins to slay “naughty” people while dressed as Santa in the run up to Christmas, recording daily kills by smearing victims’ blood behind the doors of a homemade advent calendar. Now grown up, Billy (Rohan Campbell) arrives in the sleepy town of Hackett and lands a job working for Mr Tims (David Lawrence Brown) at Ida’s Trinket Tree antiques store. The drifter develops an infatuation with Mr Tims’ daughter Pamela (Ruby Modine), who suffers from violent mood swings which she explains away as Explosive Personality Disorder (EPD). Guided by Charlie, Billy punishes unsavoury residents of Hackett but Pamela’s jealous ex, police officer Max (David Tomlinson), is watching.
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a predictably gory horror from the director responsible for the 2021 reboot of Wrong Turn, which dials up the volume on Canadian trio Blitz/Berlin’s soundtrack to herald each episode of wanton carnage, bookmarked by on-screen chapter headings that explicitly state who Charlie intends to exterminate next.
In the film’s most delirious sequence, Charlie discovers one seemingly harmless resident of Hackett is dreaming of a white supremacist Christmas. He proceeds to hack and slash through a festive get-together of nameless, swastika-saluting locals, occasionally growling the word “naughty!” to underline the ‘moral’ justification for the barbarity.
Campbell milks every droplet of likeability from his unfortunate antihero. Screen chemistry with Modine is lukewarm, but sufficient to provide Charlie with a reason to stay in town as bodies pile up. Make-up, prosthetics and practical effects deliver enough glistening splatter to quench the thirst of hardcore horror fans. Nelson’s slay ride is a brisk 96 minutes but doesn’t require whitened knuckles to hold on tight.
– Kim Hu
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