Welcome to The Twelve Ways of Christmas, where we unpack weird and overlooked holiday films. And let’s face it, the blog roll could use the attention. With little rhyme or reason, check in from now until The Day That Must Not Be Named for a new entry.
The original slasher film, Bob Clark’s Black Christmas exists solely to provoke, smashing together Christmas spirit with a sorority killer for pure shock value. Apart from its schizoid multi-voiced murderer, Black Christmas doesn’t offer a lot in the way of holiday-themed resonance, and it wouldn’t be until 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night that we’d get any such offering.
On the night of Christmas Eve, young Billy watches as his parents are brutally murdered by a desperate robber dressed as Santa Claus. A nightmarish realization of the urban legend his deranged grandfather gave him hours earlier at the Salt Lake Mental Institution, the cold-blooded slaughter of Billy’s parents sends him on a traumatic downward spiral toward insanity, and years of abuse at the hands (and belt) of the orphanage’s Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin) do nothing but confirm Billy’s suspicions of Santa’s retribution against the “naughty” ones.
Years later, a now fully grown Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) takes a job working as a stock boy in Mr. Sims’ toy store, where the Christmas season induces all sorts of sinful stimuli. Stockroom make out sessions, kicking back the liquor and nasty curse words soon unravel Billy’s repressed childhood memories, and when Mr. Sims asks Billy to fill in for an injured Santa Claus for hire, the red suit and white beard trigger bloody out-of-body fun for the whole family!
From the moment the orphanage drops 18 year-old Billy into the real world, he’s a ticking time bomb, and when he snaps, he strangles asshole co-workers and impales coeds. Mid-way through Silent Night, Deadly Night, Billy’s Santa-clad rampage makes two victims out of bullies who steal sleds from the neighborhood boys. If only in the most fucked up way possible, the image of a decapitated corpse sledding down a moonlit hill feels like retribution for bullied kids everywhere and to a certain extent, Billy, who undoubtedly was bullied as the orphanage’s outcast and sole mullet-haver.
Where Silent Night, Deadly Night‘s writer Michael Hickey and director Charles E. Sellier, Jr. really get their rocks off though is in the snowball effect of Billy’s murders. Not only dressed in full Santa regalia but answering to Kris Kringle, Billy’s rampage throughout town is both an extended re-enactment of his parents’ deaths and a release of his childhood trauma. It’s also worth noting his killing spree is preceded by a “Skinemax-y” dream sequence in which his cozying up with a naked co-worker gets interrupted by stab wounds courtesy of Saint Nick himself. When Billy awakens in a sweaty stupor, the shakes and whippings from Morther Superior flood back. It all comes full circle when Billy’s Santa killer returns to the orphanage to deliver judgment to those same sisters, as an entranced audience of young orphans sits frozen with a mixture of horror and wonderment: horror at an axe-wielding Santa Claus and awe that their belief in a Santa Claus has been validated, albeit in a fucked up way. Unsurprisingly, Silent Night, Deadly Night drew outrage from community leaders and critics alike, but Santa can be a scary thing for those of a certain age and temperament and Billy’s rampage is bound to create some new killers in the process. Just look at how many sequels followed.
Way #1: Batman Returns
Way #2: Black Nativity
Way #3: The Gingerdead Man
Way #4: The Ice Harvest
Way #5: Christmas in July
Way #6: Fred Claus
Way #7: Mon oncle Antoine
Way #8: Christmas in Connecticut
Way #9: Reindeer Games