Silent Night, Deadly Night [2025]

Have you been NAUGHTY?  If so, watch out: Billy Chapman might come after you! If you’ve been a good little horror fan instead, unwrap Michael P. Nelson’s nasty little gift of Silent Night, Deadly Night, riffing off of the notorious 1984 film of the same name.

Nelson, who brought the 2021 Wrong Turn remake (I’ve not seen but have heard amazing things about; doubly excited to check out based on how well this worked) and two awesome segments in V/H/S85 two years later, continues to grow as a new voice in the genre, reinventing the expectations to deliver the horror goods. Nelson’s script uses Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s original, which had four sequels and one previous remake, to head into new directions in exciting new ways, bringing less of a remake but more of a new thing wearing the dirty, bloody Santa suit, not unlike how Stephen C. Miller’s 2012 version went in different directions, but still felt in (Christmas) Spirit of the 1984 film.  It’s a hilarious, dark, and delightfully messed-up new Christmas slasher, led by wonderfully odd performances by Rohan Campbell and Ruby Modine.

But it’s a wonderfully odd movie in all ways. Nelson is not content with just merely regifting the original to a new audience 41 years later.  Instead, he reworks the story to shift the focus, needs, and processes, while keeping the boiled-down logline of “a guy in a Santa outfit screams NAUGHTY and shoves an axe into people’s heads.” In doing so, he introduces a supernatural element (different from the type in the later films of the original series) and a far more sympathetic Billy. And, yes, plenty of yuletine bloodshed.

Picking up from the 1984 take, after a shocking encounter with his near catatonic grandfather, 8-year-old Billy watches a man in a Santa Claus outfit kill his parents on Christmas Eve. It changes his life, ultimately leading to Santa murders. But different reasons than before. Sorry, no Ricky this time and no evil nuns. Meeting Billy in the now, he’s a transient, stopping in small towns briefly to dispatch those deemed naughty. But he has a feeling about this town: he wants to stay. and meets Pam, who runs an antique store with her dad. Pam also seems to have a strange difference in her soul, prone to fits of anger, and the two odd folks hit it off in their out-of-sync-with-everyone-else-ness. Maybe Billy can find peace.

Oh, remember, this is a slasher. So Billy has been drawn to kill by a strange voice, “Charlie.” Charlie (voiced with a gravelly graveness by Elf mail room clerk Mark Acheson; he gives a great vocal performance, reminding me of Michael Ironside) claims the people he’s chosen are up to no good, and only Billy can take them down. Charlie knows more than Billy should know, and it’s an interesting dynamic. Thus, Billy heads off to the slaughter, wearing the Santa suit to kill the naughty (often with the beard down, matching Robert Brian Wilson’s look in the original; side by side, they look uncannily similar), one a day (or more, quite the body count), leading through the Advent season. The hows and whys of that aspect of the movie as it plays is wonderfully handled, but I won’t spill the stockingful of secrets.

Maybe some of these folks are really NAUGHTY and need to be PUNISHed. Well, for sure we know, straight up, a good chunk are in a highlighted Quonset hut set slaughter sequence. What a joyous murder scene, one that gets he film set for where it needs to go, and one that got the most laughs and cheers out of my audience.

Lots of laughs and cheers across the whole. Silent Night Deadly Night is a darkly comic movie, leaning into the concept with a knowing humor. Nelson’s film is very funny. With camera glances by Campbell, the expected references to the other films, perfectly placed title cards (there is one that isn’t present that would have landed the joke best), and just gleefully gory sequences, both sides of the screen are keenly aware of the fun to be had in a seventh film in this sequence. For as much as the actual story works, sans some awkward steps, the blood flows well with all sorts of stabings, axings, massive head trauma, and others. It’ll appease the base.

Rohan Campbell is great as Billy. I’m a defender of Halloween Ends (he also appeared in this year’s The Monkey), and after his turn as Corey Cunningham in that Christine remake (think about it, it is), he gets to head another franchise. He makes Billy a sympathetic, strange kid. He’s oddly endearing despite the awkwardness and every outward sign saying “this guy might stab you.” It’s a delicate balance, worked well with very compelling Campbell and the script. He has great chemistry with Ruby Modine, best known to genre fans as the roommate in Happy Death Day and its sequel (her horror connections continue as the daughter of Stranger Things’ Matthew Modine). Modine is utterly engaging, and something about her just sparks, shining like an angel at the top (or anywhere really) of the tree. I love how Nelson’s writing avoids the stereotype of this sort of character, giving her her own darkness that plays well against Billy. Additional high props to David Lawrence Brown, gaining good-hearted laughs as her dad. The trio has an easy, off-kilter chemistry.

But it’s a film of odd choices, and I give Nelson all the credit for trying something different, committing to it, and mostly landing. There is a sort of awkwardness in getting all of the toys under the tree to start the main crux of the plot. I highly appreciate the concurrent plot of missing kids; it makes the film bigger and a different focus, but parts of that, especially where it heads, are a bit of a tonal whiplash between the gleeful gore otherwise driving the film.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is not a film that will please everyone. Some may be turned off by the concept, others by altering the formula.  But let’s be honest, if you’re willing to watch it, this is what you want. It certainly pleased me. Michael P. Nelson (not to be confused with the best TV show of all time’s Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000) updates the notorious, nasty Silent Night, Deadly Night in delightfully deviant ways, with plenty of holiday horror but with a pair of great performances and a welcome twist of story.

Unwrap Silent Night, Deadly Night… or be NAUGHTY.