REVIEW: SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is the Hallmark Movie from Hell
Eight-year-old Billy loves his family and is a nice, normal kid. But then his grandfather dies right in front of him and both his parents are shot by a man dressed like Santa Claus – and Billy rightfully gets a little less nice, a little less normal. When we meet him again as a young adult, he’s now a serial killer, gingerly smearing blood samples into a worn advent calendar, channeling his best Michael C. Hall in the early seasons of Dexter. But this is miles beyond “a little less nice, a little less normal.” What went wrong?
The first secret screening of Fantastic Fest 2025 was revealed as the upcoming Silent Night, Deadly Night, directed by Mike P. Nelson (V/H/S/85, Wrong Turn) and out December 12 from Cineverse. The movie doesn’t release for another three months (and only has a teaser trailer) so, as you can guess, the midnight audience was primed and raring for it. The first SN,DN has become quite a cult favorite for many horror fans – a holiday slasher staple alongside Black Christmas, and with an additional infamous history of being banned by religious organizations. That adds a bit of interesting pressure to this remake – does the idea still work in a modern context? Sort of!
After nonchalantly killing a Christmas tree lot salesman, falling asleep to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), and hopping on a bus to the next town, Billy (played by Rohan Campbell, Halloween Ends) is ready for a new start. All he has to his name is a rucksack of clothes, a devilishly charming smile… and a jolly deep voice in his head that only he is able to hear. (It’s worth noting at this point in the review that this symbiotic relationship is almost exactly like Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock in the Venom series, down to several humorous beats and Campbell’s mannerisms. It’s an interesting addition absent from the original, but sometimes distracts.)
He gets off the bus at the town of Hackett (“I like the sound of that,” his inner voice coos.) There he meets Pam (Ruby Modine, Satanic Panic), a “sugar-coated onion” and self-proclaimed true crime junkie who is only nominally based on a similar character in the original film. If you can’t tell already, this remake is sometimes wildly different than its 1984 counterpart. The religious subtext and subplot have both been stripped out (there is nary a nun to be seen) and the Santa Claus trauma is instead more like a supernatural curse (more akin to Tim Allen killing Santa on his roof, and then going through a body horror transformation to become the new Kris Kringle).
And, for the most part, those changes are welcome. They provide Billy with more motivation than just “the image of Coca Cola Santa Claus triggers me,” and attempt to lend him a more sympathetic angle. As Billy, Campbell has gotten his second chance at slasher immortality, now strapping on the white beard in the role originated by Robert Brian Wilson. Campbell flips pretty well between mopey Christmas store stocker and deranged Santa Claus killer, believably slicing the axe through quite a few Nazis (another welcome departure).
The flick is shot, for good and for bad, like a Hallmark holiday movie between two psychopaths; Pam has something called “Explosive Personality Disorder” and Billy has a closet full of newly-delivered generic Santa Claus costumes. Modine in particular lends an edge to her romantic lead that is not at all present in the original. She gets in fights at hockey rinks, she curses like a sailor, she is quite a match for the brooding killer that has come to her town for the holidays. The plot can get complicated, though, with a new tangent surrounding another local serial killer of sorts. As the movie turns into killer vs. killer, it moves away from the steady rhythm of the slasher tropes, but also loses a bit of momentum moving into the final act.
But when viewing it in that larger lens — a Hallmark movie for horror fans — the magical elements, the copious gore, and the tongue-in-cheek humor actually gel pretty well. Its biggest strength is when it charts its own path, allowing it to be a brand new telling of the Santa sicko. Time will tell if it remains a holiday tradition.
