Silent Night, Bloody Night
The mansion... the madness... the maniac... no escape.
Year of Release: 1972
Also Known As: Deathouse, Night of the Dark Full Moon
Genre: Horror/Mystery
Rated: R
Running Time: 85 minutes (1:25)
Director: Theodore Gershuny
Cast:
James Patterson ... Jeffrey Butler
Mary Woronov ... Diane Adams
John Carradine ... Charlie Towman
Walter Abel ... Mayor Adams
Fran Stevens ... Tess Howard
Walter Klavun ... Sheriff Bill Mason
Patrick O'Neal ... John Carter
Astrid Heeren ... Ingrid
Summary:
A man inherits his family's mansion that has been unoccupied for years and was at one time a mental hospital. Desperate to sell for much-needed cash, he sends his attorney to the mansion to prepare it for sale. Unfortunately at the same time, a deranged killer escapes from a nearby institution and returns to the town and the mansion, both which hold some dark and sinister secrets.
Review:
Silent Night, Bloody Night, remindin' us that it's fun to go home for the holidays until the Ghost of Christmas Past shows up hammered on eggnog.
And on the subject of persistent vegetative food coma, I guess it just wouldn't be Christmas without our annual holiday tragedy, and this one hit particularly hard, striking the very heart of Chickawalka's cultural center, and threatening the social fabric of the entire county.
Most of ya prolly already heard the story when I told it last night at the Grime Time, but Edgar Mastrude was struck down by what the doctors're callin' a 4-Way Whopper Stopper and hadda be airlifted to Boise for quadruple bypass surgery in Archie Winthrop's crop duster. I guess they were gonna give it a go at Chickawalka General, but Mork Woolery was performin' an emergency hysterectomy operation on one of Skunky Hernandez' Jerseys at the time, and so they hadda take their chances with foreign medical professionals.
Scared the ever-lovin' crap outta Bambi and me; one minute the guy's suckin' the filling out of a Bavarian Cream, and the next he's on the floor gaspin' for air. 'Course he was gaspin' for air because he tried swallowin' the entire pastry in one bite when he sensed the end might be near, but fortunately, Bambi was able to expel the blockage after landin' a banzai drop on 'im from atop the Videodome checkout counter.
Edgar never has been what you'd call popular... or cordial... or welcome at Berenstain Beers on ladies night, but I think everyone at least respects what he and his pop've done for the community, and so once word of Edgar's achy breaky heart started gettin' around Skunky Hernandez immediately leapt into action to help out. Didn't get very far on account of his back goin' out when he leapt into action, but unlike Edgar, Skunky's heart's in the right place, so once Juanita'd given 'im a lecture about springin' into things and a syringe fulla horse tranquilizer so he'd quit makin' noises like a chihuahua with its whangdoodle frozen to a light pole, he started machine-gunnin' ideas for things he wanted to do to raise money for Edgar's doctor bills.
I dunno if he'd been visited by three ghosts the night before or whether it was just the painkillers, but he decided he was gonna host a special Christmas Eve double feature and donate the entire gate, concession stand take (less his costs, so I guess we can rule out the three ghosts), and whatever additional cash he could pry outta the patrons to help out. Nobody had the heart to tell 'im that whatever he managed to raise probably wouldn't even cover the cost of one 9XL hospital gown, seein's it woulda crushed him.
I can't take credit for much, 'cause although he had a lot of us elves helpin' out, Skunky's the one that planned everything. And once all the good boys and girls of Chickawalka County were settled in and filled with Christmas beer in preparation for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Skunky handed me the speech he'd prepared and sent me up to the roof of the concession stand to make his pitch.
"I know you're all eager to see Pia Zadora help Santa Claus topple Martian Communism, but Skunky's asked me to say a few words before we get started... and since this's the season of giving, I'ma give alla you a break and spare you from this crapola. Did you really compare Edgar to Jesus?" I squinted, glancing between the prepared remarks and the Hoveround from which Skunky was supervising below.
"Both love prostitutes," Skunky shrugged.
"Look, I know you guys didn't just fall off the timber truck so I'm not gonna bullshit ya - the man's an asshole," I admitted; the lot suddenly quieting and taking a genuine interest.
"But he's *our* asshole - and much as you may wish you didn't when the scent of that outhouse hits ya, under no circumstances do you wanna go through life without an asshole," I rambled, searching for an on-ramp to my point.
"Amen to that," Marla Ostman gagged, her face as green as the Grinch as she peered over her shoulder toward the offending poopery.
"Lemme try this again. In 2025, we celebrated our ninth year at the Grime Time--" I started to say before half the crowd erupted into a chorus of hoots and celebratory armpit flatulence.
"--but as you well know, for 28 long years, we wandered this cultural desert in search of a new sanctuary with just one oasis where we could slake our thirst - The Videodome," I segued, smooth as butter, against a backdrop of agreeable grunts and nods.
"The guy didn't ascend Mount Sinai or anything, but he damn sure brought us manna from Empire, Cannon, and New World Pictures in those darkest of days," I proclaimed.
"Teftify!" Billy Hilliard hollered between bites of his hot dog.
"Edgar coulda sold us out, cashed in his chips and dip, left us to the mercy of Netflix, but he didn't. You know why?" I asked, extending my hand to the crowd.
"Ego?" Carlos Spatz suggested.
"Sloth!" Gretchen Whelchel shouted.
"No marketable job skills?!" Duke Tankersley cackled.
"Well... yeah, that probably accounts for a lot of it, actually. But it's ALSO because he loves movies - just like us. And more than that - he loves the communal experience; be it pickin' out a flick at the Videodome with the regulars, or parkin' your rig right here at the Grime Time. He may be a buttwad, but he's one of us. And he was there for us when we, like Richard Gere, had no place else to go," I declared, discovering the precise number of eyelashes a person can inadvertently pluck with a single wipe of a sleeve against a face covered in frozen tears.
"We don't deserve him," Astrid Skinner wept.
"He's a king among men," Tucker Washburn declared, lowering his head and offering a silent prayer.
"I rented Mannequin II and never returned it!" Maurice Fowler confessed, pleading to the heavens for forgiveness.
"Alright you guys, get it together. If you wanna help Edgar, there's a jar on the counter next to the nacho sauce, just stick--" but they'd all rushed the jar before I could finish.
I understand why Juanita wanted to keep it away from the deep fryer, but she and Skunky spent the better part of the night scrubbin' nacho cheese offa the $6,814.39 that folks were able to pony up for Edgar's medical expenses, and while I've never been so proud of my county, I gotta say - havin' seen the places from which some of that cash was produced, that little incident has put me off nachos for good.
Skunky oversaw his charity event as best he could from his motorized scooter (which ain't easy when you're rollin' around in ten inches of fresh powder), and while the kids enjoyed their snowman sculpting competitions and dog sled runs (Apollo's still a first class musher, but I could tell he was glad to have Dinky, Slinky, Stinky, and Blythe along to help out), the biggest crowd pleaser was Mrs. Sadie's "Hooray for Santy Claus" number with Mrs. Wisniewski's 5th Grade class - their faces smeared with green camo makeup, and little heads adorned with copper flex tube. Sounded like dinner was late at the pound, but that Irma Crankwright's got some set of pipes on 'er.
'Course, as it stands, we don't know when, or even if Edgar will recover. And with Bambi havin' to take care of 'im, I'll be solely responsible for runnin' the Videodome for the foreseeable future. What that means to you is that I dunno how much time I'm gonna have for writin' these reviews anymore, so if the answer turns out to be none, or very little, just know that I appreciate ya stickin' with me all these years, and more importantly, I hope that you've found a few new gems worth addin' to your rotations. Guess we'll just have to see what happens.
Gettin' back on track though, 'soon as the kids'd finished their song and dance number and the first four rows'd suffered permanent hearing loss, Skunky gave the okay to run the second half of our Christmas double feature, Silent Night, Bloody Night - the granddaddy of the Christmas horror flicks.
Admittedly, there ain't a helluva lot to choose from when you're lookin' for holiday horror offerins that've fallen into the public domain, but even at 14 degrees it makes ya feel warm all over presentin' a piece of cinematic history to the youth of America who might otherwise assume that the yuletide terror cycle began with Krampus. Consequently, I trust that any guardian angels keepin' score up there will recognize and properly credit us for TWO charitable acts this holiday season; though I would politely request that any divine recaps which may one day be presented as evidence that we left Chickawalka County better than we found in the event of attempted suicide please exclude the part where Sage Yoder ho-ho-horked his pizza pocket all over Brooke Washburn's kale-colored Crocs. I can sit through Cannibal Ferox no problem, but every man has his limit.
Anyway, just in case the historical significance of this flick is somehow lost on ya, this wise man's come bearing gifts to provide additional illumination, and if you still can't find your holiday spirit, well, give my best to Jacob Marley.
First, avian fertilizer can be an effective side hustle in times of financial hardship. Second, committing your deepest, darkest secrets to print "knowing no one shall ever read them," only works if you've discovered the cure for death. And third, bringing fruitcake to the Christmas party will haunt you for the rest of your days.
The movie begins on Christmas Eve circa 1950, where a man (Wilfred Butler) goes dashing through the snow with his sport coat set ablaze, preferring to meet death on his own terms rather than face the indignity of extinguishing himself via snow angel. Next thing, it's 20 years later, and Butler's estate remains cold, cheerless, and smelling faintly of roasted pork as stipulated in his will, only now his grandson (Jeffrey) wants to sell the place so he can hire a plastic surgeon to make 'im look less like late-stage Klaus Kinski, and so he sends his lawyer (Carter) to negotiate the sale with the pillars of Skunkbung County (Sheriff Mason, Mayor Adams, newspaperman John Carradine, and switchboard operator Tess Howard) who wanna buy the property so there'll be one less place for the local teenagers to die of acute alcohol poisoning. Carter gives 'em one day to come up with the scratch and takes his side piece out to the estate where they start makin' the sign of the frostbitten Grinch rictus until some giallo-gloved log splitter busts in and axes poetic till there's nothin' left but one big mutilated heap of aardvarkus carcass. Then Hackie Gleason calls Mason and Tess and invites 'em out to the mansion to see how the other half dies, and while that's goin' on, Jeffrey shows up at Mary Woronov's house while she's tryna wrap a canary and she hasta hold 'im at gunpoint until he produces enough ID to get across the Canadian border.
Jeffrey hasn't heard from his lawyer and he's afraid the guy mighta absconded and sunk all his money into a chain of Nova Scotian condominiums or somethin', and since its a small town where it can be tough to meet a fling that won't result in web-toed offspring nine months down the road, Mary decides to tag along with Jeff while the Lord of Stately Pain Manor hums a few bars of I Chopped the Sheriff out at the family cemetery. 'Course they don't make it to the house 'cause they end up findin' the Sheriff's car, and once they discover the thin blue line's been turned into a thick red one they truck on over to John Carradine's printing press to see what he knows, 'cept John hasn't been able to speak since he saw the final cut of Horror of the Blood Monsters, and so he drives Jeff over to Tess's place where the only creatures stirring are the 200 birds she's got caged up in preparation for the day she gets pushed too far and unleashes 'er inner Hitchcock. John's positively appalled at the disrespect bein' shown to his copy and ditches Jeff to go find Tess, but meantime, the Hoarse Whisperer calls the newspaper office and tells Mary to send 'er pop (Mayor Adams) out to the Butler case or else he'll pay her a visit and submit a formal yellow request in the snow. A few minutes later, Tess arrives at the den of inequity where the maniac declares slaughters rights and buries the hatchet, all the while Mary's porin' through back issues of Podunk Post where she learns that ole Wilfred had his daughter committed after givin' birth to what the Evangelicals would call an "unplanned miracle" who would later go by the name Jeff.
Things're gettin' a bit heavy for a first date, so Mary and Jeff decide to table his origin story and head for Chateau Escrow where they run into John and decide to pick 'im up on the way back since it's about 15 degrees outside and the snow oughta be cold enough to keep the meat from spoilin'. As you can imagine, by the time they make it to the house and Jeff leaves Mary in the car with the heater off she begins havin' doubts about their future, and to further complicate matters, once Jeff goes inside he finds his granddad's diary and finds out that the old man had the place converted into a sanitarium and brought in a buncha second-string shrinks to try rewirin' the brains of his daughter and various other raving derelicts. After a while he ended up losin' control of the livin' arrangements and the place became overrun with deadbeat, psychiatrist's couchsurfin' quacks whose therapy sessions yielded nothing but outrageous wine and cheese expenses until Wilfred finally got P.O.'d and decided to release the crackheads, who took up farm implements against the synaptic nerds and massacred them as they lay helpless beneath the weight of their turkey comas. Probably sounds like I've already spoiled the ending, but there's still more bullstuff yet to be spread across this field, and this's where I'm plowin' the line in the snow. However, this one fell into the public domain years back, so you can check it out at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4LUDCdErUc
Alrighty, well, this is one of the rare flicks where there's a strong incentive to violate my usual policy and reveal the ending because when you get right down to it what we're really dealing with here is a murder mystery, and these kinda flicks always live or die based upon the reveal and whether or not it shocks or at least holds water. 'Course, if it did, there'd be no compulsion to dissect it, so you can probably see which way this one leans, but I've decided to risk my integrity as an amateur professional film critic and abstain from spoiling the ending because it's more important to protect the sanctity of the conclusion than to prove my objection is logically sound. That said, my ordinarily elastic suspension of disbelief snapped like Randy Savage in a Slim Jim factory during the final ten minutes, and this is due not just to its absurdity, but also the seriousness with which the movie carries itself up to that point. Had it been even moderately tongue-in-cheek in the early going, a little slack would probably be in order, but as it stands, I can't accept the choice of ribbon selected to tie this gift together.
That said, Silent Night, Bloody Night bears the distinction of being the first Christmas horror flick ever produced (you can stow that Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? nonsense - that flick was rated PG-13 for cripes sake), and has been rumored to have influenced Bob Clark's holiday opus, Black Christmas, released two years later. The two do share some similarities, including the killer taunting his would-be victims via phone, an escaped mental patient, and, of course, the holiday, though Clark's movie leans more into the horror genre and is considered by some to be the first slasher film. I'm not gonna open up that can of worms again because that argument largely boils down to what a person believes the definitive slasher *should* be based upon their own parameters; some folks say it's Black Christmas, others say Torso, Peeping Tom, even Psycho, and if you're gonna go back that far I'd posit that maybe Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast is the first slasher, but I'm a firm believer that it was Halloween, and will accept no substitutions.
Regardless, Silent Night, Bloody Night is the granddaddy (if far from the best) of the Christmas horror flicks, and has experienced a resurgence in popularity after having fallen into the public domain and general obscurity for over a decade before returning to the public eye via Elvira's Movie Macabre, and one can safely assume that its cult status will continue to grow as it is discovered by new audiences due to its public domain status. Maybe that's a good thing, because ever since the God-botherers finally accepted that they couldn't stop the movies from being produced, Christmas horror flicks have kinda lost their sheen, and it's reassuring to know that there're still a few lesser-known options available for those willing to seek them out.
But I regress, so let's get down to the nitty and see if this thing's got anything more than seasonal significance to keep it relevant in this, the winter of our cinematic discontent.
The plot, as mentioned, tries to get a little too clever for its own good at the revelation stage and pretty well belly flops off the high dive. I'm not gonna go into the specifics because I'd rather not spoil the ending, but there's a glaring logistical issue that cannot be overlooked, and while the who and the why are explained to my satisfaction, the how (that is, how the crucial characters came to be in the situations and stations we find them in in the present time) would be preposterous even if an effort had been made to demonstrate how it happened. And it is this single issue that tanks the movie, because any flick that presents itself as a mystery first and foremost must offer a reasonable (and, ideally, surprising) conclusion for its payoff, and when it fails in this respect, no amount of spectacular effects or riveting acting can salvage it. This does not, in itself, render the movie unwatchable or preclude the possibility of deriving enjoyment based upon its entertainment value, but from a technical standpoint, it completely shoots itself in the dick at the last possible moment.
The acting is decent where it concerns the leads, with Mary Woronov projecting her unique brand of vicarious discomfort upon the audience, while James Patterson radiates his own semi-sinister atmosphere that effectively paints him as a bona fide suspect rather than an obvious red herring. These two give fine performances, and thankfully, it is with them that we spend the bulk of the film after a successful opening misdirection in which the reliable character actor, John Carter, and his mistress are wiped out. Carter also does a nice job as the doomed lawyer sent to close the sale of the house on Patterson's behalf, but the thing I find truly baffling is the decision to cast John Carradine (who, no doubt, will have commanded a higher salary than everyone else in the cast regardless of their importance) in a non-speaking role. Carradine's fine in the part, but so too would have been a community theater actor who would have worked for whatever was left on the craft service table at the end of the day. The only questionable performances come from Ingrid Heeren as Carter's mistress (she's a little green and unsure of herself), and Walter Klavun as the sheriff, who is genuinely awkward and, wisely, killed off first. It should also be noted that the bulk of the asylum inmates from the flashback sequence were members of Andy Warhol's Factory scene (as was Woronov), and that there was probably no finer pool of actors anywhere else on the eastern seaboard from which to cast lunatics.
Here's who matters and why (less Mary Woronov and John Carradine, 'cause you oughta know them by now): Patrick O'Neal (The Stepford Wives, The Stuff, Chamber of Horrors 1966, The Mad Magician), Walter Klavun (The Boston Strangler, Fright 1956), Philip Bruns (Return of the Living Dead Part II, Digital Man, Love Bites, Dead Men Don't Die), Michael Pendry (God Told Me To), Alex Stevens (Scanners, God Told Me To), Lisa Blake Richards (Return 1985, House of Dark Shadows), Kristen Steen (Bloodrage 1980), Jack Smith (Shadows in the City).
And the social climbers: Patrick O'Neal (George Bassinger in The Way We Were), James Patterson (Mr. Purdy in In the Heat of the Night), Walter Abel (Danny Reed in Holiday Inn, George Trellis in Mr. Skeffington), Philip Bruns (Officer Meyers in The Out of Towners, Ace in The Stunt Man, Frank Szabo in Flashdance, George Shumway on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman), Alex Stevens (The Baker on Sesame Street).
The special effects are, as a consequence of the choice to emphasize the mystery of the house and its history rather than the horror imposed by its occupants, minimal. We've got the opening firesuit stunt with the man who'd rather be burned to a cinder than accept help from the recent snowfall (nicely done, if bizarre), a severed hand (acceptable for the length of time it spends on screen), and an exceptional blood formula for a film from an era that too often utilized unconvincing bright, thick concoctions. Most of the murders aren't shown, and it's both disappointing and surprising given the way the flick comes outta the chute ax hacking, in what was a pretty gooey sequence by the standards of 1972. They kinda sucker ya in with that opening volley of violence, and next thing ya know it turns into a movie chronicling the mysteries of the house and the backstories of its former occupants, but because of the path the producers decided to take, and the year in which it was released, the volume of blood is reasonable, if underwhelming.
The shooting locations are decent, but fail to live up to their potential due to poor cinematography that frequently wobbles and often shoots too tightly in this historic, grandiose estate that should be playing as significant a role visually as it does narratively. The bulk of the interiors were filmed inside the James W. Beekman House in Long Island (declared a historic landmark a year later in 1973), and it kinda makes ya sick to look around the place and realize what a raw deal it gets when viewing the finished product. There's no reason to speak ill of the dead and so I won't name either man, but when you understand that this was only the third film (and the first non TV film) for the cinematographer and just the second for the director, it's easy to see how things went sideways on this front, but that's little consolation for the viewer watching this fantastic location go to waste.
Beyond the mansion, we've got Mary Woronov's house (warmly decorated for Christmas with the kind of charming, imperfect tree you never see anymore), the nondescript meeting room in the alleged City Hall (that is more akin to a storage room than one intended for conference), and the comically tiny police station, which, to be fair, comes complete with pleasant, holiday decor. The exteriors of the mansion don't really convey the sense of isolation one hopes for, though the forested, snowy surroundings and bitter cold pick up some of the slack and help set the stage for a Christmas flick that is such incidentally, and not as a significant plot point. The snow levels are a bit inconsistent between locations, but the winter vibe is still strong, and the flick absolutely passes muster for anyone selecting seasonal fare.
The soundtrack provides an excellent boost to the flick's overall atmosphere and lays down a haunting rendition of Franz Gruber's "Silent Night" during the opening credits that sets the tone going forward. This is, admittedly, the highlight of the score, but Gershon Kingsley's collection of chilling string compositions with accompanying xylophone and piano create an aura of tension and mystery that keeps the audience on edge and demonstrates a bit more individuality than many soundtracks of the era, while achieving symbiosis with the frightful weather outside. One could argue that including additional Christmas standards might have helped build a more lasting legacy by strengthening the flick's ties to the holiday, but at the same time, the decision to keep the setting incidental kinda makes it stand out among its holiday brethren that all tend to lean into Christmas as a gimmick. Regardless, a solid contribution to the movie's atmosphere.
Overall, the decision to structure the film as a Mystery hurts its entertainment value a bit, and certain nonsensical details essential to its resolution pretty well drive the final nail into the coffin where it concerns its chances at a passing score. Still, there is a disgraceful dearth of films with the guts to give Mary Woronov the starring roles she deserves, and furthermore, anyone who considers themselves a student of the holiday horror subgenre must acquaint themselves with this effort due to its status as the progenitor of the Christmas horror cycle. Mandatory viewing for its historical significance, though a single watch may prove sufficient for gore hounds and admirers of competent screenwriting.
Rating: 52%