Why So Blu?

Silent Night, Deadly Night (40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition) (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)

The 80’s were an influential time for horror films, especially the slasher subgenre.  Between 1978’s Halloween through to the 90’s there was an unending slew of films showing doomed teenagers losing their lives over the course of a creepy night.  Few were original, but some were truly unique.  Does unique mean good you ask? Not typically, but that doesn’t mean those unique slashers don’t have a place in horror fans’ hearts. Silent Night, Deadly Night is a very unique slasher itself.  Debuting 40 years ago, the film was once the stuff of controversy based on the marketing of the film.  Read on about the film, it’s legacy and this new Collector’s Edition from Shout Studios/Scream Factory!

Film:

40 years ago, community leaders tried to stop its release. The P.T.A. fought to ban it. But no one can keep an axe-wielding Santa from coming to town. Silent Night, Deadly Night is the heartwarming holiday story of little Billy Chapman, who was traumatized by his parents’ Christmas Eve murder, then brutalized by sadistic orphanage nuns. But when grown-up Billy dons a Santa suit and goes on a yuletide rampage to “punish the naughty,” no one can stop him … not even your angry city council!

Little Billy’s life takes a terrifying turn at a young age.  We meet him as he’s driving with his parents to visit his grandfather.  No one mentions that Grandpa is living in a mental institution.  He’s supposed to be catatonic, but once Billy’s parents leave the room, Grandpa grabs Billy and begins to tell him about what Santa does to naughty children.  This terrifies Billy and as they drive home from the nut house, Billy’s family is attacked by a sadistic murderous Santa.  His parents are killed, his mother assaulted, and his brother left to scream in the car as Billy hides.

When we meet Billy again, time has passed and he lives with his brother Ricky in an orphanage in Utah. There, the Mother Superior is a verbally and physically abusive penguin that has an especially controlling hold on Billy. She beats him with a belt and ties him to his bunk bed.  She forces Billy to sit with Santa, knowing what’s happened to him.  It’s all strange torture for poor Billy.

Fast forward 10 more years to 1984, and Billy is a shy 18 year old.  He just wants to be good and do the right thing. Another nun, the nice one, manages to get Billy a job at Ira’s Toys, where he enjoys his job, being helpful and productive. When the holidays come around, Santa comes out and the image alone brings Billy into a tailspin of a mental breakdown.  Soon, the store manager asks Billy to be the substitute store Santa for the kids visiting.  He puts the suit on and begrudgingly sees children.  He threatens them quietly while their parents smile and say “he’s so good with them!”

At a Christmas Eve party, still dressed up as Santa, Billy snaps when the coworker he has a crush on is attacked. He kills the stock boy who’s trying to rape her, but the girl does not appreciate the help, which makes Billy then kill her.  This begins a rampage that goes all through the Holy Night.

There is nothing to be spoiled from reading about Silent Night, Deadly Night. It’s a slasher film with a thin plot line and some poor acting choices from some of the cast.  The thing is, that 40 years from its initial release, this film has a lovely camp value to it. You know the main objective of the film is something to make the teenagers watching the film squirm.  I have no doubt that in 1984 the film did just that.

Watching Silent Night, Deadly Night for the first time for this review, the film is a fun, sometimes funny entry into the slasher genre.  My fresh eyes loved the setup of the film best.  We don’t always get a backstory leading up to the killings.  We know and understand just why Billy snaps on the fateful Christmas eve in the film.  He is treated terribly by his grandfather and tortured by Mother Superior at the orphanage.  His ideas of good and naughty are a bit skewed, but you can’t really blame him for wanting to kill people when he’s been destined for something horrible his whole life. The film does not play for sympathy, so don’t expect to feel for Billy that way, but still, the idea of a backstory at that time was new and exciting.

The lead in the film is Robert Brian Wilson, who in the role plays both the innocent and the cursed sides of Billy well.  Lilyan Chauvin as Mother Superior is menacing in her choices to be a sadist that’s also so calm and hiding behind religion to do wrong to children.  Scream queen Linnea Quigley is on deck for a scene as one of Billy’s victims as well.

In prepping for this review, I went to the archives (YouTube) to watch and listen to more on the Silent Night, Deadly Night’s controversies.  I watched an infamous clip from Siskel & Ebert where the pair rip into the film’s distributor (at the time Tri-Star Pictures) as well as many of the producers and writers of the film by name, saying “shame on you” and saying their earnings from the film are “blood money.”  There were protests, there was outrage, and this scared Tri-Star so much they yanked the film from release.  By the time the film was ushered out of theaters, the film had made its budget and advertising back, so it wasn’t much of a loss.

Since the release of the film, there have been 4 sequels as well as board games, novels, comic books and soundtracks released, among many other tie-ins.  I didn’t realize the film had that large of a fanbase, but here I am reviewing the second edition of the film on Blu-ray, this time in 4K. Imagine that — a film that was so out of this world controversial in 1984, tame by 2024’s standards, getting some love from us collectors.  It seems like all is right in the film fan’s world to me!

Read Brandon Peters’ 2017 Blu-ray Review of  Silent Night, Deadly Night HERE

Video:

Encoding: HEVC / H.265

Resolution: 4K (2160p)

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Layers: BD-66

HDR: Dolby Vision

Clarity/Detail: Filmed on a budget of about $750,000, Silent Night, Deadly Night was not the film made to impress on 4K UHD Blu-ray.  On the contrary, the film has some striking moments to behold within.  The overall look of the film is that of a low-budget slasher.  Fake wood paneling, drab décor and a lot of scenes in a toy store stock room are the makeup of the visuals, but in the higher resolution, these elements look nice and filmic.

Depth: 80’s softness remains during the film, but the new uptick in detail makes wide shots open more, and the haze of previous transfers is not in existence here.

Black Levels: Blacks don’t give way to crush and even in the darkest scenes detail is visible.

Color Reproduction: The red suit, along with some other bright whites, blood splatters and colorful wardrobe show up to show off the accurate color grading on the new 4K scan.

Flesh Tones: Flesh tones are natural with no problematic coloring to anyone on screen.

Noise/Artifacts: Clean save for the film grain, which is there but not distracting.

Audio:

Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD MA Mono (2.0)

Subtitles:  English SDH

Dynamics: As far as Mono tracks go, Silent Night, Deadly Night could be better.  The music score and dialogue can sometimes sound muffled, with some distortion when things get shrieky. This can be blamed on the limited budget and what appears to be a lossless rendering of an un-remastered audio track.  This isn’t bad by any means but a once over could’ve been done to clean the sound up a bit for this new release.

Height: N/A

Low-Frequency Extension: N/A

Surround Sound Presentation: N/A

Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is mostly fully intelligible, but as I previously mentioned, some of that dialogue can be muffled or distorted depending on the volume of the voices speaking on screen.

Extras:

As they often do with their releases, Shout Studios/Scream Factory has appointed many bonus features from their 2017 release of Silent Night, Deadly Night, but also a big helping of new material, as well as bonuses from previous DVD releases of the film.  What’s here is marvelous for film history nerds like myself and fans of the film who haven’t gotten a newer edition of the film on disc will be thrilled.  The three-disc set comes in a standard size black 4K case with a matching slipcover to go with it!

Bonus Features for UHD/Blu-ray

DISC ONE (4K UHD – THEATRICAL VERSION):

NEW Audio Commentary With Author Amanda Reyes And The Hysteria Continues Podcast

DISC TWO (BLU-RAY – THEATRICAL VERSION):

NEW Audio Commentary With Author Amanda Reyes And The Hysteria Continues Podcast

NEW “The Night He Came Home… For Christmas: Creating Silent Night, Deadly Night” – An Interview With Producer Scott Schneid

NEW “In Search of Charles Sellier Jr: Remembering the Director” – An Interview With Editor Michael Spence

NEW “Naughty or Nice: 40 Years Of Silent Night, Deadly Night” – An Interview The Producers Scott Schneid And Dennis Whitehead About The Longevity Of The Film

DISC THREE (BLU-RAY – UNRATED VERSION)

NEW 4K Transfer From The Original Camera Negative With Standard Definition Inserts

Audio Commentary With Actor Robert Brian Wilson And Co-Executive Producer Scott J. Schneid

Audio Commentary With Writer Michael Hickey, Composer Perry Boykin, Producer Scott J. Schneid, and Unit Director Michael Spence

“Slay Bells Ring: The Story Of Silent Night, Deadly Night” – Featuring Interviews With Writer Michael Hickey, Co-Executive Producers Scott J. Schneid And Dennis Whitehead, Editor/Second Unit Director Michael Spence, Composer Perry Botkin, And Actor Robert Brian Wilson

“Oh Deer!” – An Interview With Actor Linnea Quigley

Christmas In July – Silent Night, Deadly Night Locations – Then And Now

Audio Interview With Director Charles E. Sellier, Jr. From Deadpit Radio (Extended Version)

“Santa’s Stocking Of Outrage”

Poster And Still Gallery

R-Rated Theatrical Trailer & Japanese VHS Trailer

TV Spots

Radio Spot

Summary:

I’m not exactly sure if Silent Night, Deadly Night will be added to my yearly holiday movie viewing, but it’s a fun, campy, violent artifact of 1984. The low-budget style doesn’t lend itself lovingly to the 4K format, and at the same time, this is the best it’s ever looked and a great way for a newbie like me to watch the film for the first time.  I had fun taking in the holiday carnage with poor Billy… If only Mother Superior hadn’t been such a twisted scumbag… he could’ve been good after all! This is a great release for horror buffs and 4K collectors alike! Happy holidays, and Don’t Be Naughty!!

Order your copy of Silent Night, Deadly Night HERE