Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53605 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 173 minutes

From the Back Cover
Community leaders tried to suppress them. The P.T.A. fought to ban them. Now one of the most controversial slasher films of all time--and it's sicko sequel--are back like never before, presented uncut, uncensored, and together for the first time ever.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night" is the heartwarming story of little Billy Chapman who was traumatized by his parents' Christmas Eve rape and murder, then brutalized by sadistic orphanage nuns. But when a grown-up Billy is forced to dress as jolly St. Nick, he goes on a yuletide rampage to 'punish the naughty.' Santa Claus is coming to town...and this time he's got an axe! Robert Brian Wilson and Linnea Quigley star in this jaw-dropping horror hit that a nation of angry mothers cannot stop!

Billy's younger brother Ricky (Eric Freeman) follows in the family tradition of Christmas carnage. Psycho Santa is back...to deck the halls with chunks of bodies! Both these gorehound holiday favorites have been restored from original vault materials, chock full of gratuitous nudity and grisly violence, then stuffed with jolly new extras for the absolute ultimate in Season's Bleedings.

Customer Reviews

GARBAGE DAY!
Ah, SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, that little slasher movie that pissed off a lot of critics and PTA groups in half the nation (it was pulled before it reached the West Coast) since the killer was dressed as Santa. Incidentally, it's easy to see why it was so controviersial, since the story is told from the point-of-view of the killer and it focuses on the factors that cause his murderous rampage. Gee, didn't producer Ira Richard Barmak or TriStar Pictures learn anything from the brouhaha that surrounded MANIAC (an excellent movie)? Didn't they realize that any horror movie where the murderer is the main character and not just a plot device, especially when the movie involves a sacred holiday (it worked for the excellent BLACK CHRISTMAS), will incur the wrath of sensitive moviegoers? (Hello, parents, it WAS rated R anyway; kids wouldn't be able to see it anyway, although those TV spots must have been scary to unwary kids.) I guess they didn't, and God bless 'em for that! Anyway, this is the good stuff here; we get an uncut presentation (with deleted scenes from another source; as with DEEP RED-THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, once you get used to the switches in quality (DEEP RED's restored scenes were in Italian only), it's a great ride), plus a telephone interview with director Charles E. Sellier, Jr., who expresses interesting and thoughtful opinions of the film and the controversy surrounding it.
But I myself prefer the hilarious sequel , which seems to piss off all the horror purists out there, especially fans of the original. Hello! This is SUPPOSED to be a comedy (along the lines of EVIL DEAD 2, which came out in the same year), meaning NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! But anyway, I think that the editing of footage from the original was pretty cool at times, especially when it jumps from old scene to new scene. For example, when we see the scene where Mother Superior is belting Billy, it cuts between that and Ricky (Eric Freeman, who was awesome) recalling it ( She was naughty.); I thought that was too cool. Among other things, the funniest scenes are when Ricky impales a loan shark on an umbrella and opens it, as well as Ricky's shooting spree (hence the title of this article). The commentary by the director/editor/writer, the other writer, and actor James Newman (the psychologist) enhances the humor of the movie; I laughed right along with them and I am glad they feel the same way that I, and a few other viewers, feel.
Anchor Bay did right by the fans of these two movies by putting them on a flipper disc. The supplemental material on both movies as mentioned above alone is worth the retail price! So don't be NAUGHTY!; go out and see these lost gems of the slasher wave, becasuse in the words of the grandfather in the first film, "Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year!"

A perfect "stalking stuffer"
Whoever said horror was supposed to be "controversial" wasn't kidding! Yes, I love the holidays, but "no," I wasn't offended by SNDN. In my opinion, a rarity in the horror genre! "Old school" horror without question! Watching it to "let off (some) steam?" Why not!

HO HO HO and HA HA HA
Ah yes, it's the film that brought the public masses into a furor not seen since The Last Temptation of Christ! It seems that the image of Santa with an axe, lobbing off heads and impaling topless B-movie queens onto antlers doesn't bring out tidings of comfort and joy. But as we all know, 99% of the protesters never saw the movie, so was the hulabaloo worth it?

SNDN starts off with a bang, as a poor little boy has one helluva Xmas eve. After being mentally traumatized by his senile grandfather who informs him that Santa punishes naughty kids, he then sees his father killed and mother raped by a deranged lunatic dressed up as Saint Nick.
Cut to several years later, and our hero is now a mentally unstable teenager, working in a store where he is forced to assume the role of, surprise surprise, Santa Claus. With his fragile sanity on the wain, he breaks down and assumes the role of the evil Santa that massacred his parents, extracting a bloody demise on all the "naughty" people.

It's tasteless, but SNDN is successful on several levels. The film contains a good amount of violence with some original killings (big thumbs up for Linnea Quigley!). Accidental humor also matches the tacky feel of the film (giving a bloody boxcutter to a "good" girl, Grandpa's hilarious speech about Santa). The concept of an evil Santa and/or murder on the Xmas holidays has been done before and done better (check out Black Christmas, THE quintessential holiday horror movie). It's a guilty pleasure movie, certainly not the coming of the anti-Christ that the protestors painted it to be. 4 Stars.

SNDN2- you could use this movie as a coaster for your drink. Mostly made up of flashbacks of the first SNDN, combined with one of the worst acting jobs I've ever seen- Ricky makes Sofia Coppolla look like Meryl Streep. If you must watch part 2, you can spend the time making a game out of how many times it looks like Ricky's eyebrows are going to fly off his face whenever he delivers a line. Naughty boys and girls should be forced to watch SNDN2, but that's just cruel punishment. 0 Stars.

Remember, "You see Santa Claus tonight you better run, boy!"