Film / News
Bristol Bad Film Club unveils Christmas outrage
“I would like to hear the filmmakers explain to their children and their grandchildren that it’s only a movie,” spluttered furious veteran film critic Roger Ebert. His even more splenetic reviewing partner Gene Siskel read out on air the names of the production crew, telling them “shame on you” and claiming they were profiting from blood money.
In the US, the PTA tried to have it banned, parents complained about the TV ads and the distributor eventually buckled under the pressure, withdrawing it from cinemas. The UK distributor didn’t even bother submitting it to the censor and the sequel was banned. Finally, 25 years after its brief initial release, the film was passed uncut by the BBFC with an 18 certificate.
The film’s original 1984 poster
The film in question is, of course, notorious 1984 Santa slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night (not to be confused with Silent Night, Bloody Night, which the Everyman cinema is showing on December 7). It’s the tale of poor, traumatised Billy, who witnessed his parents being hacked to death by Santa after his senile grandpa warned him that the jolly disguised fella who breaks into children’s homes on Christmas Eve is primarily concerned with punishing the naughty. Years later, Billy works in a department store where he’s forced by his boss to dress up in a Santa outfit. Naturally, he embarks on a homicidal rampage.
is needed now More than ever
It is, in truth, not a film whose cause you’d want to die on a hill for in the noble battle against censorship. There’s also a thesis to be written about the foaming protesters’ elevation of Santa Claus to the level of a quasi-religious figure whose purity and goodness cannot be mocked. And as Kim Newman noted in his definitive history of horror flicks, Nightmare Movies: “What nobody except the filmmakers seemed interested in saying was that a lot of children found Santa frightening even before the movies depicted him as an axe-wielding psychopath.”
Scream queen Linnea Quigley: so terrified that her clothes fell off
These days, of course, the festive/Santa horror has become something of a Christmas staple, so the heat of the debate has lost much of its fuel – unless woke-era new puritans can find a reason for the film’s cancellation. Meanwhile, it’s been given a brand spanking new 4K makeover, the better to enjoy every heap of giblets and scream queen Linnea Quigley’s gratuitously exposed breasts.
The Aquarius Films reissue poster
Silent Night, Deadly Night is back on screen as Bristol Bad Film Club’s Christmas treat for sickos. It’s showing at Bristol Improv Theatre on Thursday 23 December. Tickets are available here. Grab ’em while you can. This one is certain to sell out very quickly.
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