"Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2"

"Garbage Day!!!!"

Sometimes I can't help myself:  there are some movies so hideously bad that I can't simply help myself but to rent them and make fun of them until my eyes pop out of my head.  The best of these are horror films.  Why?  Because horror films require good acting (despite evidence to the contrary...you listening, Mr. Craven?) to make the horror of the procedings real.  If you can't believe the perky actoress in the form-fitting sweater is scared out of her head about having a sharp three-inch piece of metal shoved into her soft mushy organs and bleeding to death, then the intensity of this scene turns from outright horror/disgust to a surreal sort of comedy.

Hence, we reach today's experiment.  Something so hideously AWFUL that to watch it is to go between these two extremes.  And don't worry about the "Part 2" at the end of the title.  It won't apply, and you'll see why.

The movie begins with a psychologist interviewing an insane man in what appears to be high school classroom in the summer, supposedly a mental hospital.  The man, Billy, tells out he came to this place and how he's the real Dr. B. Starr.....no, wait, that's Asylum.  No, Billy will tell us about his bigger (now deceased) brother Tommy.  You see, a long time ago, Tommy and Billy had parents and they went to see their crazy grandfather in a lunatic asylum on Christmas Eve.

Wow, nothing like seeing the crazies on the holidays, eh?

Anyway, the grandfather tells Tommy that Santa is evil and will get him.  How Billy knows this is beyond the audience....you see, this 'flashback' (which lasts one half the entire running time) is a condensed version of the original Silent Night, Deadly Night, which involves Tommy growing up parentless in a orphanage by an insane Mother Superior and suffering with his fear of Jolly St. Nick who kills both his parents.  Of course, Tommy is only four when he sees this, and Billy is a newborn.  How does he remember this?  No matter.  Anyway, Tommy sees his parents brutally murdered/raped by a Claus-clad murderer and suffers at the hands of a cruel Mother Superior who treats Tommy's fear by forcing him to enjoy Christmas.  Intentionally Funny Scene:  Tommy lays Santa out at the tender age of 12.

Still, how does Billy remember this?  Also, at the linking scenes of older Billy and his psychologist, try to figure out who is operating Billy's eyebrows.  As a friend pointed out to me, he looks like a freaking muppet.  Emoting doesn't not equal funky facial movements.

Anyway, in one of the smarter moves, Mother Superior gets an adult Billy a job as Santa Claus at a toy store at Christmas.   This lasts for about three minutes before the carnage proper begins:  at the Christmas Eve party after the store closes, Billy witnesses a couple making out unsuccessfully and flashes back to his mother getting raped.  So,  he kills the guy.  Then in a complete change of character, he kills the girl too.  Why?  Oh, come on...do you think that logic was a leading factor in the creation of this screenplay????  At all???

Wait, was the younger brother called Billy or Tommy?  Honestly, I can't remember.  Look at those names:  Billy and Tommy.   Whatever happened to giving people real names in movies?  Oh, forget it, I can't even remember anymore.....

The older brother goes on a rampage which includes:
 

1. Legendary Scream Queen/Nudity Linnea Quigley in a brief sequence in which she opens the door topless and is impaled on a hanging deer head (complete with antlers) and her boyfriend thrown out a two-story window to his death,
2. Two bullies who steal two nerds' sled and sled down the MOST PATHETIC HILL ON EARTH only to get beheaded halfway down,
3. Two cops on patrol nearly kill a father who is teaching his daughter about the magic of Santa Claus by climbing into her bedroom window with a metal ladder (??),
4. A cop accidentally killing a deaf man who always played Santa at the orphanage,
5. The same cop getting killed in a Misery-sort of way via axe to the torso,
6. Billy/Tommy/Older Brother getting shot to death in front of his Younger Brother/Joe/Bob/Irving.

A whole hour later, mind you.  This sequel was released shortly after the first one to capitalize on the first one's controversy.  You see, "Silent Night, Deadly Night's" claim to fame is having parents picketing the theaters it played in on it's first release. And as it does in every occasion, it just drove more people to see it.   Anyway....

The Younger Brother ("YB" from now on, my fingers are starting to hurt) gets adopted by a nice Jewish family and grows up pseudo-normally except for an odd occasion where he sees another woman nearly getting raped and stops it by running a man over nearly five times with the guy's own truck.  The woman says 'thank you' instead of screaming "MY GOD!" or running like hell, meaning that YB's actions were GOOD.

Sure, right......of course, this is the '80s, right?  Reagan and vigilantism were considered good ideas, then.  Oh, well.....lesser of two evils or lack of logic?  YOU DECIDE!

Okay, then YB meets his dream girl Jennifer (who avid readers will recogize as one of the Slavegirls from Beyond Infinity) and starts having feelings 'down there.'  This in no way interferes with his mission to punish the 'naughty' as shown in a silly sequence where YB kills a mobster by shoving an umbrella through his gut and opening it on the other side (!).  Oddly, this was a lone wolf mobster without any apparent family because this action doesn't get YB any roughing up or 'accidents' involving a meat slicer.  This does, however, lead to the inevitable 'snap.'

The next sequence takes place in a 'movie' theater.  Or, rather, someone's garage done up like a movie theater that looks like it could only hold about fifteen people MAX.  Along with Jennifer and YB are a old couple and two 'punks.'  I say 'punks' because they are the same punks that look like they would beat someone up at a Flock of Seagulls concert:  denim clothing and nasty hair.  So they piss off Billy or Timmy or Joe Bob or whatever and he beats them senseless/dead/whatever.  The funny thing about this is how he moves.  In one shot, he's next to his girlfriend, but in the next he's RIGHT NEXT TO THE GUY WHO JUST THREW POPCORN AT HIM.  Hello?  Continuity?  It really blows any kind of dramatic tension when your protogonist has more moves then Wile E. Coyote.  Funny?  Yes.  But not in a good way.

Finally, YB snaps when he finds out that Jennifer has had another relationship with another man.  This happens because Jennifer and YB just happen to be walking in the NEIGHBORHOOD!!   The ex-boyfriend happens to help his demise along by working on his car on the side of a residential street.  After a fun bit of mocking and a nice "Don't make me angry, Mr. McGee" moment, YB disposes of the ex by sticking his head in a battery charger and BLOWING UP HIS EYEBALLS.

Unreality-1, Reality-0.

The rest of his sequence I'll just list for your own amusement:

• Jennifer 'disagrees' with this.  YB then kills her (guess he's a really religious guy or something).  Her final words?  "UH OH!"  Trust me, it's funnier than it sounds.
• Luckily, a cop shows up.  But since this is a cheaply-made movie in the '80s, the cop is channeling Barney Fife.  Doesn't matter, as YB turns the cop's gun around (slowly) and makes the cop shoot himself in his head.  The last expression on the cop's face reminds me a bit of "Total Recall."
• Now armed, YB goes on a rampage.  But not before the entire freaking camera crew comes into the shot for a good two seconds (who made this film??) and blows the whole reality of the scene.  This is where we come to the funniest part of the film:  A man is taking in his garbage, to which YB shouts the immortal "GARBAGE DAY!" and shoots him dead.  For some reason, this scene makes me laugh.
• At this gunshot, a man across the way comes out of his house and starts shouting.  YB shoots him and is supposed to say "Motherfucker!"  But thanks to a error in the synching of the music, it sounds like "Mother DA-DA-DAAAAA!!"
• Despite the fact that THREE shots have been fired on this street, a little girl is still riding her bike.  Have no fear, YB lets her go...at this moment, it would be funnier if he just pushed her over and stole her bike, screaming "I'M GOING TO TJIUANA!"  But, alas, the writers weren't that creative.
• Suddenly, a Pacer comes down the street.  YB fires a shot which makes the Pacer go up on two wheels and crash.  However, if you look closely, it looks like the Pacer's rear bumper came damn close to wacking the actor on the side of the head.  You know, I almost wish it did....maybe that would stop his eyebrows from going mad.
• Finally, the rampage ends with two capable officers stopping YB, and YB trying to kill himself and finally himself short of bullets.  Damn.

Anyway, we cut now to the Mother Superior's house on Christmas Eve.  When we last saw Mother Superior at the end of the first film, she was confined to a wheelchair.  Now, however, her face is radically different.  Instead of wrinkles, we have burns, boils, and what appears to be a woman who just got fried in some kind of chemical explosion.  What the fuck happened?  It looks like the same woman who played in the first, so the makeup isn't covering the identity of the lady at all.....so what?  Was there something in the script that explained this?  Was this supposed to be human aging?  I don't know, but the woman looks like the mother of Doctor Doom.

Finally, the next five minutes are of YB chasing down Mother Superior in her ghetto apartment while the cops come to her rescue.  Unfortunately, Mother Superior is found sitting up.  When shaken, her head falls off.  Since YB was chasing her with an AXE, I don't see how if she was beheaded, her head could be placed atop her body in a convincing manner.  No matter.  YB is shot to death, and we get the typical 'murderer's not dead yet' ending with YB stabbing at the camera with an ice pick and the movie mercifully ends, making us all wish for those eighty minutes of our life back.

This movie is bad.  Bad bad.  Of course, when half your running time is a summarized part of the first movie, you must realize that the film you're making is strictly for money.  Which I suppose it made.  But at what cost?  Where the first film had a few funny moments and some really unrealistic ones (impaling a woman on a deer head attached to a wall??), the second is either an exercise in tedium or just moments so surreal it's hard not to laugh.  And that's the way it should be, I guess.  This movie could only be considered scary to ten-year-olds at a sleepover who whisper about the time their parents let them watch 'Scream' on TNT on Halloween.  Plus, this was definitely a rush job, a horrid excuse for a film.  But since it's predessor was, who would care?

RATING:  Yeah, right.  This one gets a Zero.  Watch it for laughs, cause it won't get a repeat viewing.  Merry Christmas, one and all.