Silent Night, Bloody Night



Diane Adams, the daughter of the mayor of East Willard Massachusetts, was just hoping to spend a nice, quiet Christmas Eve eating dinner at home with her father. But instead she ends up spending a rather un-festive evening running around town after getting roped into Willard’s biggest 20-year-old mystery when Jeffery Butler, the grandson of the town’s rich eccentric, shows up out of the blue trying to sell the family’s old mansion, a building that was once used as an insane asylum and that most of the town is convinced is cursed.


Seems like a perfectly nice house to me.

It’s Christmas Eve, and I figured what better way to spend Christmas Eve than by discussing a film that takes place on not one, not two, but three separate Christmas Eves.

I didn’t know what to expect going into Silent Night, Bloody Night (not to be confused with Silent Night, Deadly Night, that’s a different beast and completely unrelated). But once I saw cult actress darling Mary Woronov’s name in the opening credits I got a slight inkling of what was to come. Not that that’s a ding against Miss Woronov in any way, because I always enjoy seeing her in her various roles. But depending on your preferences, the films she starred in tend to vary in quality from downright bad at worst, to delightfully odd at best. Silent Night, Bloody Night, I think, fits somewhere smack dab in the middle of that spectrum. Because while horror fans can see that it had a lot of interesting and influential ideas for such an early slasher film, you can also tell that the movie is a cheap as hell indie outing, to the point where I doubt that anyone would be at all surprised to learn that the film was never properly registered for copyright and that it has since fallen into the public domain.


Which means you can watch it for free right now just about everywhere. Merry Christmas!

A lot of the cast and crew involved with the film used to work with artist Andy Warhol on his film projects, and honestly, knowing that kinda makes this movie make a bit more sense. Because the film sort of feels like an avant garde/artsy take on a slasher film, before the genre even had a proper name yet. The way the story is conveyed can sometimes be confusing, John Carradine is in it but doesn’t utter a word, scenes can be shot at weird angles, and the editing can be so manic and choppy at times that more often than not you’ll be lucky if you can figure out what the hell it is you just witnessed. There’s also an extended flashback scene shot completely in sepia tone, that makes the whole segment look like you’ve suddenly started watching some silent movie from the 1920’s. But hey, though the movie may be a little odd, at least you can’t say it doesn’t keep you on your toes.



Oddities aside, I think the movie’s greatest pitfall is probably its pacing, which moves at its own (very) lethargic rate, especially towards the middle of the film. Luckily though, the mystery aspects in the story are just interesting enough to keep most horror fans intrigued, with everything being answered and falling into place at the end, even though some of the conclusions don’t make all that much sense.



Where the movie really excels though, is mood. The filmmakers may have had their fair share of problems with crafting parts of the story, but the film’s noticeable strides toward creating a proper mood work heavily in their favor. Most of the movie is dark and dreary, with some great atmosphere and creepy gothic visuals that really help set the stage for a decent horror flick. So while some aspects of the film may work against it, the overall tone is going to feel very familiar to anyone who’s a slasher fan.



The other thing of note is the gore, which is admittedly quite cheap by today’s standards, but actually looks pretty decent considering the movie was made in 1970. It’s not going to be considered great by any stretch of the imagination, and there’s not all that much of it when you compare it to current horror films. But considering the time frame it was released it may surprise some folks with how bloody it is.


It was certainly more than I was expecting….though the imagery didn’t surprise me….

I’m not gonna sit here and claim that Silent Night, Bloody Night is a good movie, because it’s not. But I do think it’s a decent movie, if you consider the budget and time frame in which it was released. And I admit that many aspects of the movie are pretty interesting, so I can see why many would consider it a “gem” and I understand why it might have a cult following. Really though, I find the influence of the film far more interesting than the film itself. The movie’s atmosphere, and the killer’s first-person perspective and quiet, raspy voice over the phone as they call their victims clearly inspired Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, a film that was originally titled Silent Night, Evil Night and was released in 1974, two years after Silent Night, Bloody Night was released, and 4 after it was made. And that creepy method it uses of harassing victims over the phone has been successfully used by horror villains ever since, probably most notably in films like When A Stranger Calls and of course the Scream franchise. Granted, potential killers harassing people with their raspy voices over the phone had been used in film before 1970, most notably in thrillers (please see Experiment in Terror from 1962, or to a lesser extent Sorry, Wrong Number from 1948). But horror sort of took that concept and ran with it to the point where it became “a thing”, so whether it’s a re-used idea or not I feel it has significance in this instance. Point being, while some may say that Clark’s Black Christmas begot Carpenter’s Halloween, it’s clear that Silent Night, Bloody Night likely begot Black Christmas. So if you find things like that interesting and you’re a connoisseur of horror history and don’t mind the lack of polish, then Silent Night, Bloody Night should be a fascinating watch for you. Otherwise the film is alright, but you might find it a bit tedious.

Silent Night, Bloody Night is available on a variety of streaming services and free on YouTube.

Silent Night, Bloody Night is also available on DVD and Bluray, in various forms of quality and region settings.

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