"Silent Night, Bloody Night" is a frustrating film. It manages to set a great mood--chilling and brutal. Yet, it then seems to lose so much momentum late in the film--and left me feeling totally uninterested.
When the film begins, you learn that a rich guy died 20 years ago under mysterious circumstances. In the meantime, his home has sat abandoned until recently when his son declares that he's going to sell the place. Soon after his attorney arrives in town to finalize the deal, folks start getting hacked to pieces (the first few are amazingly realistic). All this worked well. However, to explain who it was and how it was, the film had a HUGE and awkward flashback sequence that seemed to take up the last third of the movie!! Surely all this could have been done in a much more straight forward and less sloppy manner. And, as a result the film left me wondering if perhaps a re-write might have resulted in this becoming a much more popular and worthy movie. As it is, I'd only recommend it to die-hard horror fans or folks wanting to see a young Mary Waronov in a major role.
When the film begins, you learn that a rich guy died 20 years ago under mysterious circumstances. In the meantime, his home has sat abandoned until recently when his son declares that he's going to sell the place. Soon after his attorney arrives in town to finalize the deal, folks start getting hacked to pieces (the first few are amazingly realistic). All this worked well. However, to explain who it was and how it was, the film had a HUGE and awkward flashback sequence that seemed to take up the last third of the movie!! Surely all this could have been done in a much more straight forward and less sloppy manner. And, as a result the film left me wondering if perhaps a re-write might have resulted in this becoming a much more popular and worthy movie. As it is, I'd only recommend it to die-hard horror fans or folks wanting to see a young Mary Waronov in a major role.