Silent Night, Deadly Night (dir. Mike P. Nelson)
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 96 mins
UK Distributor: Studiocanal
UK Release Date: 12 December 2025
WHO’S IN SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT?
Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, Mark Acheson, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Mike P. Nelson (director, writer), Erik Bernard, Scott Schneid, Jamie R. Thompson, Jeremy Torrie and Dennis Whitehead (producers), Blitz//Berlin (composer), Nick Junkersfeld (cinematographer), Geoff Klein (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A traumatised young man (Campbell) embarks on a deadly rampage dressed as Santa…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT?
When the original Silent Night, Deadly Night was released in 1984, it was to significant public objection to its depiction of a serial killer wearing a Santa costume and brandishing deadly weapons, which eventually resulted in the film’s theatrical window abruptly coming to a close mere weeks after opening. Just over forty years later, a remake – the second overall, after 2012’s very loose retelling Silent Night – arrives with pretty much the same concept, only nobody seems as concerned as they previously did about its content. You could put it down to audiences being sanitised with all the violence in movies and in real-life, or the fact that the general public is less pearl-clutching than it was back then (but not by much), but either way history is unlikely to repeat itself with this new Silent Night, Deadly Night movie.
Interestingly, while writer-director Mike P. Nelson’s version is much closer in terms of story and character to the original film, tonally speaking it has a bit more in common with the various sequels to Silent Night, Deadly Night, which adopted an anthology structure that took increasingly heightened turns with concepts such as grotesque cults, psychic abilities and deadly robots (all with a Christmas theme, of course). This one, however, is better than most of those – though nothing can match the legendary so-bad-it’s-good-ness of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, its most infamous line getting a neat shout-out here – as it embraces its over-the-top violent nature with a knowing glee that makes it grimly enjoyable to watch.
Like the original, Silent Night, Deadly Night circa 2025 opens with young Billy Chapman witnessing the brutal murder of his parents by someone dressed in a Santa costume. Years later, Billy (Rohan Campbell) has become a serial killer who similarly goes around butchering people that he – along with a constant voice inside his head known as “Charlie” (Mark Acheson) – deems to be “naughty”, all while wearing the Santa outfit himself and putting his victim’s blood in an advent calendar. He soon winds up in a small town where he takes a job in a small Christmas shop, working alongside the owner Mr. Sims (David Lawrence Brown) and his daughter Pam (Ruby Modine), until he is drawn to kill again by Charlie, who points out seemingly random people to off in horrifically violent fashion.
But as he and we slowly discover, an axe-wielding Santa serial killer with severe mental problems is perhaps one of the more normal residents of this town. For instance, there’s another killer who’s going around kidnapping and doing God knows what to children, there’s a cop who’s constantly acting creepier than either killer combined, and at one point we visit a neo-Nazi Christmas party run by the local Karen. Even Ruby, the main love interest, is a ticking time bomb of her own, as she is prone to explosive outbursts that more often than not land her in trouble, including beating up a bunch of kids (but they’re bullies, so it’s okay). It’s amusing seeing how deranged our protagonist is before then coming across a bunch more people who are arguably more unhinged, making the movie fairly unpredictable in how it structures itself because you just don’t know who else in this town is going to compete with Billy for the title of most effed-up person, enough to where he genuinely comes off as a likeable lead in spite of all the gruesome murders he commits.
It’s one of many things that make this version of Silent Night, Deadly Night work as both a remake and as a standalone film. While the basic premise remains, along with a few brief callbacks to the original, Nelson transforms it into something that’s much more of a mix between the Terrifier movies and Dexter, with a bigger focus on Billy as he literally goes back and forth with his psyche (framed as a double-act you’d see/hear in Upgrade or the Venom movies) about the moral logistics of what he does and who he targets, all while delivering violent retribution that comes with its own impressive line of gore effects. It delivers as much as you would expect from a film about a killer Santa, especially one within the Silent Night, Deadly Night template, but also a bit more that never makes it feel as though you’re watching a carbon copy of the original movie.
The filmmaker, who previously worked his transformative magic on the 2021 Wrong Turn reboot, ends up taking the concept in a wildly different and possibly fantastical direction that may turn off those expecting it to be as grounded as the original, which was essentially a dark character study showing how the childhood trauma of its lead eventually manifested into the killer he eventually becomes. But within its own context, the giant leaps that it takes manage to impress with how appropriately insane they are, and because you’re enjoying being in this dark and twisted world with these equally disturbed but still engaging characters, you are curious as to where it will all eventually lead. Although if there are any major criticisms, where it does lead is a little anticlimactic, in an ending that does have its fair share of satisfying moments and is clearly setting up for future instalments (fingers crossed that there will be), but given everything that certain characters have been through it does seem a bit arbitrary to have particular things happen to them that aren’t quite as poetic as they could have been.
Nonetheless, this is a fun Christmas slasher for those wanting a lot more gore and sleaze among their annual festive movie binge, enough to make even those on the nice list feel devilishly naughty as they watch it.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a fun Christmas slasher remake that goes in its own demented, gory and often unpredictable direction while paying respect to the legacy of the original cult classic, in ways that don’t always feel satisfactory but still hold your morbidly curious attention.
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