I’ve enjoyed the sleazy, creepy original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT several times over the years, and the hilariously awful half sequel/half recap PART 2 almost as many times, and tried to convince myself that Monte Hellman’s PART 3 was kinda interesting two or three times. But I never got around to the straight to video parts 4 and 5. UNTIL NOW.
You know what, that was overdramatic probly. But still. This is the first time I watched them. Here are my findings.
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I thought BLACK SANTA’S REVENGE was gonna be a real (but super low budget I’m sure) movie. Turns out it’s a 20 minute short (“mini epic” the credits say) shot by some dudes in Portland, Oregon. The writer/director David Walker is the guy that started the zine-turned-websight BadAzz MoFo, which I’m sure some of you are familiar with because of their coverage of blaxploitation and spaghetti westerns. (read the rest of this shit…)
SANTA’S SLAY is an enjoyably dumb killer Santa movie. It’s from 2005 but it’s in the ’80s b-horror tradition of cheesy acting and dialogue and sort of pretending to be serious but with an intentionally asinine premise. Not quite as campy as KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE or RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOES, but less serious than the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHTs. Actually the movie it reminded me of most is from the year before, Jeff Lieberman’s SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER. That was a Halloween movie, though. (read the rest of this shit…)
IN BRUGES is an intimate crime story about two hitmen – I know, but hear me out – forced to stay in the titular Belgian town while things cool down after a job gone wrong. Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is the veteran who’s happy to take advantage of the down time to relax and look at tourist spots, Ray (Colin Farrell) is his young partner who has no interest and pouts like a kid dragged along on the wrong vacation. He’s also the one that fucked up the job and is racked with guilt and depression.
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Here’s another popular 2007 French horror movie. This one came out about a month before FRONTIER(S) did and like that one it has a pregnant protagonist and takes place during a time of rioting in the underprivileged Parisian suburbs. But it seems to be in the present and it’s much simpler, fewer characters and locations, and to me way more effective. “Fun” is probly not the right word for this one, but it comes close.
The movie opens with a (digital) baby in its mother’s womb… and what happens to it when the mother is in a car accident. In-utero whiplash. So, yeah, it’s pretty fucked up. But that’s how they do it in France. (read the rest of this shit…)
In the popular song and cartoon RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, “reindeer games” are the fun group activities that all the popular reindeers enjoy but Rudolph is excluded from due to his low social caste. In the movie REINDEER GAMES the character “Monster” (Gary Sinise) uses it as a synonym for “funny business,” something that he threatens Rudy (Ben Affleck) not to participate in. This misuse of Christmas terminology doesn’t bother Rudy or probly occur to him, but it does bug him when Clarence Williams III keeps referring to “Santa’s dwarves.” So he does have a certain amount of respect for Christmas tradition.
REINDEER GAMES is not a Christmas movie in the sense that it’s about Christmas, or about somebody coming to a realization about the meaning of Christmas, at least not a very convincing one. But I can guarantee you this much: it takes place in December, with a heist planned for Christmas Eve, and with the participators all dressed as Santa Claus. So there are some discussions of cranberries and what not. Maybe a mention of sugar plums, I can’t remember for sure. (Have you ever had sugar plums? They’re actually really fuckin good. I wish I knew a place that sold them. I might have visions of them dancing in my head now that I remembered them.)
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Everybody knows about Christmas horror (BLACK CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS EVIL, the SILENT/DEADY NIGHT saga, etc.). And of course there’s Christmas action (DIE HARDs 1-2, the works of Shane Black). But did you ever notice there’s Christmas crime, too? I just reviewed SILENT PARTNER, and there’s THE ICE HARVEST, BAD SANTA and others. So I was using the Google.com websight to see if there were others and came across this interview with a guy who did a book just about Christmas movies. He chose this CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY as a movie he wishes were on DVD and that more people knew about.
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THE SILENT PARTNER is a Christmas-time bank robbery thriller directed by one Daryl Duke and written by Curtis Hanson (director of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and 8 MILE, writer of WHITE DOG). Elliott Gould – who I wouldn’t think would be that into Christmas, go figure – plays Miles, a Toronto teller at a bank inside one of those indoor shopping malls. (This was 1978.)
I think Miles sees himself as pretty cool, not a loser, even though he’s not having the success he’d like in wooing his co-worker Julie (Susannah York), and is later revealed to own a Superman lunchbox. Maybe having a cool name like Miles balances that out, I’m not sure. He also has a passion for rare fish, which he keeps in his aquarium, that’s what he spends his extra money on.
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CHRISTMAS EVIL started life as YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, but according to writer/director Lewis Jackson, “some asshole who bootlegged the film changed the title card over and over and over again” and it got better known under the other name. I’m not sure which title I like better, they’re both pretty good. Whichever one you want to call it it’s kind of an alternate take on the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT type of Santa-Claus-related-childhood-trauma-sends-troubled-man-on-homicidal-rampage-dressed-as-Santa story. Both use the MANIAC approach of following the slasher, not the slashees, so you get to understand him, maybe feel a little sorry for him, or maybe just think Jesus and be creeped out by him.
(Jesus is the guy’s birthday we’re celebrating here, by the way. I’m not using his name in vain, I’m trying to keep him in the conversation. Nobody dresses up as baby Jesus when they go on these Christmas horror rampages, I’ve noticed.)
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Here’s a movie I never heard of until Criterion released it a couple years ago. It’s a real raw, pulpy, hard boiled crime deal, low budget, filmed independently and released in 1961. It’s about a hitman from Cleveland coming into New York, staking out his target. Because it’s black and white and full of hard-nosed tough guy narration it makes you think of old noir movies, but because it was made in the ’60s it’s a more modern, realistic approach to dialogue and acting, all done in real locations, on real city streets, not always with permits.
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
(NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
