30th Anniversary Silent Night, Deadly Night Retrospective: Part 3
John Squires
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Proving that Silent Night, Deadly Night is as relevant today as it ever was, the original film was remade in 2012, over 20 years after the final sequel in the franchise was released. Dropping the ‘Deadly Night’ portion of the title, 2012’s Silent Night was directed by longtime fan Steven C. Miller, a loosely connected reboot that took the idea of a killer in a Santa suit and used it to tell quite a different story.
In Silent Night, there’s no Billy, no Ricky and no childhood trauma, but there are plenty of winks and nods to the original film (and even a particularly humorous ‘garbage day’ reference), along with a whole host of creative and incredibly gory scenes of carnage.
Not surprisingly, Silent Night didn’t draw the ire of critics or parents the way Silent Night, Deadly Night did, showing that a whole lot has changed since the days when the mere suggestion of a killer Santa Claus had the power to turn parents into protestors. As Brian Yuzna pointed out to me in our phone conversation, nothing is sacred or off limits in our society anymore, and the saga of Silent Night, Deadly Night is the perfect barometer of that societal shift. The times they have a-changed, to say the least.
And that about wraps up our mega-sized retrospective of the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise. We hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through one of the more unique horror franchises of all time, and all of us here on Dread Central wish you a very Merry Christmas…. and a HAPPY GARBAGE DAY!
**Many thanks to the following people, without whom this retrospective would never have been possible; Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton, Justin Beahm, Eric Freeman, Rob Galluzzo, Arthur Gorson, Lee Harry, Monte Hellman, Michael Hickey, Elric Kane, Linnea Quigley, Lawrence Raffel, Scott Schneid, Michael Spence, Chad E. Young and Brian Yuzna.**
Categorized:News Retrospectives
