I make it no secret that I hate Silent Night, Deadly Night. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it, but the movie makes my hackles rise. But it’s a classic of the holiday genre. Nearly every horror fan puts this series on their list of “must watches” of the season. (Though I did enjoy the 2012 ‘remake’, somehow!)

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve watched Silent Night, Deadly Night. Tastes and opinions can change a lot in that amount of time. But there was no way I was going to sit through the first film again. There are five films in the franchise, and they can’t all be the same, right? Brian Yuzan directed part 4, for goodness’ sake! It took until 2020 for me to finally admit to myself that I should join the rest of the world and just watch the next instalment.

But boy, was that a mistake.

In order to dive into part two, I read through the plot summary of the first movie. It was amazing how quickly the plot came back to me, so I guess that’s saying something.

Though it turns out that was an absolute waste of time. Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 does us a ‘favour’ by giving us nearly 40 minutes of archive footage of the first movie. Never has a film been so insistent that we remember everything from the first film. Is this actually important to any plot later in the movie? Absolutely not.

Indeed, we have to sit through the torture of watching Ricky, younger brother of Billy, talk to a psychologist about what happened when he was younger. After a torturous first half of the film, we finally get into why Ricky is in the sanitorium!

Turns out Ricky is also triggered by Santa-related naughtiness. No explanation why other than his brother and that he really hates nuns. After being adopted, the boy thought he would get a happier life. Only the nuns really freak him out. Instead of studying him and getting him help, his adoptive parents seemingly do nothing about his trauma.

It’s when he’s a teen that he finally makes his first kill. He begins more like a vigilante, killing off criminals and creeps. But when he begins dating Jeniffer, his impulses get a bit out of control. Might be the killer Santa movie that does it, but who’s to say?

Ricky gets his own murderous rampage. But since we only have 30 minutes left the movie, the boy really needs to cram in all the action he can! This is where the iconic “Garbage Day!” scene comes in. And while it was worth a chuckle, I think the scene is much funnier out of context than in the movie itself. That’s absolutely the fault of the movie for not letting any moment here have a breath before the next one.

Pretty safe to say that I hated Part 2 more than the first movie. I had to live through Silent Night, Deadly Night again and deal with a bizarre, jumbled mess. For me, it’s well beyond being “so bad it’s good”. This is just bad. Though I probably only have myself to blame for watching the sequel to a movie I hated.

According to the film’s Wiki, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 was made for $100,000. It really shows. Couldn’t even spring for a string of Christmas lights to make this movie even look remotely like it takes place at Christmas. I do hate when a movie tries to capitalise on being a holiday movie without putting in any effort to set a mood. At least part 1 was superior in that respect.

I can see why this is a cult movie. Everything about this movie is utterly bizarre. But for me, it’s unbearable. When it comes to killer Santas, I’ll stick to Harry Stadling.