Silent Night (2012) by Steven C. Miller

Diretor: Steven C. Miller

Year: 2012

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Slasher

Plot:

When a vicious crime spree starts in their small town, the spree is found to be the work of a killer dressed in a Santa costume forcing the local police officers into a race to find him and stop his blood-soaked spree before he can escape using a local parade as cover for his crimes.

Review:

There’s a lot to like about this one. Among the better aspects here is the fact that it indulges in its genre exploits quite handily and gets a lot of good mileage out of those factors as a slasher. This one really exploits the extra emphasis placed on these small-town encounters as the strong setup of the individual going around randomly attacking individuals in town forces the approach to take more of an investigation into the identity of the killer. Utilizing the Santa disguise as the perfect opportunity to blend in with numerous individuals around the town openly dressing up or following through with the traditional holiday attire makes for a fantastic way to conceal everything as the bodies continue to drop in the town as the revelations into the potential suspects and red herrings during the investigation makes for a fun time here.

That also leads into the generally fun series of stalking present since there are a few genuinely creepy stalking scenes that work to the movie's advantage and deliver when it needs to. From the shock ambush encounters of the random citizens in town including appearing at the spoiled daughter’s house and the series of ambushes on the porn workers at the local motel. The later scenes in the town trying to provide a take-down of the perpetrator allow for some intriguing chases and encounters throughout from the parade confrontation to the assault on the police station, even providing a real action-packed climax that’s quite enjoyable. As well, there’s a wide assortment of deaths in here that are pretty bloody and graphic but also incredibly diverse and really don't repeat themselves all too often ranging from stabbings, impaling, being electrocuted with a car battery, thrown into a woodchipper, set on fire with a flamethrower, and having their head split open with an ax among other features that have a lot to like here.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this one that hold it back. One of the main drawbacks featured here is that while the story itself works rather nicely, the fact that there are some pretty big holes of logic all ensuing from the rather irrational manner of making this a who-dun-it rather than a faceless slasher effort is the biggest problem here. This tends to replace the idea of the town trying to understand the identity of the killer and the connections with the town that it feels somewhat underwhelming with the race to figure everything out so the forced inclusion of red herrings ends up being quite needless and not really providing this with any real purpose. It also provides this with a forcibly lame finale where there’s no reason to identify the killer and their motivation which is somewhat lame and better off not being given. Otherwise, this was a really enjoyable effort.

Overview: ****/5

A generally pleasing and enjoyable seasonal slasher, this one works quite well at points while only getting some minor drawbacks that lower it only slightly. Those who are really intrigued with this particular style of genre effort, are huge slasher or holiday horror fans, or follow the creative crew will have a lot to enjoy with this one while only those turned off by these factors should heed caution.