Silent Night Deadly Night

Well Kiddies it’s the holidays again and I am here to share two of my favorite Yuletide flicks for you to check out.

Silent Night Deadly Night was released in 1984 to much controversy which is what I want to start off with.

Featuring the image of the arm of Santa Claus emerging from a chimney clutching an axe the poster of the film sparked rage from Parents Groups and PTAs eventually succeeding in having the film pulled from theatres after a couple of Weeks. 

Siskel and Ebert openly bashed the film referring to the profits of the film as Blood Money.

The 2003 Anchor Bay release even featured much of the hate mail that was directed at the film including ravings from Mickey Rooney who went on to appear in the 5^th Installment of the series.

I have many times felt that the hate directed at the film was unnecessary since the film did not even feature The actual Santa Clause but multiple men dressed as Santa Clause.

The plot follows Billy Chapman who when he was 8 Years old is told by his institutionalized grandfather   (played by veteran actor Will Hare) that Santa Clause was going to harm him that night. An unfortunate set of unrelated circumstances leads to a man dressed as Santa Clause killing his father and raping and murdering his mother while young Billy watches from the bushes where he hides. The only survivors of the massacre are Billy and his infant brother Ricky.

The movie then skips ahead to St Mary’s Orphanage where Billy and Ricky are kept under the strict watch of Mother Superior and the kind sister Margaret. Mother Superior subjects Billy to harsh punishments and lessons of Punishment being absolute and Good while traumatizing him by attempting to force him to sit on Santa’s lap.

Eventually Billy is given a job when he turns 18 working at a toystore where he starts off well even developing a crush on his coworker Pamela. However when Christmas time arrives he is plagued with Nightmares about his feelings for Pamela and the fear of punishment from Cris Cringle.

On Christmas Eve the actor playing Santa Clause breaks his leg and Billy is given the position. 

That night after the store is closed the owners treat their staff to a Christmas party where Billy is given many drinks and drunken advice from his boss before going to the back where he sees Pamela being attacked by his coworker where the flashbacks finally make Billy Snap and he begins his Christmas killing spree taking out many that he encounters that he deems to be “Naughty” hacking out his own trail back to the orphanage and Mother Superior.

Unlike many Slasher films of its era this film follows the killer throughout his life showing the events that made him into the killer and giving the view not just more depth but also with the audience being shown his side of the story the killer is given sympathy.

The Controversy was the implication that Santa clause was on a killing spree where the film just depicted a man in a costume due to his own childhood traumas. 

Silent Night Deadly Night is not the only film with this.

Both the 1972 Amicus Tales from the Crypt film as well as its 1989 HBO counterpart featured adaptions of the famous Vault of Horror #35 story of a killer Santa terrorizing a murdering mother.

In 2005 former World Heavyweight Champion Bill Goldberg Portrayed the actual Santa Clause going on a killing Spree in Santa’s Slay but I say pass on that flick as a whole though it is worth a buy on Fearnet just for the opening scenes.

The image of a creepy Santa Clause that children are afraid to sit on the lap of owes more to Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story.

The film also features one of the most memorable kills in the history of cinema.

The scene in question stars my good friend Linnea Quigley being impaled on deer antlers all while topless.

13 Dead Bodies

6 Breasts

3 Beasts

1 Impaling

Arrow through the back

Hammer to the Head

Hanging

Slashing

Shooting

Heads Roll

4 Stars

I did attend a screening of the Fangoria rerelease at the Angelica and alot of the effects have been edited out of the cut so look for the Anchor Bay Release. 

Silent Night Deadly Night spawned four sequels but the only one that I say check out is the second flick.

Part 2 follows Billy’s brother Ricky who in the beginning of the film the audience finds out is now incarcerated on Death Row for his own killing spree.

Traumatized by the events of the first film Ricky grows up in a Jewish family and develops murderous impulses when seeing the color red.

At first Ricky only kills the ones that he deems “Naughty” but after killing the woman that he loved he embarks on a killing spree resulting in his own arrest before escaping and targeting Mother Superior to finish what his brother started.

The first half of Part Two features Ricky in prison telling the story of the previous film consisting of Flashbacks. This was probably brought on by the fact that the first movie was banned in so many places.

The movie has developed a cult following especially on the Internet for the hokey acting and Dialogue.

The Scene where Ricky kills a man taking out the trash has become a popular internet Meme.

As with all of the great horror flicks of the 80s Silent Night Deadly Night in 2012 receved the loose Remake Treatment being titled Silent Night.

Taking place in a small town in Wisconsin the film follows a Deputy Sheriff (Jamie King) Who is in persuit of a killer Santa going around the town killing those that he deems to be harming society including Soft Core pornographers, Bratty Children, Creepy priests and the evil mayor.

The movie also features Malcolm McDowell as the inept sheriff in a role rare for the great actor but he is fun to watch.

Some of the kills in the movie are great tributes to the kills in the original such as the deer antler scene is featured but the top kill is the wood chipper scene with actress Cortney Palm.

13 Dead Bodies

2 Breasts

2 Beasts

1 Backstory

Burnings

Impaling

Slashing

Shootings

Strangling

Santa Fu

Priest Fu

Antler Fu

Wood Chipper Fu

2 ½ Stars

Halloween Picks: The Rise and Fall of the Blair Witch

In my previous Blog entry I spoke of the War of the Worlds broadcast and how it was in fact a precursor to the Found Footage Genre.

In today’s industry you constantly find a Found Footage picture being released and I have to say there is a simple reason for this. Now many of you want to complain and say that it is because it is cheap and easy and I can tell you something it is not cheap and easy.

Take it from someone that makes Found Footage films, especially if you are using special visual effects.

The real reason for the popularity of these films is simply because it is the society that we live in.

One of the many gripes that I hear about the subgenre is that the cameraman would clearly cut at some point and I have to say as a documentary filmmaker myself we are taught not to cut.

When I say that this is the time that we live in I mean it and on a personal note when my home was destroyed in the fire back in December I can’t tell you how many people while we were running and evacuating from the fire were filming the events with their phones much similar to the films in this subgenre.

The first actual film of its kind is Cannibal Holocaust but the film that was the most influential is definitely the Blair Witch Project. 

I have to admit that this film is one of my favorites not just because of the film itself but the marketing that the film utilized that is now standard in today’s market.

Going into production in late 1997 with a budget of $25,000 the film was directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick and stars Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams as three student filmmakers who venture into the woods to shoot a documentary of the spirit of a witch in the woods of Maryland and are never seen again. The film is the “Found Footage” that was located in the woods.

The poster for the film featured inverted color shot of the woods and the words “in October 1994 three filmmaking students disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found” being the only details given in the film.

Sánchez and Myrick camped in a trailer while the actors filmed their own footage while being given direction by the filmmakers who would stage events at night to scare the cast giving them actual reactions to the events climaxing with the actors ending in an old house and the cameras falling till the film runs out.

The Blair Witch Project premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and was instantly picked up by Artisan Entertainment to be released in the summer becoming the sleeper hit.

The Summer of 1999 saw the release of Star Wars: Episode 1, The Mummy, and Deep Blue Sea. However it was the summer of the Blair Witch.

Everywhere you looked you saw the Blair Witch. As a matter of fact that Halloween when the Blair Witch was released on VHS and DVD you saw all of the parodies.

I have to mention the original XXX Parodies were released around that time. There were two as a matter of fact.

The Jim Wynorski directed Bare Wench Project starring Nikki Fritz and the late Lorissa McComas and Seduction Cinema’s Erotic Witch Project with Laurie Wallace and Darian Crane. 

You also had the Scooby Doo Project on Cartoon Network to promote the marathon for Halloween.

My personal favorite Blair Witch Parody was that Halloween Eve on Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs was the Nair Witch Project in which Joe Bob, Rusty and Summer were lost in the Hollywood Hills searching for the ghost of the Nair Witch.

Also in the winter of that season saw the release of the Three volume Blair Witch PC Games all working as prequels to the film.

My personal favorite was the Rustin Parr Volume that was a sequel to Nocturne which was one of the best games of it’s kind made at the time.

As I said the Blair Witch was all the rage.

I think that the reason was because of the marketing of the film.

Now at first they did in fact try to market the film as a true story with the missing  posters of the three students circulating around the internet for months before the release of the film.

 I think that someone may have remembered what happened with Cannibal Holocaust.

In 1980 the director of the film was put on trial for making a snuff film and had to have the actors that were “killed in the film” appear before a judge to prove that they were still alive.

The Producers of the Blair Witch Project I think seceded not to go that far and they had Leonard, Williams and  Donahue also doing press for the film.

The marketing added to the film. The Website never aluded to the fact that the film was in fact fiction giving audiences more detail into the legend of the Blair Witch.

The Sci-Fi Channel aired a special documentary The Curse of the Blair Witch to promote the film, the special is a bonus feature on the Blair Witch DVD and even saw a VHS release.

The Curse of the Blair Witch I feel is as freaky as the film that it is marketing for. Seeking further into the stories that are mostly alluded to in the film giving more details into Rustin Parr and Coffin Rock and adding to the mythology with the story of a ghostly white hand that kills a little girl during a community picnic as well as giving coverage to the disappearance of the young filmmakers.

The part of the film that stands out the most is the Mystic Occurrences segments that were made to look like they were filmed in the 1970s for UHF Stations.  

There was also a book published that also gave more details of the Witch and featured Heather’s Journal talking more about the characters and their lives and some of the other details that weren’t discussed in the movie such as Heather’s boyfriend that was never mentioned in the film.

The film is also much more personal for me because I was like that when I was younger if you see the scenes where the college students are filming everything that moved.

We did those things when we were young and had a camera to film, and the segments remind me of the shoots that I went on when I was younger and working with a small crew that we all would stay in one room in the evenings.

I also like the film’s interview subjects that became characters in themselves. Characters like the mother and her baby daughter Ingrid that is scared of the stories that are told.

My favorites are the Father and Son-in-Law that are fishing in the stream arguing about the truth of the legend.

Now the Blair Witch Project did have a brief Controversy.

The film The Last Broadcast which was produced first however was released after tried to claim that Blair Witch was a rip-off of their film and while there were similarties the film featured much of it’s own original sgements and a far different ending and is highly recommended for Found Footage fans.  

The film is highly dated but It still has the appeal and it even changed the way that we market out films today.

Naturally a sequel was inevitable.

Now here is where the Blair Witch lost it’s thunder and to be quite honest with you the sequel was not that bad and is a true example of how much damage a studio can do to a film.

Now someone recently pointed out that in reality no studio executive wants to destroy a film they are just trying to make the film more marketable and they infact have the best intentions but you know what they say about the Road to Hell.

Directed by Joe Berlinger who was hot off of Paradise Lost 1 and 2 and the effect of those films are definitely seen in the film. 

First off the format on the film is far different than it's predecessor. Where the  Blair Witch Project had the found footage format Blair Witch 2 was narrative following a small group of Blair Witch enthusiasts who venture out into the woods on a tour led by a pre Burn Notice Jeffrey Donovan and fall victim to the witch. 

While I am a defender of the film because I know the truth behind it. 

In reality the studio re edited the film and shot additional scenes which destroyed the narrative and the direction that the director wanted to go.

Book of Shadows also featured a game inside the movie called The Secret of Esrever which was hidden messages in the movie intended for home video usage to solve the mystery and the ones that cracked the code would go to the Blair Witch Website and would access a deleted scene from the film.

The film also utilized a add campaign similiar to the one used to promote the original film, even featuring a Sci-Fi Channel  similar to the Curse of the Blair Witch titled Shadow of the Blair Witch and also the use of a book and theaters even featured a cardboard stand telling the history of the Blair Witch made to look like a museum display.

Where The Blair Witch Project was all the rage, Book of Shadows Blair Witch 2 was universally panned and despised and was accused of franchise milking and served to devalue the original film.

Granted I feel that is unfair because the film was good in it's own right but that is around the time that audiences began to turn on the film.

Haxan films went on to produce the short lived Blair Witch inspired television show FreakyLinks which can be seen on the Chiller Channel.

While the hype had died down the Legacy of the Blair Witch remains in the Found Footage genre as well as the use of the internet to promote films.

The film also reminds me of the time that it was made and my college days and is why it is included on my list of Halloween picks. 

UPDATE Halloween 2014

I was privileged to film the QnA at the 2014 Texas Frightmare Weekend where James Wallace maderated with Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard