By Jacob Cameron

Silent Night, Deadly Night is a remake of the controversial slasher film from 1984. This franchise has had a surprisingly long legacy over the past four decades. Spawning four sequels and a loose remake in 2012. Horror remakes have had a complex track record. With some transcending the original film and others turning out to be tremendous failures. This version of Silent Night, Deadly Night is, thankfully, one of the cases of the former.

Silent Night, Deadly Night was directed by Mike P. Nelson, who has experience with horror remakes. Having directed the 2021 remake of Wrong Turn. It tells the story of Billy Campbell, played by Rohan Campbell (no relation), who witnessed the murder of his parents on Christmas Eve night when he was a boy. Now, grown up, he has become a man with a dark passenger who murders those who the dark passenger wants dead. Billy takes a job in a small town where he finds love and no shortage of characters just as evil as he seemingly is.

Rohan Campbell has the dubious distinction of being Corey Cunningham in Halloween Ends. It is a disastrous film and makes no mistake. However, he gives a great performance as Billy. There is a surprising amount of complexity here that was not expected. Without spoiling too much, a decision is made with the Billy character that is eerily similar to a certain serial killer from a famous tv show from the 2010’s. This could’ve been redundant; but it’s actually well realized.

The town is an interesting place to have a movie like this. Billy arrives in the town, which is being choked by the metaphorical grip of a child kidnapper. Billy’s love interest Pamela, played by Ruby Modine, is a really good character with her own complexities. There’s a morally questionable cop as well. There’s so much going on underneath the surface that is actually interesting. Even Billy’s dark passenger has their moments to shine. 

There are enough references to the other Silent Night films that make for fun Easter eggs, but nothing to make it too distracting. There’s even a reference to the “it’s garbage day!” line from Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 that is present. The priority is to make a step in a more original direction while paying homage to what came before. This was a successful attempt.

The biggest flaw is the fact that there are certain elements that are very familiar. The dark passenger has been done in movies as recently as the Venom trilogy of films. There is definitely a lot of that DNA present throughout the film. But this is not a killer of the film, and the overall quality of the film is good to the fact that it’s hard to notice.

Ultimately, this was a pleasant surprise. With a tease for a sequel that is left until the very last frame. If another sequel is made based on this one, that would be a good thing.

4 stars