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Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2
(1987)
Plot
Ricky, the brother of the original
Santa killer, is in a psychiatric ward after witnessing the death of his
brother. He
tells all to a doctor and, as he recounts the tragic events surrounding the
death of his parents and his brother's killing spree, he begins to slowly go
insane himself.
Ricky escapes, embarking on a murderous spree in a Santa Claus outfit just
like his brother. His target: Mother Superior, the cruel disciplinarian nun
from the original who pushed his brother over the edge. Can anyone stop
Ricky?
Review
Or should I say Silent Night,
Deadly Night Part 1 and 1/2? After one of slasher lore's most infamous
entries, the scene was set for a kick ass sequel which upped the gore and
nudity quota, threw a few more Christmas jokes around and generally upset
more kids and parents at the sight of a murderous Santa ending the lives of
naughty people. Unfortunately we don't get any hint of that and I feel
grossly ripped off, as if I've just opened my presents on Christmas Day to
find a shiny new xBox 360 waiting for me but there's no controller to play
on it with!
Why am I feeling so aggrieved? Maybe it has to do with the fact that the first
forty minutes of this sequel were basically flashback scenes from the original!
Even though Ricky wasn't present during most of what happened thus making
any flashbacks illogical, the film still pretty much shows us a highlight
reel of the original's exploits - a sort of "best of" if you would. It's
cheap padding at it's, well, cheapest. Apparently this was shot in ten days
and it shows because they've only shot enough footage for half of a film!
Only people who saw the original would even consider watching this and then
that surprisingly means we've actually seen this footage anyway so what is
the point in recapping the entire film again? You might as well just
watch the original in it's entirety all over again or simply skip this to the half way point.
It's all well and good seeing Linnea Quigley's classic 'death-by-antlers'
scene again but these aren't brief highlights, these are full scenes played
out to the max to fill the running time. Having read up further, it appears
that the producers wanted to re-cut the original film and insert a couple of
new scenes of a mental patient to make the original film appear as though it
was the figment of their imagination. I'm actually kind of glad that the
film turned out this way because that would have been even more criminal!
It's pretty hard to review this properly since I've already covered most of
it in my review for the original! I was
hoping for a lot more fresh footage because the new stuff with Ricky was
pretty entertaining, especially when he goes on his murderous rampage through the streets
with the handgun leading to a couple of unique death scenes involving death
by car jump-leads. Eric Freeman is great
as Ricky though - the guy is built like a tank and certainly
adds a different physical element to the role of the generic slasher. He's
quite a sympathetic character too and, like his brother from the original,
it's easy to understand just why he turns into a psycho. But there's not
really much for him to do. He doesn't even don the trademark Santa outfit
until very late in the film when he's tracked down Mother Superior (played
by a different actress this time, wearing a silly prosthetic mask to make
her look like Lilyan Chauvin from the original).
Verdict
Silent
Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is basically two films in one. If you haven't
seen the original then fear not as this has all of the best bits.
Unfortunately the new footage shot for the sequel just isn't worth sitting
through it all again, especially if you've only just recently watched the
original!
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