Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

"The nightmare is about to begin... again!"

Plot

Ricky, the brother of the original Santa killer, is in a psychiatric ward after witnessing the death of his brother at the hands of the police. 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?

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Or should I say Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 1 and 1/2? After one of slasher lore's most infamous and controversial entries, the scene was set for a kick ass sequel which upped the gore and nudity quota, ramped up the mean-spiritedness, 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. But we were never going to get that, especially with all of the controversy surrounding the original. What we get is something that barely resembles a feature film. After all of the expectations of a sequel to one of the most infamous slashers of all time, to then be greeted with this slab of nonsense is to wish for something for Christmas, only to receive the Temu/Wish/insert cheap copy here version instead.

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 its, well, cheapest. Having read about some behind-the-scenes information, it appears that the producers wanted to re-cut the original film and re-release it to try and recoup some of the revenue lost from all of the protests, inserting a couple of new scenes of a mental patient discussing his past to make the original film appear as though it was the figment of their imagination (and thus couldn't be taken seriously, just played off as a dream to concerned parents).

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 unsurprisingly means we've already seen this footage before so what is the point in recapping the entire film again? You might as well just watch the original in its 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.

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. But this is over forty minutes into the film so once Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is done playing the original's greatest hits, its too late for it to try and stand on its own feet. Having Ricky as the central character makes a lot of sense and even having some flashbacks to build his character and set-up his breakdown would have worked if it hadn't have been half the film's worth of them.

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 and it isn't very Christmassy - you do get the sense that the producers were trying to downplay as much as the festive theme as they could. Ricky 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). Ricky does get to sport some silly lines though and, coupled with Freeman's exaggerated delivery, you get some of the sub-genre's best remembered lines like "Garbage day!" If it wasn't for Freeman going all in with his character, the film would have been dreadful but his over-the-top intensity makes up for a few shortcomings.

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Final 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. These aren't the films to watch back-to-back for a marathon!

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Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 Director(s): Lee Harry Writer(s): Michael Hickey (characters), Paul Caimi (characters), Lee Harry (story & screenplay), Joseph H. Earle (story & screenplay), Dennis Patterson (story), Lawrence Appelbaum (story) Actor(s): Eric Freeman, James Newman, Elizabeth Kaitan, Jean Miller, Darrel Guilbeau, Brian Michael, Henley Corrine Gelfan, Michael Combatti Duration: 88 mins