Silent Night, Bloody Night

--Reviewed by Lindy Loo

I was a little bit disappointed when I went to watch this movie last night, as I thought it was Silent Night, Deadly Night, when in reality it was Silent Night, Bloody Night, which meant no santa climbing out of the chimney with an ax. But when it started and I realized that it was actually a 1970s horror flick that kinda had the feel of, say, Carnival of Souls or something, the disappointment quickly cleared up.

Plotline: Quite honestly, I had a hard time following the plotline here. I think I was just in a distractable mood, but the jist of it seemed to be that there's a bad house in a small town. Bad things happened there--a man caught fire, it served as a mental institution once upon a time. The grandson returns to sell the house. He has a penchant for busting up car windows and being creepy. Somehow an escaped mental patient serial murderer gets involved. (The more I try to recall the plot, the more I realize I didn't quite understand it.)

Scariness factor: It has some creepy moments. Not scary, but definitely creepy.



Gross-Out Factor: It's not horrendously violent. But it had a few surprisingly realistic bloody moments.

Complaints: My major complaint: this is not so much a Christmasy horror movie. When I think Christmasy horror, I think dripping with X-mas trees and tinsel and murderous Santa Clauses, or something along those lines. This just happened to take place around X-mas, and the holiday season seemed for the most part irrelevant. Mildly disappointing as I was hoping for something to put me in the X-mas mood. Other major complaints: this movie moved really slowly. I kept spacing out and thinking about all the X-mas cooking and baking I have to do over the next handful of days. I think this may also have contributed to my other major complaint which was the convolutedness of the plotline. I'm still not 100% sure I understand who was what and why things happened the way they happened. I *THINK* I understand, but I honestly would have to watch it again.

High Points: This movie has a lot of delightfully creepy 1970s-esque cinematographical moments. Its moodiness is quite wonderful at times, especially in the flashback sequence. If only the pacing had kept up. There was something very bare and raw about this film that I was surprised by and kind of liked, enough so that I'll probably give it a second chance sometime and see if perhaps the plotline wasn't quite so difficult to follow after all. It actually has some strangely creepy moments in it. And some strangely realistic moments as well.

Overall: The pacing of this movie *was* incredibly slow, but the moodiness kind of made up for that fact. I would definitely give this a second try sometime as it seems to deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to quality. It may not be the best of movies, and it may disappoint in the Christmas-department, but the way it was filmed was intriguing, and it was quite creepy at times, so I'd say it would be worth giving a watch sometime when you have an hour and a half to spare.

Grade: B