Film / Silent Night (2012)

I'm dreaming of a bright Christmas.

Stein Karsson: Let me tell you about Christmas. It ain't all candy canes and pretty lights. Christmas can fuck you up. I heard this story. This fella was pissed that his wife left him on account of him being a dull man. She took up with a more exciting fellow. The husband was distraught. He went to the party they were at dressed as Santa, took with him a weapon, one he made with his own hands. And he set about killing them that was naughty. The wife's boyfriend ran, left her behind. She begged for forgiveness, pleaded for her life. He had no mercy for sinners, burnt 'em to a crisp. He's still doing it too, every year a new town.
Deputy Aubrey Bradimore: Everyone knows that story. It's an urban legend.
Stein: It ain't. Have you been a naughty girl, deputy?

Silent Night is a 2012 Slasher Movie, and a loose remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night starring Jaime King, Malcolm McDowell, Donal Logue, Ellen Wong, and Brendan Fehr.

As the small town of Cryer, Wisconsin is preparing for its annual Christmas festivities, a mysterious psychopath in a Santa Claus costume begins brutally slaughtering anyone he deems naughty as the Sheriff's Department desperately seeks to stop him.

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This film has the examples of:

• An Arm and a Leg: Mrs. Roach's dismembered remains are found in the Watson house, and Maria has a leg chopped off with an axe.
• Ax-Crazy: Ronald Jones Jr. is a brutal serial killer who rampages through the community and brutally kills anyone he believes to be naughty, going as far as to murder a bratty teenage girl.
• Bad Santa: The killer, Jim, and Stein.
• Bathroom Breakout: Maria attempts to escape from Santa by climbing the motel bathroom window. She falls out of the third storey window and lands on a pile of trash bags on the wasteland behind the motel.
• Bittersweet Ending: Aubrey manages to burn Ronald Jr alive in a confrontation at the station, stopping his rampage and escaping the building with Brenda. But she has now lost his father while the town has not only lost its mayor, but also now has its sheriff's department gutted with Cooper dying and Aubrey left as the town's only surviving deputy - and unknown to everyone, Ronald Jr survived the encounter (albeit badly burned) and leaves Cryer for parts unknown.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The Santa mask wore by the killer gives this effect.
• Body in a Breadbox: While searching the abandoned house, Deputy Bradimore finds Mrs. Roach's hand in a drawer; still clutching her ringing phone. The rest of her body is found in other pieces of furniture in the room.
• Boom, Headshot!: Stein's death.
• Boundand Gagged: Alana Roach is tied and gagged in the intro, crying and screaming in terror as the killer shaves and gets his Santa costume on.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: One of the victims is a snotty teenage girl who knocks her mother's heart pills out of her hand and and demands to be taken to the mall.
• Calling Card: The killer Santa leaves a red and white gift box containing a piece of coal with his victims.
• Chewing the Scenery: Jim Epstein's big speech when he's put into a holding cell for being a suspect for the murders.
  Jim Epstein: Because it's that time of the year, sheriff! Yeah, Christmas, when people go off the deep end. Yeah, you know why. 'Cause they spend too much, and they drink too much, and they eat too much, and they think too much. And they look around at all that fake fun and happy laughter, and they go, "Where the fuck is my cup of joy, huh?!"
• Corrupt Church: Reverend Madeley skims from the collection plate and hits on young female parishoners, and wonders why nobody is showing up to church anymore.
• Crapsack World: Cryer is shown to be one, with many of its citizens being unpleasant assholes who are involved with drugs, affairs and other unsavory activities. It's lampshaded by Sheriff Cooper, who questions when the town has gotten so sleazy; in response, Aubrey notes the town has been struggling since its lumber mill was shut down.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: There are a lot of them throughout the movie, but the most horrifying would be poor Maria, who gets her leg chopped off before the killers feeds into a wood chipper. Foot-first.
• Deus Ax Machina: During the climatic battle, Deputy Bradimore grabs a fire axe from a cabinet inside the burning police station to fight Santa, who is wielding an axe of his own.
• Disconnected by Death: Sheriff Cooper is on the phone to Mayor Revey when the killer Santa garrottes the mayor with a string of Christmas lights. However, Cooper is so wrapped up in what he is saying that he fails to notice, assumes the mayor's phone has cut out, and hangs up.
• Eye Scream:
  • Deputy Jordan is electrocuted to the point of his eyes exploding, like Chip in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2.
  • Deputy Giles is stabbed in the eye with a scythe.
  • Jim punches the killer in the face so hard it appears to cause one of his eyes to bleed.
• Fair Cop: Aubrey is an attractive younger woman who is a sheriff's Deputy. Unfortunately, this causes her to receive some creepy remarks and flirting from some of the more scummy townsfolk.
• Final Girl: Aubrey Bradimore, which makes sense considering she's the most competent of the police department.
• Fingore: Rev. Madeley gets three of his fingers sliced off when the killer stabs him to death.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The killer has a flamethrower at his disposal. It is what his father used to kill his ex-wife, after all.
• Flamethrower Backfire: This is how the modern killer Santa's father died, being engulfed in flames after he and his Homemade Flamethrower were shot.
• Gutted Like a Fish: Mr. Bradimore's death.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The killer's homicidal rampage takes place on Christmas Eve.
• High-Voltage Death: Deputy Jordan is electrocuted in a homemade electric chair that incorporates Christmas lights.
• Hypocrite: Reverend Madeley rants about sin during a sermon, with internet porn being one of the things he names as sinful. But he's a sleazy, perverted asshole who makes a creepy pass at Aubrey, takes pervy photos of Tiffany and the other attractive carol singers and pockets donation money for himself.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Three of them: ** The Norwood girl is impaled with a fire poker after the killer electrocutes her with a cattle prod.
  • Goldie, one of the people filming at the porn shoot, is killed via a scythe in the chest.
  • Tiffany is shoved onto some deer antlers and is impaled through her stomach.
• Jerkass: The Teenage Girl, Santa Jim, Stein Karsson, and Sheriff Cooper.
• Kill It with Fire: This is how the original Santa killer murders his cheating wife and how the current killer murders Sheriff Cooper.
• Lightning Gun: Ronald Jr. kills Mrs. Norwood's bratty teenage girl by electrocuting her with a cattle prod before stabbing her with a fireplace poker.

• Lost in a Crowd: A killer in a Santa costume is loose... in a town full of people in Santa costumes.
• Ms. Fanservice: Maria, who starts in lingerie while modeling for an amateur softcore porn shoot before getting topless. It turns into Fan Disservice as she's attacked by the killer and tries to run away while she's still topless, only to end up having her leg chopped off with an axe and forced into a wood chipper by the killer in one of the most brutal deaths in the entire movie.
  • Tiffany Revie, the town mayor's daughter who has been starring in porn without his knowledge, spends most of the movie in a Sexy Santa Dress, and later dresses up in red lingerie for her boyfriend.
• Mythology Gag:
  • While Tiffany's boyfriend Dennis is visiting his catatonic grandfather, the old man McKenzie springs to life and warns him that "Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year!"
  • Tiffany is hoisted onto a mounted deer head's antlers. Afterward, Santa gives her confused little sister a bloody gift.
  • While taking out the trash, Deputy Giles mutters, "What is this, Garbage Day?"
  • The killer's Start of Darkness was witnessing the death of his parents, which involved a criminal dressed as Santa, except this time, his father was the criminal Santa who murdered his mother.
• Pet the Dog: After killing Reverend Madeley, Santa gives the donation money the corrupt preacher stole to an elderly parishioner. He also gives Tiffany's little sister a candy cane (albeit a bloody one).
• Police Are Useless:
  • Sheriff Cooper plays this straight by being a ridiculously incompetent jerk who still gives sermons about the police work. Makes you wonder how he became sheriff in the first place.
  • Averted with Aubrey Bradimore, who proves herself to be the most competent of the police, especially in comparison to Cooper and Giles.
• Power Fist: Jim has his head beat in with brass knuckles that read "Ho Ho Ho".
• Raging Stiffie: Giles makes a crass remark about this early on.
  Giles: Maybe he got a boner.
  Bradimore: Ugh.
  Giles: Kids are squirming in his lap all day. It's bound to happen sooner or later.
• Ready for Lovemaking: Tiffany sprawls herself on the bed in her red lingerie, waiting for her boyfriend.
• Really Gets Around: Mrs. Roach, a local woman who was cheating on her husband with Deputy Jordan and one of the killer's first victims, had a reputation for this, with Cooper commenting that she was said to be sleeping with half the men in town.

• Serial Killer: The killer is revealed to be a man named Ronald Jones Jr., the owner of a local chimney cleaning and repair service who had gone insane after his father Ronald Jones Sr. had burned his mother alive at her Christmas party for leaving him for another man and was gunned down by Aubrey's dad Hank. At one point, Karsson tells Aubrey the story, but he adds that it's rumored that he goes on a rampage in a random new town every year during the Christmas season; the later reveal of Ronald Jr as the killer heavily suggests this is his doing
• Sexy Santa Dress: These are worn by some carolers, and Tiffany.
• The Sheriff: Cooper is the appointed Sheriff of the small town, but unfortunately for Aubrey and the rest of the town, he’s not very good at it.
• Sinister Minister: Reverend Madeley is a perverted and greedy dirtbag who makes a sleazy pass at Aubrey and steals donation money for himself.
• Sinister Scythe: The killer uses one of these (with a candy cane handle) to kill Goldie, Frank, and Deputy Giles.
• Smug Snake: Stein Karsson is a creepy asshole who mocks Aubrey at his motel room after he previously managed to get the drop on her and almost killing her, telling her she "doesn't have it in her" to shoot him when he pulls a gun on her. She quickly proves him wrong when she shoots and kills him.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: When Tiffany tries to flee, Santa brings her down by throwing his axe such that it cuts her Achilles tendon with the precision of a scalpel, somehow.
• Titled After the Song: The movie takes its title from the Christmas carol "Silent Night".
• Too Dumb to Live: Jim Epstein is a shining example. He keeps taunting a guy who is holding an axe. And then he badmouths Christmas...
• Trash Landing: Maria attempts to escape from Santa by climbing the motel bathroom window. She falls out of the third story window and lands on a pile of trash bags on the wasteland behind the motel.
• Twisted Christmas: A small town is terrorized by a murderous psychopath dressed like Santa Claus who goes around viciously murdering anyone he believes to be "naughty" on Christmas Eve.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The tale Stein spins about a man who donned a Santa suit and used a homemade flamethrower to attack a Christmas party attended by his ex-wife was presumably based on the Covina massacre.
• Villain Opening Scene: The killer shaving and getting his Santa costume ready as Mrs Roach is bound and gagged on a mattress as she screams out in vein before he goes down into the basement and fatally electrocutes Deputy Jordan.
• Vomiting Cop: Aubrey ends up vomiting when she finds what's left of Deputy Jordan.

• Wood Chipper of Doom: When Maria, one of the actresses for the porn set, escapes from the motel, the killer chases her into a nearby Christmas tree farm, where he cuts her leg off with his axe and feeds her into a wood chipper.
• Would Hurt a Child: One of the victims is a bitchy tween, who gets electrocuted with a cattle prod, then impaled with a fire poker.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Sheriff Cooper seems to think he is in a comedy.

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