Silent Night Deadly Night 2
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''Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2'' is a 1987 American
slasher film A slasher film is a subgenre of horror films involving a killer or a group of killers stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic ...
edited, co-written with Joseph H. Earle, and directed by
Lee Harry Lee Harry is an American film director and editor, best known for directing the Christmas slasher film '' Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2'' and ''Street Soldiers''. Along with fellow Burbank editor Joseph H. Earle, Harry was tasked to use his edi ...
. It is the sequel to 1984's ''
Silent Night, Deadly Night ''Silent Night, Deadly Night'' is a 1984 American slasher film directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr., and starring Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, and Linnea Quigley. The story concerns a young man named Billy ...
'', and was followed by '' Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!'' in 1989. Its plot focuses on Ricky Caldwell, the brother of Billy Chapman, and his own trauma regarding his parents'
Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas, the festival commemorating nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus. Christmas Day is observance of Christmas by country, observed around the world, and Christma ...
murders, which triggers his own killing spree. The film relies heavily on flashbacks, utilizing approximately 30 minutes of archive footage from the original film.


Plot

On
Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas, the festival commemorating nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus. Christmas Day is observance of Christmas by country, observed around the world, and Christma ...
four years after the events of the first film, Ricky Caldwell (né Chapman), the now-adult brother of
serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...
Billy Chapman, is being held in a psychiatric hospital for a series of murders he himself committed. While being interviewed by the psychiatrist Dr. Henry Bloom, Ricky tells the story of the murders his elder brother committed throughout a series of several flashbacks. After this, Ricky tells his own story: after Billy's death, he was adopted by the Rosenbergs, a
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family and given a good upbringing, but his trauma was never addressed. After his adoptive father's death, Ricky loses his composure and commits a series of random murders, targeting people who are "naughty". A chance for a normal life seems to appear when he starts dating Jennifer Statson, but an unpleasant encounter with Jennifer's ex-boyfriend Chip sends Ricky over the edge. He kills Chip by electrocuting him with
jumper cable Jumper cables, booster cables or jumper leads are electric cables to connect two rail or road vehicles. Rail Jumper cables are between the locomotive, the railroad cars and the cab car or the driving van trailer on push-pull trains for mu ...
s attached to a car, while Jennifer watches in horror, and then strangles Jennifer to death with the car antenna after she screams that she hates him. A security officer witnesses this and as Ricky is about to be arrested, he grabs the officer's revolver and shoots him in the forehead, before going on a
shooting spree A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders in a short time, often in multiple locations. There are different opinions about what durations of time a killing spree may take place in. The United States ...
. He kills at least three more people throughout the neighborhood, including one man taking out his garbage. Eventually, Ricky finds himself in a stand-off with the police, and tries and fails to commit suicide before being arrested. Upon finishing his recollection to Dr. Bloom, Ricky strangles Dr. Bloom to death using audio tape and escapes from the mental hospital. He murders a
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Santa and steals his costume. Ricky plans to kill Mother Superior, the nun who abused Billy as a child, and whom Billy failed to murder four years earlier. After chasing Mother Superior throughout her house, Ricky succeeds in decapitating her with an axe. Ricky cleans up the blood and stages the scene, with Mother Superior sitting in a chair, her severed head balanced on her body. As soon as this is discovered by the police officers that arrive on the scene, a screaming Ricky leaps out and prepares to attack, but is shot down out the patio door. Sister Mary wakes up, and the police officer tells her, "He's gone, Sister. It's over." Then she turns over and sees Mother Superior's severed head, before screaming in terror. Ricky suddenly opens his eyes and smiles devilishly, indicating that he survived his gunshot wounds. The final shot shows the arm of the murderer dressed in a Santa suit (footage from
the first film ''The First Film'' is a 2015 British documentary film about cinema pioneer Louis Le Prince, made by David Nicholas Wilkinson. It argues the case that Le Prince, rather than the Lumière brothers, was the true inventor of moving pictures, making ...
) plunging a knife into the screen, before it freezes and the credits roll.


Cast


Principal


Archival footage


Production

On the film's
DVD commentary An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...
, the filmmakers say that they were paid a dismal amount of money to make the film. Originally, they say, they were told to re-edit the first film and pass it off as either a sequel or a re-release. Director
Lee Harry Lee Harry is an American film director and editor, best known for directing the Christmas slasher film '' Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2'' and ''Street Soldiers''. Along with fellow Burbank editor Joseph H. Earle, Harry was tasked to use his edi ...
said that he demanded that a new film be shot, though he did not have the budget to create an entirely new story. Harry says that they tried to find Eric Freeman to participate for the commentary track, but they were unable to locate him at the time. He later appeared in the commentary on the 2018 Scream Factory Blu-ray release


Release


Home media

The film was released on
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
and laserdisc in the United States by
International Video Entertainment Artisan Entertainment (formerly known as U.S.A. Home Video, International Video Entertainment (IVE) and LIVE Entertainment) was an American film studio and home video company. It was considered one of the largest mini-major film studios until i ...
in September 1987. The film was later reprinted on VHS in 1992 by Avid Home Entertainment. The film was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
on October 7, 2003, from
Anchor Bay Entertainment The revived Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. Anchor Bay Entertainment markets and releases "new release genre ...
, in a double-feature disc alongside the original ''
Silent Night, Deadly Night ''Silent Night, Deadly Night'' is a 1984 American slasher film directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr., and starring Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, and Linnea Quigley. The story concerns a young man named Billy ...
'', but was discontinued due to copyright problems, and went out of print. On December 4, 2012, Anchor Bay reissued it alongside the first film as a two-disc "Christmas Survival Double Feature", containing the same archival bonus features as the 2003 release. In the United Kingdom, the film was declined a certificate by the
BBFC The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited at cinemas and video works (su ...
after the distributors refused to make the cuts required for an '18' certificate. The ban was lifted in 2020 when the film was released uncut with an 18 certificate. On December 11, 2018,
Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios (formerly doing business as Shout! Factory, its current legal name), is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued i ...
under its Scream Factory label released the film in a two-disc set collector's edition on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
. It features a new 2K transfer of an archival theatrical print, with flashback footage of the first movie being taken from the same 4K master released by Shout! Factory in 2017. It contains new special features produced by Justin Beahm's Reverend Entertainment such as interviews with director Lee Harry, actors Eric Freeman, James Newman, Elizabeth Kaitan, Darrel Guilbeau, Kenny McCabe, and makeup effect artist Christopher Biggs. It also contains special features from the 2004 and 2012 DVD releases as well. Scream Factory also released the film in a limited edition collector set that is limited to 2,000 orders. It contains the Blu-ray set along with an 18x24 poster of the Blu-ray's artwork cover and an 8" action figure of Ricky Caldwell.


Reception


Box office

The film received a release theatrically in the United States in April 1987. It grossed $154,323 at the box office. In the United Kingdom, it was submitted to the
British Board of Film Classification The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organization, non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films exhibited ...
, which had refused to issue a certificate to it, effectively rendering it banned; it would be passed uncut with an 18 certificate on September 22, 2020.


Critical response

The film was heavily criticised due to the excessive use of footage from the original film.The film has gained a
cult following A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, boo ...
as a
black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...
, due to Freeman's performance. In addition, the scene in which Ricky shoots a man who is taking out his trash after shouting the phrase "Garbage day!" became a viral
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. On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has an approval rating of 22% rating, out of 9 reviews, and an average score of 4.2/10. ''Screen Rant'' has since deemed the film to be "a masterpiece of the so bad it's good variety," and "one of the worst movies ever made." Meanwhile, Rabin stated it was "the sleaziest, craziest, worst and most ridiculous movie ever made. That’s why it’s great and every one should see it." Emmett O'Regan of ''
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'' also selected it as the worst movie ever made, and an article in ''
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'' asserted that: "in terms of filmmaking quality—it’s hard to believe that in terms of pure, unadulterated crap, anything could ever surpass it." Additionally, ''Flavorwire'', ''
/Film ''/Film'', also spelled ''SlashFilm'', is a blog that covers movie news, reviews, interviews, and trailers. It was founded by Peter Sciretta in August 2005. The site's reviews appear on Rotten Tomatoes, and as of 2024, two of its leading film cr ...
'', and ''Paste'' have all listed it as the worst Christmas film ever made. ''Time Out'' and ''Flavorwire'' later included it on their respective lists of the worst films ever made.


Sequel

A sequel titled ''Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!'', was released in 1989.


See also

*
List of Christmas films Many Christmas stories have been Christmas film, adapted to feature films and TV specials, and have been broadcast and repeated many times on television. Since the popularization of home video in the 1980s, these films are sold and re-sold every ...


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 1980s American films 1980s Christmas horror films 1980s English-language films 1980s slasher films 1987 films 1987 independent films 1987 thriller films American Christmas horror films American independent films American sequel films American slasher films American thriller films English-language independent films Films about mass murder Films about orphans Films directed by Lee Harry Films set in 1988 Films set in psychiatric hospitals Films set in Utah Films shot in Los Angeles Films with screenplays by Lee Harry Santa Claus in film Silent Night, Deadly Night films English-language thriller films