Dir: Lee Harry
Release Date: 1987
“The now-adult Ricky talks to a psychiatrist about how he became a murderer after his brother, Billy, died, which leads back to the Mother Superior”
Christmas comes but once a year.
And this kind of film only comes around every once in a while if you're lucky.
The original Silent Night Deadly Night was about Billy who, after his insane Grandpa shouts in his face, became very afraid of Santa Claus.
Afraid that, if you weren't good ALL year, Santa wouldn't leave gifts but would PUNISH you. Good old Grandpa.
After then witnessing a crook dressed as Santa kill his parents, he believes it all. Add to this, that he and his young brother Ricky are then sent to an Orphanage run by a sadistically strict Mother Superior who also dishes out PUNISHments and we got a ticking time-bomb on our hands.
Fun Fact: Silent Night Deadly Night 2 was banned in the UK by the BBFC.
Presumably for being shit
The first film (1984 release) is actually a decent movie which led to this sequel almost being demanded by the studio. Sadly, they fumbled it badly. The original director (Charles E Sellier Jnr) declined to return and they didn't have enough new material for a feature length movie in the first place.
The opening 40 minutes of this sequel is mostly footage from the original being recapped by Ricky Caldwell (inexplicably changed from Ricky Chapman) who is played by the human eyebrow frenzy, Eric Freeman.
I don't really want to dwell on the flashbacks as it does a disservice to the original film so I will concentrate on just what this one managed to add/skew/ruin/contradict.
We start with Ricky in a psychiatric hospital being interviewed by a Doctor to try to get inside his head for some reason. They get off to a great start.
"I'm Doctor Bloom. You can call me Henry. Or if you would feel more comfortable, you can just call me Doc"
"Fuck off, Doc!"
Classic Ricky right there. That's his first line in the film even though he's been on screen for nearly 5 minutes, smirking and a sneering.
We get a caption: 'DATE: Dec 24th'.
"So, who killed your parents?"
And we are off! On a rocky road of reused footage and frequent narration irritation.
We recap the killing of his parents where he tells us exactly what happened.
"How do you remember all of this?", which is a very fair question.
"Because I was there!", he replies. Which I suppose is true.
Here he is in fact, committing all of this to memory for years to come.....
With that perfect explanation, we head back in time to the 1st movie for some sneaky tit action where Billy is a creepy peeper before being caught and PUNISHed.
Cut back to Ricky telling Dr Bloom he is the 13th shrink trying to get into his head which is massively irrelevant to the film. Still, they included it so I did too.
Flashbacks to little Billy punching Santa at the Orphanage, being PUNISHed and so on until he leaves the orphanage at the age of 18 to work in a local toy-shop.
More killings from the original film, more tits from the original film and more combinations of killings AND tits from the original film. And yes, this does include Linnea Quigley getting impaled on the antlers of a wall mounted stag head!
Fun Fact: Even if we pretend to believe that a baby could remember every detail about his parents being killed, there is still no way to explain how Ricky would know any of these details of Billy's story unless he was also there at the time. Which he wasn't.
SPOILERS! At the end of the 1st film, the goddam cops shoot the wrong Santa at the Orphanage before Billy even gets there. This turns out to be the old Priest, Father O'Brien, who was deaf and couldn't hear the instructions to "Freeze!"
I mention this because when Ricky tells this part, he says it was 'Old Man Kelsey', the janitor, who was also deaf. Making this even more ridiculous is that Ricky actually WAS there for this shooting and he WAS old enough to have remembered it.
Right, we've caught up now at 40 minutes and we've got an actual new film to talk about though we do stay with the flashback retelling to the Doctor motif.
The Orphanage had closed, Sister Mary sent Ricky to live with the Rosenbergs where there would be no Christmas and we get a little home video of a happier time.
Fun Fact: Ricky tells us he was 12 at the time but the end credits, and subsequently IMDB, refer to him as 'Ricky at 10'. This error is repeated later when he refers to 5 years later (Ricky at 15).
Funner Fact: The actor playing Ricky at 15 or 17 (Darrel Guilbeau) was 24 at the time and 3 years older than Eric Freeman who played Ricky at 18 for the majority of the film.
It's at this tender age of....... 15...... that Ricky is out walking when he sees a couple having a picnic in a field. The man, Eddie, is getting a little heavy handed to the point of actually just tearing off his date's shirt and slapping her face sparking a flashback to Ricky's mother's similar death when he was an incredibly aware baby.
"NAUGHTY!", Ricky confirms
After receiving a knee to groin, Eddie declares defiantly
"Fuck this, I'm getting a beer. I'll be back"
After getting a beer from his car, Ricky suddenly appears in the behind the wheel and drives over him. And then reverses over him. And then drives over him. And then reverses over him. That'll stop him.
Eddie's date has witnessed all of this from a distance and when Ricky gets out of the car, he sees her standing there. She says one thing to him....
"Thank you".
Then they both walk off in opposite directions, thus ending the flashback.
Thankfully, Doctor Bloom is making some very detailed notes so he can pass the info onto the Police. They should be able to trace this killing without any delay.
We swiftly move on now to Eric Freeman playing Ricky in his own flashbacks and leads us to the most inventive, and preposterous, kill in the film.
He's 18 now apparently which really makes you admire the brave choice of them casting 3 people who look absolutely nothing like each other to play the same character. They may as well have had Wesley Snipes playing him at some point.
Working in the kitchens of Chez Ritz (?!), Ricky is taking out some trash when he hears and watches a loan shark called Rocko beating down and killing some guy.
"NAUGHTY", Ricky confirms.
Even though Rocko has just punched a man to death, his fists have no effect on Ricky who takes 3 to the face without flinching and lifts him off his feet with one hand while ramming an umbrella through him and opening it with the other!
Fun Fact: IMDB seem to believe this is a 'Goof': "While killers in horror movies frequently have super human strength, to push a whole umbrella through someone is really something that would require a force of a machine and umbrella would break because of the force. In other words, it's impossible, and so is the scene showcasing that."
Thanks for clearing that up as that's the only bit I had trouble believing.
Dr Bloom is now sweating, clearly disturbed by Ricky's possessed eyebrows.
"Tell me about Jennifer". He says.
"Eat shit", is Ricky's clever response until he is shown a headshot of her which prompts him to readily admit she was the only thing he ever cared about before going on to talk about her at length and in great detail.
Their meeting looks like a deleted scene from Grease or some shit and we quickly cut to a buttock fest of a sex scene.
IMDB says that this scene was dramatically cut but my epic 3hr video entitled 'Buttock-Fest', is still available on request. Discreet delivery. Which was one of the taglines.
A cinema date brings us the trailer announcement of, "CHAOS! More Action! More Violence! More Death! More Destruction than any film ever seen before!". To be honest, it sounds an amazing film. I'm in!
Unfortunately, there's a dick in the back row shouting rubbish and generally being well, a dick. You can tell he will not be doing this for long.
This is worth noting, the film they have gone to watch at the cinema is, "....about this guy who dresses up like Santa Claus and kills people".
They've gone to watch Silent Night, Deadly Night! It's actually the first film! They are starring in the sequel and watching the original even though the sequel they are starring in is actually half of the first film anyway!? That's some crazy shit!
While Ricky is away killing the dick at the back of the theatre (not a euphemism), we meet Chip who is Jennifer's ex-boyfriend and back in town to shake things up.
All he does in the cinema is make it obvious he deserves to die and gives Ricky time to somehow get back a seat which he can't possibly have got into without being noticed.
A day later (maybe) Ricky and Jennifer are out walking through a neighbourhood when they come across Chip who's having some car trouble.
After an altercation, Jennifer is knocked to the floor and Chip once again proves he should die so Ricky decides to get to it and make it happen.
This murder begins by far the best sequence of the film. Ricky just goes totally insane on a killing spree sprinkled with awful fake laughter and eyebrow raising galore.
Ricky grabs Chip, slams his head in the car bonnet/hood and then connects the charger cables to his tongue. Chip starts to convulse until his eyeballs explode through his sunglasses. Splendid.
Unfortunately, Jennifer tells Ricky that she now hates him which leads to the classic Ricky response of "PUNISH" and some strangulation with the car aerial.
Poor, beautifully buttocked Jennifer. Sadly we get no buttock flashback (album title).
A cop shows up and pulls his weapon (no) and shouts freeze. Ricky declines the offer, turns the gun and shoots the cop in the face.
Ricky looks at the gun like he's never seen one before and laughs. His laugh is amazing by the way, he pretty much just says 'Ha ha ha ha' a lot. He just speaks the words.
Some guy comes out to see what the Hell the noise is about.
He even says, "Hey, what the Hell's the noise?", which is how I knew.
Ricky just shoots him dead on his own doorstep. Ha ha ha ha.
We now arrive at arguably the best known part of the film. A guy is taking out his dustbin/trashcan, Ricky shouts, "GARBAGE DAY!", and shoots him dead.
It's brilliantly irrelevant to the whole plot and merely explains why he's moving his bins but you can get memes, gifs, t-shirts and more all related to it! Type it into search engines. Boom!
A small girl rides her trike into Ricky now and says, "Excuse me, Mister". He picks her up and punches her in the face 15 times, snaps her neck and smashes her into the pavement. Sadly not. "That's okay", he replies with a quick, 'Ha ha ha', for his trouble.
A car drives towards him and he fires 3 times at it until it just flips over as it passes him very closely in a stunt that looks incredibly dangerous. Not content with the flip, the car then explodes which is movie law.
He continues his stroll until he meets a Police roadblock.
"DROP IT!", is met with more lackluster laughter and he raises the gun to his own head.
"No! Don't do it!"
"It's not worth it!"
"Don't be a fool!"
"Don't kill yourself!"
These are shouted one at a time in quick succession by the ever so caring Cops who are all still training their guns on him.
If you were counting along with the bullets fired, like I was, you'd know that the gun is now empty so it just clicks which makes Ricky do his little laugh again and we cut back to the present day interview room.
Ricky stubs his cigarette out on the photo of Jennifer and leaves the room while we pan out to reveal that Doctor Bloom is dead after being strangled with the tape still wrapped around his neck from the recorder.
"Hey! What the?!"
"Oh my God! He's looooooose!", are the off screen comments from people in the hospital.
"Ha ha ha ha ha", Ricky responds".
Detectives explain to Sister Margaret, who has been brought into the investigation for some reason, that Ricky escaped 6 hours ago and it's Christmas Eve!
Sister Margaret explains that the orphanage has been closed and that Mother Superior had a stroke, retired and lives alone.
"He'll have to find her first", are the ominous words we leave the scene with.
After killing a man and taking his Santa outfit, Ricky uses the phone book, like the Terminator, to find his target.
"Santa's back!", he threatens and hangs up immediately.
FINALLY SANTA! There's only 10 minutes left of the film!
What Ricky doesn't realise is that the old Mother Superior is turning into a lizard or some shit as her face is inexplicably scarred. I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen when you have a stroke and nothing about a fire is ever mentioned.
Fun Fact: Mother Superior lives at number 666
He quickly gets to her house and starts smashing the door in with his axe. Happily, even though she is in a wheelchair, she manages to evade him. Unhappily, because she's in a wheelchair, she falls down the stairs when he catches up with her and swings his axe.
Watching her fall down the stairs actually made me laugh and reminded me of the Leslie Nielsen Exorcist spoof film, Repossessed.
Thankfully, she has another wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs which made me laugh again as I imagined her always getting downstairs that way until I guessed she probably had a stair-lift installed. Shame.
She wheels to the kitchen and grabs a knife while Ricky takes ages getting downstairs and she calls him out.
"You're just like your brother, weak!", she says and that the reason they were punished is because they were naughty. "You are being very very naughty!", she reiterates.
"Naughty this!", Ricky ridiculously says as he swings the axe down on her head.
Cut to the cops arriving and making their way into the house. Mother Superior is sitting statue still and not replying to them when Sister Margaret shakes her by the shoulder. Rudely, Mother Superior's head just falls off and rolls onto the floor.
Sister Margaret's screams are cut short by her just falling to the floor, assumingly dead as Ricky is standing directly behind her.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!", he seems to shout before raising the axe once again.
The detective opens fire and shoots Ricky who literally laughs it off. He is shot again, still okay and then a cop with a shotgun (his face is hidden in the shadows so it could have been Dr Loomis for all I know) blasts him through the glass doors into the garden.
We do a slo-mo pan of Ricky lying prone on the patio outside.
Sister Margaret is not dead at all, she must just have either fainted or fallen asleep. She is roused by the detective who tells her it is all over.
Unfortunately, she awakens and looks directly at the Mother Superior's severed head which is still on the floor and right next to her. She screams and we cut to Ricky's eyes opening and a cheeky little smile.
Fun Fact: IMDB Trivia has the stat that Ricky's eyebrows move up and down 130 times during this film. Impressive if true. Especially as he's not really in it that much.
THE END!!!
And so.....
How would a baby have total recall (no) of stuff that happened all those years ago?
How would he know all the details about his brother when Billy acted alone and Ricky wasn't there for most of it all.
How did they get away with just cobbling a film together using half of another film to pad it out?
Was Ricky 10 and 15 or 12 and 17?
Was it standard to shout Garbage Day at people if you see them with a bin? It sure is now!
Who the Hell has counted how many times Ricky moved his eyebrows?
In case you wanted to count them, here's a video which shows another superb reason the internet was invented
The movie, along with the 1st one is currently available on Amazon Prime.
PUNISH!
FAVOURITE CHARACTER:
Eric Freeman playing Ricky at age 18. Totally insane throughout but conveying it mostly through forced laughter and eyebrow movements.
FAVOURITE MOMENT:
Ricky's slow walking killing spree where he wanders aimlessly through the neighbourhood, shoots people, laughs unconvincingly and says one-liners.
FAVOURITE LINE:
Ricky: "GARBAGE DAY!!"
I know it is arguably the most mentioned bit of the movie but it is so for a reason. He's literally just pointing out why the guy was putting his trash can out. Nothing else. It's not clever, it's not witty, it just is garbage day. Brilliant.
FAVOURITE DEATH:
As topless Linnea Quigley on the antlers is from the 1st film, I give this to Chip and his exploding eyeballs.