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Too much of everything

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Erratically inventive horror film. The screenplay comes across as imaginative avoiding many clichés of the genre. Sure, there's the shopworn escaped maniac terrorizing respectable people as they come to an accursed old house. Not too much new here, but that's only the surface. Beneath, there's a novel story of events happening years ago that suddenly burst into the present as the new owner of the old house moves to sell it. The clues as to the background story dribble out until the shattering flashback that mostly ties things together. (My copy is from a Mill Creek collection, and the visual quality is poor. So I don't want to pass hasty judgment on the movie itself.) Still, the plot's crux concerning what happened to the maniacs, though imaginative, remains quite a stretch.Good to see movie great John Carradine again, even if in diminished condition. However, giving him a bell to ring instead of spoken lines deprives viewers of one of moviedom's great basso voices. (I wonder if he was perhaps ill.) Also, I wonder if the well-known Patrick O'Neill's rather brief appearance was to build marquee appeal. It would seem any number of lesser actors could have played his lawyer role. Then too, I don't recall seeing actor James Patterson before, but he's got one of the great non-Hollywood faces I've seen, definitely unlike the usual leading man. Plus, casting him in an appropriately ambiguous role helps suspense.All in all, it's an interestingly creepy production, heavier on plot than blood splatter, despite the title.

"Silent Night, Bloody Night" focuses on a small town New England mansion with a grim past; Wilfred Butler, the home's owner, burned to death there on Christmas Eve 1950. Some years later, a lawyer of Butler's son arrives in town on Christmas Eve to assess the property for sale, setting in motion a night-long series of axe murders.I first saw "Silent Night, Bloody Night" years ago via an absurdly grainy, muddy print with near-inaudible sound, and remember being completely perturbed by everything about it. At the time I wasn't sure if this was because of the turbid quality of the film stock, or just because the movie gave off that sort of vibe. I've since been able to watch the film in a higher quality print with optimal sound (this print carries the title card, "Death House," and is the best in circulation), and can now say that I think it may have been a mixture of both."Silent Night, Bloody Night" may be the first real Christmas horror film, though it is not a picture that plays much into the holiday theme; instead, it merely employs the Christmas Eve setting as a backdrop for the profoundly Gothic and twisted horror story it has to tell. It also may be one of the first real slasher films, even predating "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and its holiday horror peer "Black Christmas," which really makes it stand out from a historical perspective. In some ways, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" has been neglected outside of genre purists, and the film honestly deserves a wider audience.Let's make things clear here: this is most definitely a B-movie. The performances are uneven, at times hammy, and there is a gritty edge to the entire thing that pervades almost every scene; and yet, there is also something surprisingly elegant about the film. Though you can't tell from most of the prints in circulation, it is actually a really nicely shot film; the looming mansion and snowy New York countryside (posed as a Massachusetts stand-in) are chillingly captured, and the scenes that unfold within the mansion are dark and atmospheric. The entire film is drenched in a dreary tone that really works to offset the Christmas theme, which makes for an intriguing combination. I hate to be speculative—but I'm going to be anyway—in saying that the film also appears to have been inspirational to some of the key elements of the cult classic "Black Christmas," which would follow it two years later. They are remarkably different films, but share in common menacing phone calls and unnerving POV shots from the killers' perspectives that are too similar to be mere coincidence. Where "Black Christmas" aims for ambiguity, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" takes a more classical approach, unraveling a small-town history and subtly exposing itself with a twisted resolution that is in some ways almost Shakespearean.The film features an array of respected old Hollywood actors, including John Carradine, Patrick O'Neal, and Walter Able, as well as Mary Woronov as the mayor's daughter, and a variety of fellow Warhol superstars making small appearances as asylum inmates in a key flashback scene.Overall, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is a moody and genuinely unnerving slasher film that deserves a wider audience than it has. The nearly incomprehensible print of the film—which also happens to be the most widely circulated—has probably lost it a great deal of viewers, which is understandable on some levels, but beneath the grit and the grime, there is a truly eerie and demented horror film that is far more layered than you'd expect it to be. Oh, and did I mention it has one of the greatest axe murder scenes in movie history? 9/10.

Story that takes place in Arlington MA (my home town:)). A creepy old mansion that has been deserted for years is going to be sold...despite the will of the former owner who said it should never be touched. The real estate agent who helped sell it (top billed Patrick O'Neal) and his girlfriend decide to spend a night in the mansion...and are axed to death. Soon townspeople are getting calls from the mansion telling them to come on up...to celebrate.The story is disjointed (to say the least), the dialogue is terrible and some of the acting is pretty bad...but it works in spots. It was shot in the winter giving it a sparse, creepy atmosphere. The house itself is beautiful...and scary. Genre favorites John Carradine and Mary Woronov are on hand and are pretty good. The murders are mostly heard and not seen but that actually works in their favor. Best of all is an incredibly eerie sequence during the last half hour shot in sepia. That part alone makes this worth watching. Also there are a few surprising (if totally implausible) twists at the end. It's worth at least one viewing for horror fans.

Made in 1972, but not released until 1974, 'Silent Night, Bloody Night' ('Night of the Dark Full Moon) stands as an (undeservedly) obscure footnote to the slasher genre which went onto blossom in the late seventies/early eighties with the likes of 'Halloween' and 'Friday the 13th'…and which has been a Hollywood staple ever since. However, while its footnote status could be argued to be undeserved in that it is actually a fine exercise in suspense as well as a brutal exercise in obsession and madness, it is somewhat understandable as the movie's charms are somewhat obscured by a certain amount of low-budget B-movie sloppiness.The film takes place as a flashback from final girl Diane (Woranov) and relates the attempted sale of a house-cum-asylum owned by a reclusive local man by the name of Wilfred Butler and which, after his death is passed to his grandson Jeffery (Patterson) and subsequently abandoned. Jeffery hires a big-city lawyer type who travels up to the town where he meets the mayor, the sheriff, Tess the switchboard operator, and the mute Mr. Towman, all of whom show some concern about the house and its sale. The atmosphere from the off is eerie and oppressive, due in part to the looming presence of the house, the oddness of the locals, and also in part from the fact that, intentional cinematographic choice or not, the film is very dark. To this is added the information that a lunatic is loose and when people start dying Diane and Jeffery begin to uncover the disturbing history that the house has been witness to.As the plot begins to unfold, culminating in a bizarre sepia-tinted recollection (which has cameos from a couple of people famous for hanging out in Warhol's Factory), I was surprised by how twisted and genuinely horrific the backstory actually is. However, I must admit that in the first 30 minutes I was tempted to stop watching the film on a couple of occasions as I felt it to be a bit amateurish! This was mainly due to the overuse of narration which seemed to be a lazy way to communicate what's going on: simply telling, rather than integrating it into dialogue or communicating it through cinematic craft etc. In addition, the film breaks its own logic as the whole story is told as a reminiscence from Diane which in literary terms situates the film as a first-person limited narrative and yet there are countless scenes which don't feature her and which she would therefore have no knowledge of and be unable to recollect.Having said this, I am happy I kept with the film as, whether despite or because of its flaws, the overall impact of the movie was more than I was expecting and many ideas in the film stayed with me for a good while afterwards. Overall, 'Silent Night, Bloody Night' is a gritty, intelligent, and surprisingly affecting film, which deserves slightly more recognition than it has…but which nonetheless serves its role in the hidden history of the slasher movie admirably and with pride.*************************Public domain movie. Watch for free here (as 'Silent Night, Bloody Night'): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jGmLrLn0xY