INITIATION: SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4 (USA/1990/BRIAN YUZNA)

Somehow unrelated to its three predecessors, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 follows the story of a journalist named Kim who, upon learning of a recent case of spontaneous combustion, decides to launch an investigation into the subject. Desperate to get approval from her boss, she offers to run the story for him, but as usual is pushed to one side. “Boys will be boys,” asserts her straw-haired colleague, but Kim is undeterred and starts researching independently. While at a bookstore, she encounters the proprietor Fima, who takes her to the spot on the roof where the woman had died. Visiting Fima at her home proves to be a wrong move when she passes out and subsequently wakes up to a visceral initiation ceremony involving rats and cockroach larvae.

The theme of Christmas has apparently been waylaid here, with only scant references to religion and the Bible to explain the festive setting. For the most part, director Brian Yuzna gives us gruesome insects with sexual overtones and sham pagan rituals in lieu of a story, Kim’s draw to the pathologically sinister Fima too obscure to be believable. Nonetheless, this fourth instalment in a famously tacky horror series is remarkably entertaining, with some godawful dialogue and subpar acting. Clint Howard, the physiognomically-challenged brother of director Ron Howard, portrays a creepy vagrant named Ricky (most likely a high point in his career), while former Bond girl Maud Adams is hilariously rigid as Fima. Naked Lunch it ain’t, but there’s fun to be had.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT III: BETTER WATCH OUT! (USA/1989/MONTE HELLMAN)

Ricky, the Santa Claus killer from the previous installments of Silent Night, Deadly Night, is in a coma after being shot by the police. Laura, a blind girl with premonitory powers, is asked to engage in an experiment that aims to find some form of communication with Ricky (the reason is never fully explained), but finds herself instead plagued by horrific nightmares about Christmas. When Laura takes some time off to visit her grandmother, Ricky is stirred awake by a tipsy orderly dressed as Santa Claus and begins his murderous spree again. When Laura suddenly feels something is amiss during her sojourn at Granny’s, she realises that the experiment may have been more successful than expected.

From the space-age cranial dome that Ricky supposedly requires in his comatose state, to the doctor’s parapsychological nonsense (“her body may be young, but her soul is old”), this dire sequel appears to take a laissez-faire approach to both science and horror, not to mention its overreliance on footage from the previous films to tell its story. Laura’s blindness is barely vital to the story besides supposedly giving credence to her psychic visions, which also seem too selective to be reliable. The film is not without its mildly amusing moments – Ricky hitchhiking with the dome still intact, for example – but it’s otherwise an abysmal experience with some unforgivably poor dialogue. Oddly enough, Lynch fans may recognise two of the film’s stars, Eric Da Re and Laura Harring, from Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive respectively.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 (USA/1987/LEE HARRY)

Opening with a promising meditative shot of the protagonist, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 follows the story of Ricky, younger brother of the murderous Billy from the first installment. Having committed a string of murders, Ricky languishes in a mental institute awaiting trial. Speaking with his psychiatrist, he begins to tell his own story, explaining to some extent his motives for carrying on his brother’s dirty work. Despite being a baby at the time, he somehow recalls his parents’ murder at the hands of a man in a Santa outfit, a grisly affair which had been the trigger for Billy. Ricky goes on to lose his new foster parents too, and somehow inherits Billy’s ‘naughty or nice’ murder mechanism, going out on a killing spree to avenge his brother’s death.

It’s a wonder how this sequel managed to cost more than its predecessor, given that it donates considerable time to ‘recapping’ the previous entry. Even more wondrous is how Ricky managed to remember so much of the first film, given that he was in it for all of two seconds. Lead actor Eric Freeman’s performance is marvellously over-the-top, producing some wonderful scenes such as the infamous “Garbage Day!” scene (link posted below). The saddest thing is that the filmmakers – and the actors, natch – clearly thought they were doing a great job with this sequel, given the histrionics of the screenplay. Needless to say, they were sorely mistaken – this sits up there (down there?) with Troll 2 and The Room.

"GARBAGE DAY!"

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (USA/1984/CHARLES E. SELLIER JR.)

On a childhood visit to see his grandpa in hospital, Billy learns the horrible truth behind Santa Claus – he doesn’t just reward good children, he punishes the bad ones. On the drive home, a man in a Santa outfit stops the car and kills both his parents. The experience understandably traumatises him, and his attempts to find an outlet for these violent memories do not go unnoticed at his orphanage. Years later, Billy begins work at a toy shop, where he is given the duty of playing Santa, a role he unsurprisingly struggles with. As he encounters scenes which remind him of that fateful night, he begins to take the ‘naughty or nice’ tenet seriously, killing off the people he believes deserve to be punished.

Naturally, the film doesn’t exactly brim over with realism. Billy manages to make it through adolescence without anyone clearly addressing his need to visit a psychiatrist, even as he is forced to revisit his parents’ murder so many times. There is little to be taken seriously either, particularly as we witness Santa Claus attempting to rape a woman within the first ten minutes. But as cheap and laughable as the film appears, it definitely earns its “cult film” reputation. Perhaps it stems from a hidden desire to see how an evil Santa would behave, a wish thoroughly fulfilled by this flamboyant slasher flick. And it has to be said, there is something terribly sinister about a headless child sliding down a hill on a sled.