Silent Night, Deadly Night
Director: Charles E. Seller Jr
Release year: 1984
On the way home from visiting his grandfather on Christmas Eve, young Billy Chapman watches his parents slain by a robber dressed as Santa Claus. At an orphanage, Billy is punished repeatedly by the Mother Superior for not coping with the trauma. His first job at eighteen is at a department store, and when Christmas Eve comes and Billy has to dress as Santa Claus, wearing the costume triggers his own killing spree.
This is a surprisingly rich stew of repressed trauma and violence that manages to be brutal, odd, amusing and quite moving in places. The child actors are excellent. In the opening scene, Billy meets his hospitalised grandfather, who terrorises him with the idea Santa Claus punishes children who are not perfect. He then witnesses the murder of his parents that includes the sexual assault of his mother by an unhinged assailant in a Santa Claus costume. Later, at an orphanage, he is punished for making a violent drawing, and when he observes through a keyhole a nun having sex with her boyfriend, he hears them beaten with a belt by the Mother Superior.
Billy learns through beatings to keep his mouth shut. It’s both funny and tragic that his homicidal rage comes out as Father Christmas. Violence, sex and Santa Claus make a combustible combination! In one chillingly amusing scene, a girl refuses to admit any naughtiness and so, unable to punish her, Billy begrudgingly gives her his blood-covered knife as a gift. The same scene in Christmas Bloody Christmas results in a more modernly obnoxious child getting an axe to the head. I prefer the original.