MovieChat Forums > Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) Discussion > First 30 minutes- great! The next 50 or ...

First 30 minutes- great! The next 50 or so- meh!

posted 8 years ago by steveneven
7 replies | jump to latest

Was it just me, or did anyone else think the first 30 minutes of this movie were GREAT? I totally did not expect Santa Clause to kill both Billy's parents, especially with Billy seeing all of this happen! Mind you, I went into this movie completely cold (which worked to my advantage).

I also thought that the scenes with Billy being raised at the orphanage were great. I liked how you had two contrasting characters- the bitter/conservative nun and the more liberal/loose nun. I even liked when Billy is first seen working at the Christmas shop and you see all his flashbacks of when his parents died. I thought Santa coming to the shop was just perfect- it triggered Billy's childhood.

HOWEVER, I thought the last 50 minutes were so dull. I will say this, the sled-death was genius. I love how dark the scene was lit, I loved the forest-setting, and I thought showing the body coming back on the sled, head-less, was so smart. But besides this, you just get really LONG scenes of Billy just... looking angry and "walking" up to his victims. Sure, he runs up to them and attacks them here and there, but it's just these build-up scenes of nothing.

It would make sense if maybe the victim escaped, but why would you have like 5 minutes of Billy WALKING to his victims when they're just going to die anyway? It seems like the director had a great short film on his hands, but was told by studio executives "hey, you gotta make this 50 minutes long".

Does anyone else agree with me here? I'm actually asking because this is IMDB and I am definitely open to some discussion. This is a very interesting film to say the least. How many B-flicks can you say make Santa Clause to be evil, have children actually DIE in a movie, and so forth? I give it credit for breaking SOME boundaries.

[–] Horror_Metal 8 years ago

I agree, the first half of the movie is kind of a drama, depicting the psychological profile of the Billy character with the second half being a more generic slasher film. It almost feels like two different movies.

Horror_Metal

[–] joemdec35 8 years ago

Lilyan Chauvin was supposedly very disappointed with the direction they took. It was originally suppose to focus on Billy's psychological meltdown, but they changed it to a teen slasher flick to make more money.

[–] G_I_JOSH2003 7 years ago

100% agreed.

The first 30 minutes of this movie are legit, 8/10 legit. The last 50 minutes of the movie are 3/10 dull. Boring, drawn out and senseless killing.

The movie should just end when he leaves Ira's Toy Store, the movie goes massively downhill after that point.

[–] KingCobra686 7 years ago

I agree. There was a lot of good character development at the start, but they dropped all of that once the slashing started. Billy went from a being a very dynamic character trying to cope with a lot of issues, to a very simple slasher villain.

[–] ElectricWarlock 7 years ago

I like all parts of the movie myself. I consider it one of the best slasher films and can't really think of very many things I'd change.

[–] DesperateHouseboy 7 years ago

I like the entire movie, but I thought the last half was better.

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[–] jevicci 7 years ago

Personally, I thought the movie shifted from being fairly serious and dark to camp and comedic when they transitioned from age 8 to 18. I would have preferred they stayed with the former.

Probably my favorite scene in the latter half, though, was when he gave the girl the bloody boxcutter after she insisted that she'd been good all year. That was hilarious.