Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)
Directed by Lee Harry
Memes have brought obscure movies to light in the last 10 years. Whether it be gifs on twitter or short clips on youtube, or even both in the case of this movie. I have to say I love it. I love that memes are bringing movies that people wouldn’t normally watch to recognition. What meme am I speaking of? I think you all know so I won’t even mention it. I recently got this on Scream Factory Blu Ray for Christmas and finally got around to watching it for the FIRST TIME. I know, I’m a little late to the game but (deep inhale) here we go.
Ricky was a young man, he had a killer Santa brother. Lived in an orphanage and was harassed by some old nuuuuu-uuuuun. Ok Skid Row out of the way. SNDN2 (the title is too long to keep typing) revolves around Ricky, younger brother of Billy the killer Santa from the first movie. Ricky, now in a mental institution (naturally) is being interviewed by a psychiatrist. Showing around 35 minutes of flashbacks, Ricky revisits the first film from his viewpoint. My lord it was a little rough to get through, if it wasn’t for the corny acting of Eric Freeman as Ricky, I would have lost interest. I have to mention that Freeman’s eyes and eyebrows move more than any human being on the face of the earth. Need an example? Check out the infamous scene, with millions of views on youtube that I will not quote in this review dammit! Anyhoo, Ricky goes on using footage from the first film until he eventually gets to the reason why he’s institutionalized. Basically, he was in his room staring at the wall, just thinking about everything but then again, he was thinking about nothing. Then his mom came in and he didn’t know she was there; she called his name and he didn’t hear it. So, she started screaming his name and he asked whats the matter? She said whats the matter with you? He said theres nothing wrong mom. His mom said don’t tell me that, you’re on drugs. He reassures her that he’s ok and that he wants a Pepsi. He just wanted a Pepsi and she wouldn’t give him one. All he wanted was just one Pepsi, just one Pepsi but she wouldn’t give him one. Wait…. this isn’t what happened, dammit I got sidetracked again. Where was I? Oh yeah, Ricky! Yeah Ricky, he keeps having visions of the bad things that happened to his family which is funny because he was an infant when his parents were murdered. I understand if he is messed up from seeing Billy killed but the parents part makes no sense. Now he goes around punishing bad people much in the way Billy did in the first one. He actually starts admitting to murders that the psychiatrist wasn’t even aware of. He runs over a dude with a Jeep and the guy’s girlfriend thanks Ricky haha. Then he kills a hired goon, his girlfriend’s ex, a random dude walking out of his house, and some guy taking out his…trash, yeah trash is the word. He then takes out the shrink and the guard and breaks free. From there he goes on a rampage and hunts down Mother Superior the old bitch nun that tormented his brother. The ending is laughable and non-climatic. I won’t give any more details.
The acting, like I said earlier Eric Freeman has the cheese level turned up to cheddar. He’s great not gonna lie, very entertaining. The supporting cast is equally as great. Since a lot of the movie is flashback sequences, I can’t really touch on too many characters. Mother Superior was changed for the sequel and for some reason she has a scarred-up face, I don’t remember that in part 1 lol. Seriously Billy tried to kill her and he was shot by the cops so he never got to touch her. I’m thinking the actress from the first one was probably dead, she was older than crap so I can get passed that. They also replaced the other nun Sister Margaret or Mary I can’t remember all this shit. If you’re looking for amazing acting chops, look else where this movie is what it is, and I love it
One of the fun things about the movie is the kills and special effects. There’s a death by umbrella stabbing that was the highlight of the movie for me. He stabs a guy all the way through the body with an umbrella then opens it up, and if that wasn’t funny enough, it suddenly starts raining. I laughed pretty hard at that and had to watch it again afterwards. Death by battery charger was fun, but the aftermath didn’t really pay off like I wanted. I really wanted the dude’s head to explode, it didn’t ☹. Most of the kills are by gun after he kills a cop he goes on a suburban shooting rampage, that’s when he shoots a guy with a rubbish container, and says something but I’m not going to say it here.
I really enjoyed the camerawork; the transitions were nice and the angles were appealing. Panning up from the feet during the shooting rampage, focusing on Freeman’s crazy eyebrow movements and holding on some of the death scenes was awesome. It is a really good job for such a shit movie. Yes, it is shit, don’t kid yourself but the good kind of shit that you can laugh at and enjoy.
SNDN2 is a fun, entertaining bad movie that has the right amount of charm, gore and unintentional humor to be a cult favorite. Eric Freeman is just great, that’s all I can say about him. While the first half hour you can skip over for the most part, the second half makes up for it. I’m not sure how many times I’ll revisit this, but I had a good time watching it for the first time. I’d give this a C, it’s fun but the first half is taxing. It has lots of comical moments outside of the scene you know of. You know what I’m talking about. The scene with the guy and the container full of…waste? The one where Ricky pulls out a gun says “GARBAGE DAY!” and shoots the dude, then walks off laughing and looking at the gun! DAMMIT!
31 Horror Movies 