GARBAGE DAY!

The cast of Silent Night, Deadly Night II becomes increasingly desperate to escape the film.


Well, the other day I watched Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, a fairly boring courtroom drama with Gregory Peck oddly cast as an Englishman. I had thought of writing a review of that - it would only be natural - but I already reviewed Madeleine this past week, so the idea of reviewing a boring courtroom drama seemed, shall we say, undesirable. Why review a mediocre movie when I could review an utterly atrocious one?

No, this review will be my first excursion (for this blog) into one of the most underappreciated arts: the love of, and appreciation for, really, really, really bad movies. By bad, of course, I don't simply mean banal blockbuster trash like 300 and Transformers, or even middle-of-the-road films that don't quite achieve what they set out to do. I'm talking about movies that are so mind-crushingly stupid, insipid, intelligence-insulting, ridiculous and cheesy that you can't help but laugh your ass off at them. I will concede it's a decidedly acquired taste. Anyone can like a decent-to-good movie, and most people can at least enjoy a great movie, even if they can't or don't appreciate it. No, the true connoisseurs are those who love bad movies. I can't say that I enjoy all "bad movies" the same way - I love Manos: the Hands of Fate, but despise Snakes on a Plane, for instance. I don't know if it's a sign of open-mindedness to embrace every bad movie, or a lack of discretion. But I enjoy my bad movies like, well, not fine wine, but mediocre chocolate: I eat it until my pancreas shorts out and I develop diabetes. (I'll assume that no diabetics are reading this blog, and thus that I'm not offending anyone.)

There are a lot of movies in this category I'd like to write about, from the hilariously inept Leprechaun flicks to the insipid, insulting Billy Jack franchise, to any number of other films parodied by the late, great Mystery Science Theater 3000. Indeed, I'm sure that I'll get around to these old favorites in the not-too-distant future. But yesterday, seduced by a now-infamous Internet meme, I tracked down and watched perhaps the worst movie of all time - yes, worse than The Trial of Billy Jack - on YouTube - 1987's much-maligned slasher film/camp classic Silent Night, Deadly Night 2.

The original Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) was a controversial (among those fuddy-duddies who care about such things) slasher flick about a kid who witnessed a psychotic Santa Claus killing his family, grew up in an orphanage run by a sadistic Nut Nun, and himself donned a Santa suit before going on a killing spree of his own. Not exactly in good taste, but the movie was worth a few laughs - albeit, not necessarily of the intentional kind. However, it doesn't even approach the depths of laughable terror spawned by its sequel.

The sequel is in large part a recycling of the first movie. And by recycling, I don't mean simply that they recycled plot elements or situations. No, literally the whole first half of the movie (save some bits of narration) was lifted from the original!!! That's right, 40 minutes of an 80-minute movie is footage completely recycled from another movie. That's strike one. (Although, the film does engage in a bit of cleverness by having Ricky and girlfriend watch the first movie in a theater - but that's well after the first forty minutes have ended.) The movie's remaining storyline is simply a random series of events as Ricky (Eric Freeman), the brother of the first movie's antagonist, goes on a seemingly random killing spree, shooting people for wearing ugly football jerseys or mixing their plastics with their paper. None of this makes any sense, although the film belatedly decides that he is to exact revenge on the evil Mother Superior (leading to a hilarious chase scene and showdown between Psycho Santa and cripple knife-wielding Nun). I mean, I would have to be on pot to make up a plot description like that. That's how you can tell it's very, very real. Let me just say, I had a very bad case of the flu last February, which led to lots of insomnia and bizarre, indescribable fever dreams. It's as if someone tried to film these dreams, but their camera broke, so they hired a six year old to write a screenplay based on verbal descriptions, and then shot it on a budget of $6 with a camera phone. And then they lost that and made this movie.

Perhaps the best thing about the film is its lead actor, giving a performance surpassing even the great Tor Johnson in Beast of Yucca Flats. Eric Freeman inspires giggles every time he opens his mouth, giving perhaps the most hammy, over-the-top performance in the history of humanity (including elementary school plays, Indian rain dances and Daniel Day-Lewis ranting about milkshakes). He makes William Shatner look like Paul Scofield. It's a real treat to watch, as he swallows the scenery whole and chews over such great dialogue as "FUCK OFF!... Doc.", "It sounded like some squirrel getting his nuts squeezed!", and my personal favorite, "You tend to get paranoid when everyone around you gets DEAD!" Honest to blog, that's the real dialogue, and if I quote Juno again feel free to cane me mercilessly. (Not that he needs such dialogue, mind you. Freeman is able to make a line like "I don't sleep!" into the equivalent of Lady Macbeth's "Out damned spot!" rant) You can't make this shit up. You can't get much weirder than that... Oh, wait. Never mind. There might be a few exceptions.

Nah. Just wait until you scroll to the bottom of this review.

It's really, really hard to pick out a "best" scene, because the whole movie - even the flashbacks to the first movie - is so bad it inspires laughter. Not just a snide grin or a chuckle, but hysterical, gut-busting, "Normal View"-inspired laughter (that one's for the MSTies in my audience). Even the footage culled from the first movie is pretty funny - death by antler? A little kid decking Santa Claus? The over-acting silent black guy at the beginning? The annoying heckler in the movie theater singing along with the film's theme song? Death by umbrella? It's gold, Jerry, GOLD! Perhaps the most ludicrous (and thus hysterical) scene is Ricky's infamous killing spree, where an argument with his girlfriend's ex leads to a completely random massacre of an innocent suburb. The scene builds on top of itself, every moment more absurd than the last, from electrocuting Boyfriend with jumper cables to strangling Girlfriend with a car antenna, to shooting a poor man's Barney Fife with his own gun, shooting a car which flips over, lands right-side up, and then blows up (from the inside, it must be noted, not the engine - maybe it was being driven by James Coburn coming home from the set of Duck, You Sucker!), and of course, the moment that everyone remembers:

To those who've seen it, there needn't be anything more said about this movie.

For my part, I'll say just a mite more. This is the best movie of all time, if judging by the sheer number of yuks a minute. Not even The Ruling Class, His Girl Friday or even Prince of Space approach this level of humor. If you feel so inclined, the entire movie is on youtube. Why not give it a whirl? If you're reading this review, it's not like you have anything better to do.

Rating: 0/10 quality-wise, 100/10 for camp value