Silent Night Bloody Night
is a Story About Grisly Secrets and Death.
The story in Silent Night Bloody Night
about a small country town and the mayhem that transpires one Christmas
Eve is pretty good, but you can watch the beginning and the end, ignore
the rest, and still get it.
Release: 1974 Directed by: Theodore Gershuny Written by: Theodore Gershuny, Jeffrey Konvitz and
Ira Teller
Starring:
Patrick O'Neal as John Carter James Patterson as Jeffrey Butler Mary Woronov as Diane Adams John Carradine as Charlie Towman Walter Abel as Mayor Adams Fran Stevens as Tess Howard Walter Klavun as Sheriff Bill Mason
Many people around the world find Christmas time a joyous and
wonderful
celebration, for both for religious reasons and as an excuse for family
to come together. Others find Christmas to be a time of depression and
memories of unhappy events or situations. For yet others Christmas
represents a time to remember a horrible massacre that devastated a
town and brought mayhem and death to those around
them. Silent
Night Bloody Night is an example of the latter.
In
grand 70s cinematic style Silent Night Bloody Night
begins with grainy images of a small town and a family living in a
large country house. The movie is narrated by Diane Adams (Mary
Woronov) and she recounts the history of Wilfred Butler (Phillip
Bruns), his family and the house in which they lived.
Although very complicated and dramatic, the history of the family can
be summed up pretty well: The family lived happily in “Butler
House” for a while, the youngest daughter went crazy,
father
Wilfred was distant and didn’t show his face much, most of
the family died, Wilfred disappeared and could not be found and then
suddenly Wilfred appeared at the house one day and set
himself on fire
and died in the yard. Wilfred left the house to his only surviving
relative, a grandson whom he had never met, and the rule of his
inheritance that the house not be changed at all from the way it had
always been.
Narrator
Diane grew up hearing tales that the Butler house was haunted,
that there was death and craziness surrounding it,
and that she should
stay away. Diane’s father, the Mayor of this small town, was
particularly wary of the house and it’s history and demanded
that Diane steer clear.
Years later the grandson that inherited the house, Jeffrey Butler
(James Patterson), needed money and decided to sell. He sent his
attorney to town to arrange for the sale of the house, cheap. The
leaders of the town, including the mayor (Walter Abel), the Sherriff
(Walter Klavun), the newspaper
editor (John Carradine) and the
switchboard operator (Fran Stevens) were happy to scrape together the
cash and buy the house – with the intention of tearing it
down and ridding the town of it’s presence.
Thus
begins a grisly chain of events that includes an
inmate breaking
out of an insane asylum and many deaths as a result. Throughout the
mayhem there are strange telephone calls being made from the Butler
house to members of the town’s leadership, all betraying the
fact that everyone in town had some kind of secret associated with
Butler House.
Silent Night Bloody Night
is a story that switches
from horror to drama to crime study to whodunit to horror. The
characters are colorful to be sure – unfortunately this
doesn’t prevent the movie from “dragging”
a bit here and there. Overall, though, the complicated story is held
together pretty well, and interesting sub-plots emerge as bits of
revelation are offered…but none of it
actually gives any
clue to the surprise ending. In fact, when the super-duper
surprise
twist at the end becomes known, it is so out of left field
that I
don’t think it would even be possible to have seen it coming.
That bothered me a bit. When you have a super-duper surprise twist
ending then one should be able to look back on the film and see where
they SHOULD have figured it out. Not enough tidbits of information were
revealed to allow for this in Silent Night Bloody Night.
Ultimately Silent Night Bloody Night is not a bad
movie while you’re watching it, but once you get to the end
it seems as if all of the middle part could have been skipped
over and
the result would have been the same.
Silent Night Bloody Night is a great movie to watch
with a group of friends that feel the need to talk through a
movie…because you won’t really miss anything. Just
pay attention at the beginning and pay attention at the end -
you’ll have the whole thing wrapped up.
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newspaper
editor (John Carradine) and the
switchboard operator (Fran Stevens) were happy to scrape together the
cash and buy the house – with the intention of tearing it
down and ridding the town of it’s presence.
of it
actually gives any
clue to the surprise ending. In fact, when the super-duper
surprise
twist at the end becomes known, it is so out of left field
that I
don’t think it would even be possible to have seen it coming.
That bothered me a bit. When you have a super-duper surprise twist
ending then one should be able to look back on the film and see where
they SHOULD have figured it out. Not enough tidbits of information were
revealed to allow for this in Silent Night Bloody Night.
. Since there
are a lot
of great flicks in that set and it’s pretty cheap I recommend
getting Silent Night Bloody Night that way. 
