SYNOPSICS
Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) is a English movie. Theodore Gershuny has directed this movie. Patrick O'Neal,James Patterson,Mary Woronov,Astrid Heeren are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1972. Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) is considered one of the best Horror,Mystery,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
Wilford Butler returns home on Christmas Eve and his house had been turned into a mental institution for the criminally insane. But the day of his return, he is set on fire and dies. The towns people believe his death was an accident, and the institution-house is later closed down. Wilford leaves the house to his grandson Jeffrey. A few years later, Jeffrey finally decides to sell this grandfather's house, but the towns people including the Mayor have mixed feelings on keeping people away from the house, especially when a serial killer escapes from another institution and finds refuge there. The killer makes frightening phone calls and kills anyone coming near the house. But what does the killer have in common with what happened to Wilford Butler years before?
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Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) Reviews
Silent Night, Bloody Night is Magnificent
First, though, you need to know what I mean by "magnificent." I LOVE movies that appear "dark" and "low budget" because it gives them a eerie dimension not seen in 21st century attempts at horror. Growing up during the early '70's, I am, too, a bit wistful for these days long gone, so, I appreciate the marked quality difference in these films because that's how the past is...somewhat dark and "fuzzy." Darkness and less-than-perfect-images are very appropriate for a horror film. Silent Night, Bloody Night is a magnificent, appropriate name for this movie, but the title has little to remind the viewer what time of the year it is. We ARE told, though, that Wilfred Butler died on Christmas Eve 1950, and the horrible events that unfold twenty years later occur during the Yuletide season. Aside from the mayor whistling Silent Night and his lovely daughter wrapping a gift in black and white, diamond-designed early '70's "mod" paper, there is little else seasonal about this film. Patrick O'Neal plays lawyer/real estate agent Jack Carter who comes to town to sell the beautiful, old home of Wilfred Butler, who has not been seen by his neighbors in years. The house, however, has been kept in immaculate repair by his caretaker, and there is much speculation why his grandson, Jeffrey, would sell it for a mere $50,000. When word spreads through the communtiy that the mansion is to be sold, the message reaches an insane asylum nearby,prompting an inmate's escape and a night of terror. But be prepared for twists and turns and a mystery; this is no modern-day mindless thrasher-slasher. The parts are played very well. The plot is good. Wilfred Butler was eccentric, and in the film's final segment you will come to understand that this is an understatement. Silent Night, Bloody Night is scary and it transports you to that "other Earth" where horror occurs to people in and around big old houses. And, most important for this viewer, it takes you back to how we once were...and how a lot of films really looked in those days!
Odd storyline involving incest and insanity
Really bizarre film that has some sepia film flashbacks-in-time which truly makes the footage look like it was filmed in 1910. The acting is so-so and the first half of the movie is kind of slow-paced. I wish there were still some good clean copies of the film, the DVD versions that are out are somewhat murky and it distracts from the viewing at times. All in all, a weird film that should be viewed at least once.
Worth checking out if you don't expect polish.
Low-budget horror almost seems too kind a way to describe this movie which sometimes seems like it was shot with someone's home movie camera! Still, the film has a certain flair and an ambitious (overly-ambitious) story that gives it enough quality to remain memorable. The story revolves around a house that has lain abandoned for many years. In a fairly creepy prologue, the owner is shown running from the house in flames, screaming till his death. Cut to present day where slick realtor O'Neal and his sexy lover Heeren come to town to finalize the sale of the house to the town elders. The buyers are a dour, somewhat disturbing bunch who add to the creepiness of the opening scenes. Oh...and also there's an escaped mental patient on the loose who is killing his way back to town! Coinciding with all this is a visit from Patterson, the grandson of the home's original owner. He carries on a tenuous encounter with Woronov, the mayor's daughter. If the plot sounds confusing and convoluted, it is. But it's all finally explained in the finale which includes a truly horrific flashback to the days when the house was occupied. This sepia-toned memory is filled with scary-looking people (some of them Warhol groupies) who are filmed in a way that blurs their features and resembles the earliest camera work ever done. This is an unsettling effect that lifts the film above many other paper thin shockers. The acting is surprisingly good throughout, with several of the actors having had Broadway experience (Patterson was a Tony winner!) Though the story isn't always easy to follow and it's edited with a chainsaw, a certain level of uneasiness comes through. Aiding this quite a bit is a truly mundane, yet terrifying voice that's heard many times over the telephone. The film makers definitely tried to make an arresting picture. The opening credits are professionally done, the music is disturbing and the actors (some of them well known---Abel played D'Artagnon!!) do their best. There's even a pretty shocking twist about one third of the way in. Only the bare bones production values keep the movie from reaching a level of quality. Still, the dank lighting and blurry location work help add to the overall frightening tone. Woronov plays one of her most "normal" roles. For some reason, this film slammed the lid on Heeren's career. While she is no Meryl Streep, she was decorative and had a bright presence. Christmas has little to do with the plot. The film steals from some earlier shockers, yet was also stolen from itself in later flicks.
A hidden gem of holiday horror!
Having owned but never watched the Paragon VHS cassette for years, I surprised myself by watching this holiday horror film on this cold, gray winter day. Even more surprising is that hiding behind the generic title of SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is an atmospheric horror thriller with a great twist. And not only is SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT a great horror film, but it is one that has been duped by the historians of horror cinema. The biggest asset to SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is the film's set-up. It packs a big punch in the end and actually left me guessing throughout the film. A few of the red herrings are a bit too obvious but they worked well enough. One of Gershuny's biggest strengths is the subtle number of hints regarding the film's big twist in the finale. If one pays close attention, there are several tip-offs as to what is really going on in the odd town of East Willard. It is refreshing to see a film where you are continually assessing the information as the mystery unfolds. Director Gershuny, probably best known for SUGAR COOKIES (1973), knows how to build an atmospheric horror film. The wintry locations, especially the imposing house, are used to full effect and he gets great performances (particularly from Woronov) from his leads. The picture's highlight is a extended flashback, chronicling what happened at the estate in the 1930s. The sepia look and use of wide-angle lens makes the entire scene very creepy. One complaint that pops up in reviews I have seen is the dark night shots. Truthfully, I think this has more to do with bad transfers rather than poor craftsmanship. Gershuny also uses an effective POV for the killer that echoes Bob Clark's Yuletide themed BLACK Christmas (1974) from a few years later. A lot of people credit Clark's film as the earliest prototype of the slasher genre. But Gershuny's film predates Clark's by almost 2 years. According to various reports it was shelved for two years. This fact is further substantiated by the fact that lead Patterson actually passed away in August of 1972. So the film was completed well before the early 1974 filming date for Clark's film. Given the killer POV shots, scary phone calls the killer makes and high number of murders; one has to wonder if Clark saw this film before making his own. This is not to diminish the power of BLACK Christmas (it is still an excellent film), but just to question the general belief that BLACK Christmas begat HALLOWEEN and the subsequent North American slasher genre. As it stands, SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is a great Christmas horror film, a more than pleasant surprise for this holiday season.
The Ghosts of Christmas Past
SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is the grandfather of the Holiday Horror idiom, and perhaps the most eerie and effective example, Bob Clark's "Black Christmas" not withstanding. It is cold, creepy, claustrophobic, intermittently gory, filled with bizarre plot twists, red herrings galore, though it may be possibly even a bit too convoluted for it's own good. It's easy to get lost in the film's labyrinth of American Gothic dread, punctuated by insanity, incest, rape, revenge, and murder. As others have outlined, the plot revolves around a creepy, forlorn, isolated mansion turned insane asylum in rural Massachusetts that was the site of a horrific massacre of the hospital staff by the inmates on a cold, dank Christmas Eve in the 1930s, after they had been set free by one of the doctors. His daughter is killed indiscriminately in the mêlée, driving the doctor mad and to live the rest of his life anonymously in state run prisons & mental hospitals with his guilt gnawing away at his sanity. And then on another Christmas Eve fifteen years later, he comes back home ... If you think I just gave away the payoff to the story relax, there is much, much, much more to the goings on than may first meet the eye. Shot on an ultra-low budget with an inspired cast including John Carradine, Patrick O'Neal, Mary Woronov, and a number of Andy Warhol's former "Factory" superstars (Ondine, Candy Darling, Lewis Love, Tally Brown), the film is deceptively cheap and unimaginative looking, which is part of the stacked deck. Perhaps "unremarkable looking" would be a better phrase to use: The world the movie suggests is not unlike the ordinary world most of us live in, with almost no special effects to speak of and scattered moments of pungent violence rather than the sustained carnage modern day horror fans might be more accustomed to. The film instead relies upon an unrelenting sense of dread, desolation and bleakness that culminates in an almost inevitable climax that Hitchcock himself must have been impressed by. And in actuality, SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT was indeed quite innovative for 1972 (though it wasn't released until 1974), presenting audiences with a very early vision of a mad ax murdering psycho killer on the loose, a somewhat experimental approach to using color, lens filters + still images, all of it combined with the holiday setting -- which is used more as a method of creating a juxtaposition against which the Gothic horrors being presented take on an added layer of quiet, cold perversity. We usually associate Christmas with bright colors, warm interiors, hearty meals and family togetherness, where the film is primarily centered on drab, depressing hues, shabby dwellings populated by dysfunctional lost souls, cheap bourbon, cold Christmas dinners eaten out of cardboard take-out cartons, a cheerless, gray, clammy sense of isolation, loneliness, and homicidal insanity. It is actually one of the most fitting extensions of the idea of Christmas Dread suggested by Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" at it's darkest moments with the creepy "Ghost of Christmas' Yet To Come", which quite frankly used to scare the wits out of me as a kid. Sadly one of the factors working against contemporary enjoyment of the film are the home video & DVD versions in existence, almost all of which are made from compromised and cut 16mm reduction prints that are difficult to enjoy. There is an 81 minute TV print with most of the shocking violence removed, a still heavily cut 83 minute MPAA R rated version, and a very hard to find 85 minute print that appears to show the original complete theatrical assembly (look for it on Mill Creek's "Chilling Classics" public domain box set, albeit in the form of a tattered, color worn atrocity) that may or may not reflect the pre-release version often cited as running 88 minutes -- which I personally feel is inaccurate. Or at least no home video transfer of that version has ever been described. In any event it's a sort of "thinking person's" horror thriller, dwelling upon the horrors of the past being visited on the present, and is one of the finest examples of American Gothic produced in the 1970s. But please don't judge the movie based on the appearances of the surviving home video versions: If any movie I have seen in the past five years cries out for a proper, carefully executed restoration it would be SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT since none of the currently existing home video releases is an adequate representation of what this movie has in store. It's simply one of the most tightly wound horror stories ever mounted where no spoken line or action is without significance to the story as a whole, and remains the Granddaddy of every Holiday Horror movie made since it's release. 9/10