Little Billy witness his parents getting killed by Santa after being warned by his senile grandpa that Santa punishes those who are naughty. Now Billy is 18, and out of the orphanage, and he has just become Santa, himself.
A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine's Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer's order and people start turning up dead.
An unknown killer, clad in World War II U.S. Army fatigues, stalks a small New Jersey town bent on reliving a 35 year-old double murder by focusing on a group of college kids holding an annual Spring Dance.
Director:
Joseph Zito
Stars:
Vicky Dawson,
Christopher Goutman,
Lawrence Tierney
Angela Baker, a traumatized and very shy young girl, is sent to summer camp with her cousin. Shortly after her arrival, anyone with sinister or less than honorable intentions gets their comeuppance.
Director:
Robert Hiltzik
Stars:
Felissa Rose,
Jonathan Tiersten,
Karen Fields
A former summer camp caretaker, horribly burned from a prank gone wrong, lurks around an upstate New York summer camp bent on killing the teenagers responsible for his disfigurement.
Three years after a prank that went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year's Eve party aboard a moving train.
Director:
Roger Spottiswoode
Stars:
Ben Johnson,
Jamie Lee Curtis,
Hart Bochner
At the snobby Crawford Academy, Virginia's group of friends start to go missing years after horrible events that happened to her as a child around her birthday.
Director:
J. Lee Thompson
Stars:
Melissa Sue Anderson,
Glenn Ford,
Lawrence Dane
After seeing his parents murdered in front of him a young boy spends most of his life in an orphanage where he is abused by the mother superior. When he becomes a teenager, he gets a job as a department store Santa. When seeing two people having sex in the store brings on flashbacks of his parents, his turmoil leads him to become a Santa serial killer.Written by
devint-16816
The title "Slay Ride" actually ended up as a subplot in another film, the Disney holiday movie Ernest Saves Christmas (1988). In the Ernest film, the prospective Santa that Ernest was looking for was appearing in a horror film entitled "Christmas Slay". See more »
Goofs
Following the murder of Ellie Chapman (Tara Buckman's character), she is shown one more time before the flash-forward to 1974, during which her heart can be seeing beating against her bare chest; even far more visible is the carotid pulse beating against the stage blood on her neck. See more »
Quotes
Andy:
So, what the fuck are you doing now?
Billy Chapman:
You know, you shouldn't talk like that.
Andy:
Oh? Well pardon me, Ann Landers!
See more »
Alternate Versions
A later version released on video contains an extra 3 minutes featuring more gore than the theatrical version. See more »
Silent Night, Deadly Night tells the story of a boy whose parents were killed in front of him as a child, and it was by a man dressed as Santa Claus. Not only that, the man shot the kid's dad in the head and tried to rape his mother before slitting her throat while the boy watched. He hid so he escaped, but the memory remained, even throughout Catholic school where the Mother Superior was strict and violent, saying punishment is good and all naughty children should be punished. Naturally, this messed with the kid's head, so one day when he's finally all grown up, Christmas time comes along at his job and someone has to dress up as Santa Claus. Well, who better than the kid whose parents were killed by Santa to play dress up! He then embraces being Santa Claus, a judgmental fat man who kills naughty people, and that's when the bodies start piling up.
It's a truly dark story. The movie would have been much better had they focused more on the psychological aspect as opposed to it just boiling down to "Santa is a killer. Now I'm Santa. Now I must kill!" It felt like the whole setup was wasted for an anticlimactic, soulless killing spree. Sure, there are some good kills, and there are plenty of boobs in typical '80s B-horror affair, but it failed to make an impact on anything more than a surface level. It's an enjoyable movie, it's simply a matter of greater potential not being realized.
Now this is a horror movie, not an unintentional comedy like its infamous sequel, and it's admittedly effective as one. It's refreshing when a horror movie has an actual narrative you can follow. Worth a watch if you're a horror buff or just want to watch Santa kill topless women for an hour and a half.
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Silent Night, Deadly Night tells the story of a boy whose parents were killed in front of him as a child, and it was by a man dressed as Santa Claus. Not only that, the man shot the kid's dad in the head and tried to rape his mother before slitting her throat while the boy watched. He hid so he escaped, but the memory remained, even throughout Catholic school where the Mother Superior was strict and violent, saying punishment is good and all naughty children should be punished. Naturally, this messed with the kid's head, so one day when he's finally all grown up, Christmas time comes along at his job and someone has to dress up as Santa Claus. Well, who better than the kid whose parents were killed by Santa to play dress up! He then embraces being Santa Claus, a judgmental fat man who kills naughty people, and that's when the bodies start piling up.
It's a truly dark story. The movie would have been much better had they focused more on the psychological aspect as opposed to it just boiling down to "Santa is a killer. Now I'm Santa. Now I must kill!" It felt like the whole setup was wasted for an anticlimactic, soulless killing spree. Sure, there are some good kills, and there are plenty of boobs in typical '80s B-horror affair, but it failed to make an impact on anything more than a surface level. It's an enjoyable movie, it's simply a matter of greater potential not being realized.
Now this is a horror movie, not an unintentional comedy like its infamous sequel, and it's admittedly effective as one. It's refreshing when a horror movie has an actual narrative you can follow. Worth a watch if you're a horror buff or just want to watch Santa kill topless women for an hour and a half.