"We're now at the inevitable second remake stage but the 2025 redo arrives after the gimmick of Killer Santa has now become a subgenre in itself. He's cropped up in Christmas Bloody Christmas, Christmas Evil, Santa's Slay, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Deadly Games and last year's Terrifier 3 and the makers of this December's take are more than aware that seeing Santa with a weapon isn't enough to shock today's horror fans."
"But there's almost too much on his mind here, at least for one film to tackle, and so a straightforward slasher soon becomes a vaguely political, sometimes supernatural and strangely sentimental cross between TV shows like Dexter and You and films like Venom, Mr Brooks and Bill Paxton's lesser-known 2001 effort Frailty, a Christmas cocktail that could have done with fewer ingredients."
The 2025 Silent Night, Deadly Night remake attempts to refresh the killer-Santa subgenre by blending slasher conventions with political, supernatural and sentimental elements. Writer-director Mike P Nelson pursues ambitious tonal shifts and genre-mixing rather than a straight rehash, producing brief moments of creativity alongside uneven excess. The story centers on Billy Chapman, traumatised as a child after witnessing his parents' murder by a criminal dressed as Santa, now played by Rohan Campbell. The remake acknowledges the ubiquity of Killer Santa in modern horror and tries to add depth through moral complexity, but the film's many ingredients often dilute its momentum and focus.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]