Merry VHShitmas Eve, everyone!
Review by Dan Kinem
Merry Christmas you mother fuckers. We decided to celebrate the best holiday by torturing ourselves with a few shitty holiday horror movies. Up first is a double review of Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 and 3. The first is one of the most popular holiday horror movies and there is a good reason. It is a solid and entertaining slasher film that really holds up well and manages to utilize the holiday and the character of Santa Claus to its full advantage; the next two in the series however are a different story.
Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 may as well have been called Previously On Silent Night Deadly Night because for at least the first half, if not longer, it is entirely made up of clips from the first film. And not just clips, but entire scenes. They really needed to pad this one out it seems. They did no editing, ziltch, they just took scenes from the first film, inserted them in this, and had possibly the best actor of all-time talk over them. In the first film a kid named Billy witnesses his parents being killed and raped by a sadistic Santa Claus and then starts killing, in this film we witness a kid named Ricky remembering his brother Billy witnessing his parents being killed and raped by a sadistic Santa Claus and then starting to kill. Eric Freeman aka Laurence Olivier plays Ricky in, I’m not even lying, the single funniest performance I’ve ever seen. Everything out of his mouth is gold and is delivered with such conviction and intensity that his performance transcends the film entirely and should be studied in any self-respecting acting school. He puts every single thing he has into every line making each word feel like a bomb exploding. The way he pauses in between each syllable so you really get the full effect and power of what he is saying is brilliant. Lines like “I don’t sleep” could easily have been heard and soon forgotten when read by a normal actor, but by Mr. Olivier it reads more like “I… DON’T… SLEEEP!” and you know he fucking means it. That mother fucker hasn’t slept a wink in months, if not years. It made me shake in my seat and cower in fear. Each of his eyebrows need praise, too, as they become characters themselves. They play off of each other like they have been an acting duo for years. When one brow goes up, you know the next one is soon to follow. It is just a joy to watch. Once the recap of the first film is over we get more flashbacks! This time it’s Ricky as a kid, where it is reveal he is actually afraid of red cloth! Yes, red-fucking-cloth. Then of course he goes crazy and breaks out of the institution he is in and starts killing yet again. I didn’t think it could get better, but somehow it did. Lines like “Garbage Day!” after murdering a guy with a trash can and “Bingo” after murdering some other guy make me double over with laughter. When he is shot tears were running down by face like never before.
I may go as far as to say this film is more of a classic than the first. I mean, look at it this way, you get the entire first film and more with this one! I am still in shock at how flat out brilliant this was. Eric Freeman is god. He is the fucking second coming of Jesus Christ and all you fools missed it! You missed out because apparently he has completely disappeared. People have tried to track him down, but they have reported he is untraceable. A documentary must be made, Searching for Eric Feeman. If you care about film in the slightest you owe it to yourself to see this. You can thank me later.
Now, after the rollercoaster ride of Part 2 we move along to You Better Watch Out! Directed by Monte Hellman (yes, the man behind classics like Two Lane Blacktop and China 9, Liberty 37) this takes place six years later and Ricky is awoken from a coma by some stupid blind girl with “psychic powers” and he starts killing again. Unbelievably predictable and boring there is almost nothing that stands out in this movie. The only worthwhile element is that Bill Moseley plays Ricky this time around, a vast improvement technically speaking, but a very sad lose at the same time. It is somewhat amusing to see Moseley walking around with, what looks like his fucking brain exposed, and barely getting any weird looks. At one point he even goes hitchhiking.
Sad to see such a great trilogy of films end with such a weak entry. The next two in the series apparently are standalone entries and have nothing to do with the character of Ricky. The title is correct in saying You Better Watch Out because this movie is complete reindeer shit. This is the kind of dung you get when every reindeer eats a ton of pintos and cheese from Taco Bell and they just rip ass everywhere. It’s an embarrassment for everyone involved and Monte Hellman should be ashamed of himself. It does leave us with a nice message with Ricky saying “And have a happy New Year.” I wish I could have a happy New Year, Mr. Bill Moseley, but I just watched the movie Silent Night Deadly Night 3: You Better Watch Out! Maybe next year, though.
(Why was this scene uploaded to Youtube?)