I actually had high hopes for this.

I clearly remember the original 1984 flick, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and all the shit it started because of the over the top violence revolving around the holiest night of the year.

Here we are almost 30 years later and once again, the violence is over the top, but this time around, there ain't nothing special 'bout it.  In fact, it's mostly very poorly done and falls into the violence for violence's sake category.

As I said, I was hoping for something at least decent here, but IMO, this is pure garbage with some surprisingly poor performances from usually reliable Jaime King and Malcolm McDowell.  Wait a minute...did I just say that Malcolm McDowell usually brings it?  Well, maybe not much these days, but he's still quite a presence and deserves better than this crap.

Gore is extreme and cheap as Hell looking.

Story and plot are terrible.

Acting is atrocious.

That may all be expected by most but I'll tell you what really makes this suck the high hard one - the killer's "reveal" at the end.     OMG...are you kidding me?  Really?  That was the best you could come up with?  After checking the message boards on IMDB, I found I was not alone in being clueless as to who the killer even was...or was supposed to be.  Pathetic!

I'm pretty comfortable advising to completely skip this stinker and pull out your old 1984 copy of the original and laugh it up with a few friends.

The original is an epic popcorn flick.  This was a disaster.

I never saw the original or its sequels.
I had no idea there was even a remake.
One thing I will agree with, McDowell doesn’t bring it anymore - at all.

Love these reviews. They save me money

I really enjoyed this film. Quite a lot actually. Just a fun slasher with some good gore and a cool villain. If you liked the trailer give it a look.

~Zack~

From the way Jeff suggests, you'd think the original Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) was a work of genius. That film may be a cult classic, but if my memory serves it's a film that had a bit of PC controversy around it which caused the studio TriStar, to yank it from theaters and take their name off it. When I finally caught up to the flick, it was much ado about nothing, but back in the 80s---? It was like a badge of honor for the film, for it had this rep for being something 'so demented and offensive' it was this taboo thing or something.

I was curious about the remake as well, and for the first fifteen to twenty minutes in, I thought the new version was doing a nice job, despite the over-obvious intentional misdirection with Donal Logue's character whose character was written for such purposes (in other words, totally unbelievable) but then came the naked chick being chased around, and it left me cold. The cliched priest who flirts with his sexy parishioners and then preaches a fire and brimstone sermon on the Holiday (!) turned me off. Then there's "sins" that the townsfolk do that the killer couldn't possibly know.

Then there's those last fifteen minutes with the funky lighting in the police station, and that "ending" which made me cringe even more. In my view, the film was on to something by making it a thriller, then it went more slasher, which is fine, then they went into chaos, cliche and even a few writing cheats here and there.

I don't think it was a bad effort, but there was no reason for it not rising to the task and being more effective. I agree- it wasn't scary or suspenseful. There wasn't anyone to root for, no one to care about, characters were rail thin. Killer Santa had more personality.