Tis the season, once again, of jolly fat men in red suits, red-and-green confectionery treats, and that annual, vaguely contractual impulse to behave decently toward one’s fellow man. But it is also, in our more enlightened age, the season in which all these yuletide tchotchkes end up splattered in blood. Christmas horror, once a fringe curiosity huddled in the back bins of Blockbuster, has become a beloved subgenre. It’s a festive little corner of cinema where elves are demonic, mall Santas are malevolent, and goodwill toward men is mostly expressed through the business end of an axe.
And speaking of axes, few films swing one as confidently as Mike P. Nelson’s new remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, a title so notoriously trashy that uttering it in public used to earn you the same looks as confessing you preferred Fruitcake to Frosty. For decades, the gold standard of Christmas cinema has remained Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, the only holiday film brave enough to suggest that the true spirit of the season is masked infidelity. But Nelson’s 2025 Silent Night, Deadly Night comes surprisingly close to dethroning it, if not as a meditation on marriage, then at least as a holiday tradition you’ll guiltily anticipate each December, wedged somewhere between your annual rewatch of Gremlins and your vow never again to attend an office party.
Most people remember the 1984 original. The killer Santa, the pearl-clutching controversy, the lingering suspicion that perhaps the North Pole needed a stronger HR department. Fewer recall the 2012 reboot, which now lives in that cinematic afterlife reserved for movies nobody hated enough to rant about or loved enough to rescue. But this new version? This one is the real deal. It’s a delirious, blood-soaked stocking stuffer packed with gore, laughs, legitimate scares, and a strangely sincere message tucked beneath all the viscera like a Hallmark card wrapped in butcher paper.
In Nelson’s take, Silent Night, Deadly Night remains less a simple “killer Santa” story and more a bizarre fusion of The Boondock Saints, The Punisher, and that one uncle who insists Santa is “just trying to keep us honest.” Billy Chapman, played with an unnervingly earnest charm by Rohan Campbell (of Halloween Ends and The Monkey), is a traumatized orphan who watched his parents get murdered by a man in a Santa suit, only to grow up receiving telepathic pep talks from that same homicidal Saint Nick. Imagine Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, but if his rain poncho were violently festive and his moral compass slightly deranged.
Billy’s homicidal holly-jolly intuition leads him to a small town filled with corrupt cops, kidnappings, hidden sin, and, naturally, a winsome love interest named Pamela (Ruby Modine), who runs an antique Christmas shop and is sweet as a candy cane until someone provokes her inner Krampus. Under Nelson’s direction, the whole thing takes on the vibe of a sleigh ride helmed by someone who’s had just a little too much spiked eggnog but is, somehow, still a surprisingly great driver.
One of the film’s greatest joys is the running commentary from Charlie, the original killer Santa, whose voice lives in Billy’s head like a murderous Jiminy Cricket. He offers advice on everything from romance to murder, often in the same breath, and the results are delightfully deranged. Nelson also gleefully peppers the movie with heavy-metal title cards announcing each new victim like the world’s best advent calendar.
And then there’s “the” scene. The moment destined to be whispered about for decades, replayed at midnight screenings, and perhaps even studied in film schools under classes labeled “Please Explain Why This Exists.” Billy, convinced he’s about to punish one particularly rotten woman, wanders instead into a Nazi rally, because of course the universe would gift-wrap a buffet of villains for Santa’s righteous wrath. What follows is carnage set to Christmas music so gleeful, so excessive, so Tarantino-on-cocaine, that you half expect the Ghost of Christmas Past to show up just to ask what, precisely, happened to society. It’s beautifully macabre in the best ways possible.
Yet for all the gleeful gore, the film has heart. Real, beating, Grinch-heart-growing-three-sizes heart. Its finale is as romantic as it is bloody. It’s the rare holiday ending where love triumphs, evil is punished, and somebody probably has to steam-clean a Santa suit. It even sets up the promise of a franchise. And honestly, who among us wouldn’t write a letter to Santa begging for more of these?
Nelson’s direction balances sentiment and savagery with a confidence that feels borderline miraculous. He finds warmth in the chaos, character in the carnage, and a surprising tenderness in the tale of a man who just wants to do the right thing, even if he needs an arsenal of axes to do it. Campbell, Modine, and David Tomlinson (as Max Benedict) are pitch-perfect, giving performances that suggest they understood the only way to survive this cinematic snow globe was to commit, wholeheartedly, to every gloriously unhinged moment.
Mike P. Nelson has done the seemingly impossible. He’s turned Silent Night, Deadly Night into a holiday movie you might actually look forward to watching. Right up there with Eyes Wide Shut and Gremlins, it’s fun as hell, gleefully unhinged, and, against all expectations, is genuinely heartfelt. It’s a new seasonal staple, dripping with carnage and Christmas cheer, and it wears its blood-soaked Santa suit proudly so that horror lovers everywhere can live deliciously once again on Christmas.
