Starting something new here, I'll be reviewing and recapping old horror movies I watch. Mainly because I have nothing better to do and I haven't written anything here for months. About two years ago I got a bunch of random 3-disk DVD collections of old horror movies and I never bothered watching any of them, so I naturally decided to do so now. First up is Silent Night, Bloody Night.No, not Silent Night, Deadly Night, an 80's 'franchise' that has become infamous, if only for Rob Conway yelling "GARBAGE DAY!" No, see, this movie came out in 1974, and I believe it was filmed in 1972. Or something. Anyway, I actually... liked it. A lot. It's definitely a prototypical 'slasher' film in that it has early use of killer POV camera work and awesomely creepy phone calls. In fact, I think Black Christmas may have ripped it off a little. Fucking Kwanzaa.
Anyway, the film starts with a man running from a house. And he's on fire. I already love this movie. This man, however, deserves to die, as THERE'S FUCKING SNOW ALL OVER THE GROUND he and doesn't bother to stop, drop and roll. Fucking idiot. Anyway, it turns out the man's name was Wilfred Butler, he leaves his house for his grandson, blah blah.
Cut to the present day (and by present day I mean 1972), and Wilfred's son, Jeffrey, is looking to sell the house to the town. He sends his lawyer or whatever to meet with town officials to work out a deal. The town officials, like in most towns, are creepy characters with distinguishing character traits. John Carradine, the one noticeable actor in the film, plays a mute, which is smart to make the one noticeable actor in the film not speak. The lawyer works out a deal to sell the house for $50,000 and then reveals he's going to spend the night there. I'm not sure it usually works that way. The officials try to dissuade him, but the fucker's cheating on his wife with some whore so he doesn't want to shack up in a hotel! Oh, you sly dog!
Meanwhile, we see the POV of a person escaping some place. He runs into a waiting car and takes off. Alright, who was the asshole that leaves a car in front of a mental asylum running and ready for someone to escape with.
Meanwhile again, the mayor's daughter is driving around town and sees a Suspicious Fellow with a broken down car. She declines stopping, and in a fit of misplaced anger he smashes his windshield. Yeah, I'd do that too.
Meanwhile some more, the lawyer and his whore arrive at the Butler house. Except -- oh no! -- the escaped mental patient is already in there, snoopin' around. They make themselves at home and, later that night, decide it's time to engage in a sexual liason. While they're in the bed room, the killer ascends the stairs, bursts into the room, and axes the shit out of them. Yeah, haha, show you to have sex! He then does something religious. And then he calls the town officials, claiming to be a woman who is waiting for them there.
The mayor's daughter is wrapping gifts or something at home when the Suspicious Fellow from before shows up. Like any single woman alone in a house, she takes a gun and invites him in. Invites him in? This woman has moxy. It turns out he's Jeffrey Butler, and is looking for her father.
One by one, the town officials are invited to the house by the phone caller, show up, and are killed. There's a scene where Carradine's character is hit by Butler and the mayor's daughter with a car or something, and is found to be missing his hands. Except I'd have never known that, because the fucking picture quality is so poor here in this night time scene, I might as well be watching a broken television.
Anyway, the creepy killer ends up killing all the officials except the mayor. He invites the mayor over just as Butler and the mayor's daughter reach the house. Inside the house, Butler finds the diary of his grandfather, Wilfred Butler. Except, uh oh, he's also... his father! Man, I hate when incestuous details are revealed about my family. It turns out Butler had raped his daughter, Marianne. Later, he turned his house into an asylum, where patients, including Marianne, were committed. Marianne later birthed Jeffrey, who never knew any of this, as he was sent to California and told his mother died in a car accident. Wilfred ended up disliking his fellow doctors at this asylum, thinking they were lying or something. Now that's just silly, doctors never lie. So one night (Christmas Eve), he unleashes the mental patients and they butcher the other doctors, and also unfortunately Marianne.
As it turns out, all the town officials are some of those escaped mental patients. What. And it turns out the killer is Wilfred Butler, who faked his own death and has returned to claim revenge on the people who killed his daughter. The mayor bursts in and he and Jeffrey shoot each other, as the killer attacks the mayor's daughter and reveals himself to be Alfred Einstein.
She ends up killing him, and a year later the Butler house is destroyed.
Overall, I really liked this movie. It was exceedingly creepy, and the horrid film quality only lent to it. Definitely watch it if you get a chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment