Scarestack’s 25 Days Of Slays: Silent Night (2012) and the Death of Christmas Magic

Silent Night (2012) shows us a world without Christmas magic. The original remembers what we lost.

Has the magic of Christmas gone away?

In a world that feels a little more cynical and lot less joyous, the holidays are usually when people can find something to believe in. The season of hope as they say, full of magic and wonder, as snowflakes fall and cover the ground with beautiful blankets of white. We find solace in being with our families and friends, coziness in drinking hot chocolate by the fireplace, and fun in baking cookies for others.

Generosity fills our hearts as we find ways to give to those we love, rather it be through buying something or making something ourselves. Others find joy in helping those less fortunate in the various programs and charities available.

In today’s world, that kind of generosity feels rarer, overshadowed by a culture that’s become far more focused on getting everything rather selfless giving.

Silent Night (2012) reflects this loss all too clearly

There are no glorious scenes of love and laughter, but rather a town that lost its Christmas wonder.

Silent Night is an extremely loose remake of the slasher classic Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). By “loose,” I mean that the only similarities between the two is a killer Santa.

Because of its 2012 release date, the film is plagued with the dreaded issues of 2010s horror. Just like many slasher horrors in the decade, it came off as another sleazy cheap remake chocked full of unnecessary sex and needless plot changes.

Rewatching Silent Night for the first time in years was… tough. While I did get to rewatch the woodchipper kill, most everything else about this movie is generic. It doesn’t exactly hold up to the original film it’s based on.

However, there is a tiny bit of “nuance” in the film. Well, there is if you try your best to make something out of nothing. Luckily, that’s my specialty here on Slasher.

While Silent Night isn’t a great movie in plot… or acting… or much else, there is an undercurrent theme of losing sight of what Christmas is. The characters in this movie are disconnected from what the holiday represents, lost in their worlds as Santa kills off each naughty individual one-by-one.

Kids These Days

The kids in this movie suck, not going to lie.

The standout is a teenage girl who is more than disrespectful to her mother. She slaps her mom’s “heart pills” out of her hand, basically tells her to fuck off, and demands to be taken to the mall.

Instead of wanting to spend time together as a family for Christmas, the daughter would rather boss her mother around.

And that’s where the first issue of Christmas magic comes in: the kids.

Don’t get me wrong, there has always been bratty kids, but sometimes it can feel… more prevalent in recent times.

Perhaps it’s the unregulated screen time and social media addictions, causing children to form a mentality of entitlement. If their favorite influencers can buy anything they want, then these kids should be able to get anything they want too, right?

And if these kids get whatever they want then… what’s the point of Christmas? What do you get a kid who already has everything? Another gift card? More skincare that ruins their skin? A podcast mic? What happened to toys, anyway?

But it isn’t just entitlement, it’s also the fear of being “cringe” that ruins modern childhood. When children are watching content made for adults instead of kids, they get roped into the idea of how they should present themselves.

Kids don’t feel comfortable expressing the classic wonder of Christmas because believing in Santa is “cringe.”

This is the unfortunate reality when some parents use social media as a babysitter—children are jaded, causing them to lose their spark when it comes to seeing the magic in Christmas.

TikTok tells them their Elf on the Shelf isn’t real and that Santa is just fairytale. Kids today live in an unfair playground if not carefully monitored, being forced into cynicism rather than choosing it.

Kids lose their imagination, not paying attention to the lights on houses but rather scrolling to the next short clip for their dopamine hit. And with this loss of wonder comes the loss of Christmas magic, because all of the fun in the holidays essentially dies… there’s no more Santa, no more miracles… no more spirit.

And none of this is the kids’ fault.

But when Silent Night presents a town that is rotted from the inside out, the kids are no exception.

”Christmas Just Isn’t the Same”

The kids in Silent Night may be misled, but the adults are full of selfishness and hate.

Our killer Santa targets people who are specifically “naughty”; people having an affair, a perverted reverend, pornstars, etc.

While watching the film, there certainly is a lack of Christmas spirit among anybody. The only people who seem to be enjoying the holidays is the Bradimore family, but past that lies a town full of apathy for the joyous season of the year.

But Silent Night is only mirroring what we see in real life from so many. People say that Christmas just doesn’t feel the same when you’re an adult, and that’s because many people grow up and lose the magic of what it once was.

The responsibilities of juggling a job, bills, and everyday errands becomes a burden of extreme stress. And with stress comes the cynicism and lack of imagination, and thus the inability to care.

Unfortunately, our ways to cope with this stress aren’t always healthy. Sometimes we doom scroll, sometimes we drink, sometimes we carelessly consume—all of it causes our brain to shut off the sector that still clings on to wonder.

In Silent Night, this is the model the kids look at for an example. The kids may lose some magic, but the adults kill off whatever is left of Christmas and spit on its grave.

But… what does that mean for Santa?

Who Wore it Better?

Both Silent Night and Silent Night, Deadly Night tackle a killer Santa, but they couldn’t be any more different from each other.

Silent Night uses its killer Santa as consequence for a town losing its way. He is the punisher, though not because he is virtuous. This killer Santa uses his murdering spree as a way of revenge for his father’s death.

But the movie never really gives us a reason to side with him or to even feel any sympathy for him. He is simply killing those who rot the town out of revenge, a motive that is shallow and emotionally weightless.

The town has no magic left. It’s already gone to shit and there’s no reason for us to care about the people dying.

Christmas is already dead in Cryer. Santa is just killing people to prove a moot point.

And that’s where the biggest difference between this remake and the original is: the magic of Christmas.

In Silent Night, Deadly Night, Billy Chapman didn’t kill people out of revenge.

He lived in a world where Christmas still had some magic, despite Billy’s traumatic past of watching his parents’ murder by a criminal Santa Claus. He still tried to participate in the holidays, even though he was haunted by his memories.

Billy wasn’t inherently bad or hellbent on vengeance; he was simply traumatized to the point of insanity. Once he was triggered into his episode, his murdering spree took place. But even his first kill was a man attempting to rape a woman… although Billy murdered the victim too.

He murders a couple having sex (where we get the iconic antler kill), and when a small child comes out to see the commotion, he doesn’t attempt to kill her. Instead, he asks her, “Have you been naughty or nice?”

When the girl says nice, he gives her a “present”… aka the box cutter he used to kill a woman earlier.

In Silent Night, the killer simply leaves town.

In Silent Night, Deadly Night, when Billy is dying on the floor of an orphanage, he tells the children they don’t have to be scared anymore. Santa is gone. Even in his death, Billy is protecting the children… Billy is protecting the innocence of Christmas.

Silent Night is about the loss of Christmas. Silent Night, Deadly Night is about the protection of what makes it special.

Does Silent Night even hold a candle to its original? No, not at all. Neither of them are masterpieces, but only one of them holds emotional weight.

While Silent Night may show us what happens when we stop caring altogether, it doesn’t make me want to rewatch it every year. A good Christmas movie should be an event… something you look forward to seeing every holiday season.

Yet, Silent Night has never been in my Christmas marathon rotation.

Perhaps that’s because there’s just no incentive to. There’s nothing quite wowing about it, even though it really tries to be… especially if I compare it to another Christmas horror comedy like Krampus.

Krampus is in my holiday rotation. Despite it being about a demonic entity set to kill a family during Christmas, it still has a classic holiday message about love. Because, yes, Krampus is ultimately about loving your family.

But Silent Night doesn’t really offer me that. It’s just another killer Santa movie, and even though the acting is terrible just like Santa’s Slay, it’s not even ridiculous enough for me to want to rewatch it like Santa’s Slay.

On the other hand, Silent Night, Deadly Night still feels special. There’s a message about protecting Christmas, exploring what happens when innocence is lost.

In his own twisted way, Billy fought for Christmas.

The other Santa just buried a town that was already dead, you know? He didn’t exactly do much of anything.

So, I’d like to argue against Silent Night… because magic never dies, people just stop caring.

Christmas magic isn’t something we grow out of. It’s something we stop fighting for.

Maybe we should all fight a little harder then.

Hey, so if you really believe in the magic of Christmas, you should probably check out the other awesome writers participating in Scarestack’s 25 Days of Slays:

12/1 Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Kyle (Horrorble Writer)

12/2 The Nightmare Before Christmas: Abandoned Places George R. Galuschak

12/3 Silent Night Deadly Night: Molly O'Blivion

12/4 Anna And The Apocalypse: H. is for Horror H. H. Duke

12/5 Terrifier 3: Meat Head Media

12/6 The Advent Calendar: Sahar Writes Sahar Khan

12/7 Silent Night Deadly Night 4: Shenanigans Stephen Duffy

12/8 Violent Night: Robo Pulp Media @robopulp

12/9 The Lodge: Offscreenshaman

12/10 Mean One: Beverley's Horror Corner

12/11 Silent Night: Slasher Skyla

12/12 It’s A Wonderful Knife: Thehumangaze

12/13 A Christmas Horror Story: Strange Matters Mike Duffy

12/14 Deadly Games/Dial Code Santa Claus: Hellish Views - Harry Evans

12/15 Black Christmas (2006): Blood, Guts, and Blush Kristen

12/16 Krampus: Pop! Goes My Brain Joanne Thornborough

12/17 Elves: Creatures of War Emma

12/18 Santa Jaws: Movie Malpractice Sean Mo

12/19 Better Watch Out: Habitual Cinema Jean-Pierre Diez

12/20 Rare Exports: The Macabre Tavern Yanni Hamburger

12/21 Christmas Bloody Christmas: Horror Hangouts

12/22 Silent Night Deadly Night 2: Tales From The Tape Brandon Rae

12/23 Gremlins: B-Movie Tea

12/24 Black Christmas (2019): That Horror Lesbian

12/25 Black Christmas: Horror Concierge Kimberly Ramsawak