SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (2025)

Starring Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson, Mark Acheson, Logan Sawyer, Kowen Cadorath, Erik Athavale, Rick Skene, James Durham, Sharon Bajer, Tom Young, Krystle Snow, Madeleine Cox, Ryan Padua, Isla Verot, Blake Laplante, Diane Ventura, Jeff Strome, Darren Ross, Darren Felbel, Muriel Hogue and Nicole Mueller.

Screenplay by Mike P. Nelson.

Directed by Mike P. Nelson.

Distributed by Cineverse. 96 minutes. Rated R.

I’m not sure that the world has been waiting for a second reboot of the 1984 cult killer-Santa movie Silent Night, Deadly Night. (And for sake of clarity, it is not actually supposed to be Santa doing the killing, just a guy in a Santa suit.) Even that film was not the first holiday-themed slasher movie – that was Black Christmas a full decade earlier in 1974, which has also been rebooted twice. (That original film also had a very similar alternate title Silent Night, Evil Night.)

So, why exactly does this basic idea of a Christmas slasher film keep coming back like Kris Kringle and his reindeer? And does it mean that we have been naughty or nice?

I mean; I guess I can see the attractiveness of the idea for a b-filmmaker. The irony, well at least sort of, of people being violently mowed down to Christmas music with lots of twinkly lights and holiday paraphernalia strewn about – it is an interesting contrast with the season.

The new reboot of Silent Night, Deadly Night (it had a brief theatrical release last holiday season and now a few months later is being released on video and streaming) is only kind of faithful to the film that inspired it. In fact, the movie tries to rationalize its mad killer in a Santa suit. Billy is a basically nice, misunderstood, shy guy who only violently butchers people because he has the voice of the man who killed his parents in his head. Literally, he has entire conversations with the guy, almost making it seem like an odd variation of a buddy film. They also have a moral code – they only kill truly bad people.

So, basically, it’s like what would happen if Dexter wore a Santa suit and wasn’t so meticulous about his kills.

Oh, sure, this film has its own unique little kinks. The Santa suit is a big one of course, and the fact that he only kills during the holiday season. In fact, he has an advent calendar with which he must add a bit of blood from a new victim every day. In fact, Billy and his imaginary friend believe that if he does not kill an evil person every day, a good person will die. Is that likely? Probably not. But it’s the premise, and besides it’s not like Billy is the sanest guy you’re going to run into.

Billy is played by Rohan Campbell, who between this movie and Halloween Ends is starting to get typecast in holiday-themed horror reboots about reluctant serial killers and the women who love them. That woman is Pam (Ruby Modine), the daughter of a man who owns a holiday store who admits she is a true-crime junkie and is getting over an ugly breakup with a local policeman.

Billy first sees her picking up a to-go order at a local diner in a quaint small town he is passing through. (The waitress warns him that she is like a sugar-coated onion, which is I guess a pretty interesting description.) He follows (stalks?) her back to her store, has an awkward conversation with her and eventually applies for a job there.

At first, she keeps him at arm’s length, but soon enough they are getting closer and closer. She thinks he’s a similarly tortured soul, and I guess in some ways he is, but she overlooks (or disregards) several significant red flags. And then it turns out that she has a pretty explosive temper herself. Maybe they really are meant for each other?

Hmm, you don’t get many rom-coms where at least one of the couple is a serial killer, but, sure, why not?

The body count rises, to a sometimes-unlikely extent, like the time that Billy impulsively slaughters an entire crowded neo-Nazi Christmas party with a single hatchet while taking them on one at a time.

It doesn’t really make much sense, but what slasher film really does? It’s certainly not terrible, but it’s also not all that great either. Still, Silent Night, Deadly Night offers enough showy killing scenes that most people who are looking for that kind of film will probably enjoy themselves.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: February 18, 2026.