Stephan Hammond
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
wakezakzak-89190
On Christmas Eve, months after the supposed suicide of their missing older brother Max Zacherly, (Jeff Dylan Graham), siblings Angelica and James Zacherly (Julia Farrell and Luc Bernier) reunite to trace their brother's tracks back to a bed and breakfast run by Carol and Humphrey Brickmann (Jennifer Runyon Corman and Pete Lipins), where they retrieve a VHS tape of their brother's final moments, telling them they have to uncover the secrets of the town and the residents if they want to know why he is dead. As Angelica and James begin uncovering secrets, a legend known as Black Peter begins stalking the siblings and the residents of the Bed and Breakfast.This film suffers from bad special effects, bad audio quality, and some bad acting. Some bad acting, though, not complete bad acting. It's noticeable that the actors are trying their best, but their delivery is off for certain lines, and comes off as awkward. All of this is throughout the entire 90 minute running time, but was bearable for the first 25 to 30 minutes. Had the film been given a higher budget, these negatives could have been positive. But then this film began trying to connect to the original film from 1974, and it lost me. If you haven't seen or read about the original film, skip to where it says SPOILERS END.SPOILERS BEGINAngelica begins reading the diary of Jeffrey Butler, who survived his fatal gunshot wound from the first movie thanks to the plot of this movie. The voice actor for the voice of Jeffrey Butler is awful, as he sounds WAY too young to be the middle aged Jeffrey from the original, and FAR too young to sound like the 80 year old Jeffrey Butler that is in this movie. Jeffrey's character is retconned by the writer of this film to have not only survived the events of the first film by becoming temporarily supernatural, but was also assisting his grandfather/daddy, Wilfred Butler (the killer from the original), in his murder spree by keeping the lead girl, Diane Adams, distracted, as if she would put a hinge in Wilfred's murder spree...even though she never would have gotten involved in the film had Jeffrey never came to her doorstep. This film took the story of the original, the story of Jeffrey Butler, an odd, psychotic, yet charming middle aged man seeking $50,000 to sell his family home, only to stumble upon his true heritage INSIDE the house itself...and flipped it 180 so he was involved with the killing spree the entire time...and acted clueless to his heritage the entire time, even when Diane wasn't around...just so this film can have a connection to it...when it really didn't need to. But if it didn't, the running time of this movie would have only been 56 to 57 minutes, so connecting to the first one via flashbacks allow a good half hour plus to increase the running time of this movie.SPOILERS ENDHad this film sever the connection to the first one, it could have possibly stood on its own, and mercilessly be shorter by a half hour. It would have gotten one or two more stars out of me had it done that, but unfortunately, it had to tie itself with the original, and lower the rating with it. Do not rent or buy, UNLESS you are a hardcore completionist and absolutely need to see it.
Michael_Elliott
Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (2015) * 1/2 (out of 4)Angelica (Julia Farrell) and her brother James (Luc Bernier) return to East Willard to pay their respects to a dead loved one. They end up staying at a bed and breakfast (ran by Jennifer Runyon Corman) where they start to look into their past and learn about a bizarre set of murders in 1972.You know, it's pretty amazing to think that 1972's SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT was originally released without too much praise. Over the years it ended up in the public domain so many horror fans started to rediscover it and before long it became a cult favorite. The cult following got the film remade in 2013 and then this direct sequel followed. No, this isn't a direct sequel to the 2013 film. This here is actually a direct sequel to the 1972 film.Is this movie any good? Not really but I think there are some good things scattered throughout. The film was obviously working on a very low-budget, which is most evident when it comes to the murder scenes. The death scenes are all rather cheap and especially one scene with a rubber hand. Another problem with the budget is that it appears they couldn't shoot too much footage because there's a lot of footage used from the original movie. At first I was thinking of praising the film because it wasn't using too much footage from the first movie but then the final thirty minutes are pretty much taken from the 1972 film. I mean, you pretty much get to see the entire ending of that picture!Some might think that was needed since a lot of people might not remember that film's events but I think it could have been handled in a much better way where we aren't given twenty-plus minutes worth of re-used footage. With all of that said, I thought there was some good things here. Director Dustin Ferguson and writer John Klyza deserve credit for at least attempting to make a direct sequel. I thought the screenplay offered up some nice ideas to build on what we saw in the original and Ferguson does a nice job considering the budget he had.I also thought both Farrell and Bernier were good in their parts. Sometimes in these low-budget movies it's hard to really give any type of performance but I thought both were fine. Jennifer Runyon Cormon, best remembered for TO ALL A GOODNIGHT, UP THE CREEK and GHOSTBUSTERS, appears in a pretty big role and it was nice seeing her. Some of the supporting players are rather bad but none of them are in big enough of roles to where it really effects the film.SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT 2 isn't a complete success but at the same time there are a few interesting ideas. I just wish there wasn't so much footage from the original film used.
