Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Sam Panico Christmas Eve, 1950: Wilfred Butler runs from his home, on fire, and supposedly dies in the snow. Christmas Eve, 1970: John Carter (Patrick O'Neal, The Stepford Wives, The Stuff) and his assistant Ingrid arrive in a small Massachusetts town. He meets with the town's mayor, sheriff and major citizens like Tess Howard and Charlie Towman (John Carradine!), who may have lost his voice to a tracheotomy but not his need to smoke, about selling the Butler mansion as soon as possible. While staying overnight with Ingrid, who is also his mistress, they are both killed by an axe. The killer calls the police and says that they are Marianne. Tess, the town's telephone operator, hears the call and drives to the mansion, where she is greeted by Marianne Butler before she is hit in the head with a candle holder. Meanwhile, Sheriff Mason finds that Wilfred's grave is empty. He is killed and thrown into the empty hole. Mayor Adams is asked to go to the Butler mansion but leaves his daughter, Diane (Mary Woronov, Death Race 2000, Chelsea Girls) at home. She meets up with a man who claims to be Jeffrey Butler, who has taken the sheriff's abandoned car. Together, they search for the lawman but can't find him. After taking Towman to the mansion, Jeffrey goes back to get Diane. On their way to the mansion, Towman stumbles blindly in front of them and is hit and killed. His eyes had been stabbed out and Diane grows worried about Jeffrey. Well, this movie is also about incest! A diary found at the house reveals that Jeffrey is the son of Wilfred and his daughter, Marianne. Afterward, Wilfred turned the house into an asylum and admitted his own daughter. However, on Christmas Eve 1935, he turned all of the inmates loose. They killed every doctor as well as his daughter. Of note here is that many of the inmates in the flashback are played by former stars of Warhol's factory, like Ondine, Tally Brown, Kristen Steen and Lewis Love, as well as Flaming Creatures auteur Jack Smith, artist George Trakas and his wife at the time, Susan Rothenberg. Warhol superstar Candy Darling also shows up in the film as a party guest. Well, it turns out that some of the inmates of the insane asylum ended up being important parts of the town - that's right, all of the important people John met with in the beginning! Mayor Adams arrives at the mansion and he and Jeffrey face off, guns drawn, each believing the other is the killer. They kill one another as Marianne shows up, but she is really Wilfred, who is alive. He went after the inmates for their role in the death of his daughter and used his grandson/son/secret shame Jeffrey as a patsy. Diane gets the gun and kills the old man. One year later, the mansion is demolished as she watches. Director Theodore Gershuny worked on plenty of episodes of Monsters and Tales from the Darkside after this film. He was also married to Woronov. The original title for the film was Night Of The Dark Full Moon and it was also nearly called Zora, which makes little to no sense. There are some really interesting techniques here, especially in the flashback sequences, which feel like tinted photographs come to life with the sadest version of "Silent Night" ever playing behind the action. I love how experimental and dark these sequences look - they remind me a little of the film Begotten. This is a dark film for your holiday viewing, so if you want to chase away the family for awhile, this is the one to do it.

Mr_Ectoplasma "Silent Night, Bloody Night" focuses on a small town New England mansion with a grim past; Wilfred Butler, the home's owner, burned to death there on Christmas Eve 1950. Some years later, a lawyer of Butler's son arrives in town on Christmas Eve to assess the property for sale, setting in motion a night-long series of axe murders.I first saw "Silent Night, Bloody Night" years ago via an absurdly grainy, muddy print with near-inaudible sound, and remember being completely perturbed by everything about it. At the time I wasn't sure if this was because of the turbid quality of the film stock, or just because the movie gave off that sort of vibe. I've since been able to watch the film in a higher quality print with optimal sound (this print carries the title card, "Death House," and is the best in circulation), and can now say that I think it may have been a mixture of both."Silent Night, Bloody Night" may be the first real Christmas horror film, though it is not a picture that plays much into the holiday theme; instead, it merely employs the Christmas Eve setting as a backdrop for the profoundly Gothic and twisted horror story it has to tell. It also may be one of the first real slasher films, even predating "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and its holiday horror peer "Black Christmas," which really makes it stand out from a historical perspective. In some ways, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" has been neglected outside of genre purists, and the film honestly deserves a wider audience.Let's make things clear here: this is most definitely a B-movie. The performances are uneven, at times hammy, and there is a gritty edge to the entire thing that pervades almost every scene; and yet, there is also something surprisingly elegant about the film. Though you can't tell from most of the prints in circulation, it is actually a really nicely shot film; the looming mansion and snowy New York countryside (posed as a Massachusetts stand-in) are chillingly captured, and the scenes that unfold within the mansion are dark and atmospheric. The entire film is drenched in a dreary tone that really works to offset the Christmas theme, which makes for an intriguing combination. I hate to be speculative—but I'm going to be anyway—in saying that the film also appears to have been inspirational to some of the key elements of the cult classic "Black Christmas," which would follow it two years later. They are remarkably different films, but share in common menacing phone calls and unnerving POV shots from the killers' perspectives that are too similar to be mere coincidence. Where "Black Christmas" aims for ambiguity, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" takes a more classical approach, unraveling a small-town history and subtly exposing itself with a twisted resolution that is in some ways almost Shakespearean.The film features an array of respected old Hollywood actors, including John Carradine, Patrick O'Neal, and Walter Able, as well as Mary Woronov as the mayor's daughter, and a variety of fellow Warhol superstars making small appearances as asylum inmates in a key flashback scene.Overall, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" is a moody and genuinely unnerving slasher film that deserves a wider audience than it has. The nearly incomprehensible print of the film—which also happens to be the most widely circulated—has probably lost it a great deal of viewers, which is understandable on some levels, but beneath the grit and the grime, there is a truly eerie and demented horror film that is far more layered than you'd expect it to be. Oh, and did I mention it has one of the greatest axe murder scenes in movie history? 9/10.

Michael_Elliott Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Low-budget shocker has a man (James Patterson) inheriting his grandfather's house, which at one time was an asylum. Years earlier the grandfather has been burned alive and left in his will that no one sells the place. Well, the grandson decides to sell it and sends his lawyer (Patrick O'Neil) to do so but soon an axe-carrying maniac starts knocking people off.SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is a somewhat popular title due to its Public Domain status, which means it's been released in countless ways over the past two decades. Most people either really enjoy the film for its story or they're going to be bored by the poor technical aspects. It's really too bad that the screenplay wasn't given some polish because the actual mystery here is so good that you can't help but wonder what someone like Hitchcock could have done with it. Yes, I think there are some very good story ideas running throughout the picture that really could have been exploited by a great director.As it stands, SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is a slightly entertaining, if highly flawed movie. We'll start with some of the good stuff. The highlight is without question that actual mystery, which is strong enough to carry you throughout the entire running time. If you stop and think about a few things there are certainly some holes to be found but at the same time there's no doubt that you'll be guessing up to the very end. Another good aspect here are the murders, which are pretty bloody in their own way. What's so impressive about them isn't so much the blood but the POV way that they're shot. All of them are shot extremely well when you consider the budget.Which, by the same token, makes you wonder why the rest of the film looks so poor. It certainly doesn't look like a professional film and there's no question that the low-budget does more harm than good. Performances are better than average with both Patterson and O'Neal doing a good job as does Mary Woronov. Horror legend John Carradine has a brief role here and it's always fun seeing him.SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT is far from a classic but it's a charming film in its own right, warts and all.

kai ringler I really liked this one because it's a little different than most horror pictures that I've seen,, first off you don't get many horror pictures set during the Yuletide season, in this one a young man inherits his father's old house , which use to be an insane asylum,, and at a local town hall meeting he decides he's gonna sell for 50,000 dirt cheap, but he gives the people notice that they have something like 48 hours to decide.. 20 years earlier his father was set on fire in that house,, and hasn't been seen since.. Word get's around to another insane asylum across town where a crazed lunatic, decides that he is gonna take refuge in the old butler house,, and from here on it becomes clear that the body count will definitely rise,, very decent picture on a low budget.