Dir. Mike P. Nelson, US, 2025, 95 mins

Cast: Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, David Lawrence Brown

Review by Colin Dibben

The latest 1980s slasher remake is a big Christmas turkey, just for all you horror fans.

Billy (Campbell) is a troubled young guy on a mission. He likes dressing up as Santa and killing people with an axe. They deserve it, because they are ‘wrong uns’. He knows this because there is a voice in his head telling him who to target, courtesy of the dead serial killer who has possessed him.

Billy rides into a small American town on a bus. He has a big bag containing his Santa outfit and his axe. He gets a job at a local knick-knacks shop run by Pamela (Modine) and her dad Mr Sims (Brown) – then sets about his business. Pamela is an odd one – she has anger issues and is described nicely by a diner waitress as “a bit of a sugared onion”!

Billy and Pammy eventually get together, while Billy goes around killing neo-Nazis, wife killers and child snatchers. All in time for Christmas!

The original 1984 film and its sequels were no ‘Halloween’ franchise but focused on things that triggered Billy and led to his killings. Meta elements crept in with the second film, but essentially his violence was seen as a product of childhood trauma and religious foster upbringing. Billy killed while sniggering ‘Santa knows you’ve been naughty’ even though his victims were not all deserving of axing.

Here, though, all Billy’s violence is righteous revenge, which makes the movie feel a bit, well, self-righteous. In fact, all the changes that writer-director Mike P Nelson brings to the story just worsen the cinematic experience.

I am thinking of Billy’s possession by a serial killer and the really rubbish, gravelly killer’s voiceover that comes with it. But also the blippy red-tinted flashbacks and flashforwards, which feel like short circuits in the place of proper sequences setting up acts of violence. These aspects are ineffectual and frankly annoying. The endless deep convos between fakely traumatised characters are simply hard to care about.

That is sad because things start pretty well, with nice wide shots of the incidents that initiate Billy’s childhood trauma giving the film an almost Profondo Rosso feel.

Gore hound expectations have been whetted by Terrifier 3 and Thanksgiving, but there is not much satisfying gore on show here and there are no good special effects at all. Come on, chum, if you are going to get an 18 certificate, you may as well earn it!

Even the gory advent calendar in which Billy keeps his trophies is fluffed: they are smears of blood rather than juicy body parts, although the close ups of Billy’s fingers pressing home are almost satisfying.

On the plus side, Campbell looks like a young Michael Rooker of Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer fame; and Modine’s Pammy is a quirky character who makes you wonder just what is going on. Is he a killer too?

As an aside, I note that Modine has her dad’s nose. He is Matthew Modine of Full Metal Jacket.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is in cinemas on 12 December 2025.