Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

This is a movie about poor little Ricky.

Poor little Ricky saw his older brother Billy gunned down while in a Santa suit. Poor little Ricky also now suffers from PTSD from the murder of his parents. Poor little Ricky only got a budget of $100,000 to make a movie, and originally it was just supposed to be a re-edit of the original Silent Night, Deadly Night. As a result, poor little Ricky’s movie sucks something fierce, and over a third of it is footage from the original film as Ricky recaps it. About two-thirds of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is flashback as Ricky relates to a psychiatrist about how he ended up in an institution. Then he kills the shrink off screen and walks out to go on his own short lived Santa-themed massacre.

We need some separation between Silent Night, Deadly Night and its sequel. You see, Ricky is a very different maniac from Billy in the first film. Whereas Billy was face-forward, no expression, dead eyes and only single words, Ricky laughs constantly. He’s goofy and playful about his killings. This makes the sequel a very different animal, still grungy but with a different flavor.

Between his attitude, the minuscule budget, and the rehashing of old footage, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 works better as a comedy. It’s so bad, it’ll leave you laughing. Of particular note is the Garbage Day scene, which successfully managed to enter the public consciousness through glorious meme form, helping us transform into a society that communicates through Twitter posts and cat videos. The rest of the movie isn’t much better, and since the director couldn’t get actors from the original to return and make this terrible rehash, there are some nasty effects used to try and make the nun look like Mother Superior from the first film. It fails; instead she looks like a leper.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 falls short of its predecessor and is much better suited towards mockery with a crowd. Laugh, throw popcorn at the screen, and quote the film endlessly. It’s the only way this one should be experienced. Or maybe while intoxicated. Ok, definitely while intoxicated.