“Garbage day!”

Justin’s rating: He knows when you’ve been naughty

Justin’s review: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 may be the first horror movie sequel ever made which absolved the audience of responsibility for seeing the first movie. The reason for this is that this movie contains a stunning 40 minutes (out of a 85-minute runtime) of flashback footage to the first film, done to repackage the original with some fresh garnish. So really, if you’ve seen the second, you’ve seen them both — and the second one is where all of the memes reside, anyway.

A few years after Ricky (Eric Freeman) witnessed his older brother and fellow orphan Billy snap and kill a bunch of people while dressed as Santa Claus (because their parents were killed by a guy dressed up as Santa Claus. It’s a trend.). Apparently holding a torch for his brother, Ricky then takes up the Santa suit and engages in his own spree of murder and revengin’ against the Mother Superior who messed them both up.

Ricky is really the reason why you want to see this movie. Trying to strike up a menacing tone, Freeman tilts way too far into posing and William Shatner-like pauses. Every line from him is pure gold, bitten off sharply only after he makes sure the camera is watching and waiting for him to react. It’s so unnatural that by his third or fourth line of bravado — “I. Don’t. SLEEP.” — you’ll be shaking your head and laughing at this fool.

He’s glorious.

You really don’t have to go far at any point in this movie to be wildly entertained by its badness. Whether it be the incessant theme of “naughtiness,” a little kid punching the lights out of Santa Claus, so many waggling eyebrows, or the infamous “GARBAGE DAY!” clip, Silent Night 2 is a cavalcade of bizarrely terrible moments. It’s far more campy than scary, but not intentionally, which makes the difference. This series was trying to make Christmastime the next Halloween yet clearly didn’t understand that such an endeavor required more than a thematic outfit and some weird murders.

The obvious issue here is that the flashback scenes are as unnecessary as they are long. They’re also not nearly as entertaining as the new stuff for the sequel. You’ll deeply wish that the filmmakers had enough funds to do nothing but the Ricky Show for the full length, not just for the final half-hour.

Still, you’re just not going to find what’s essentially a clip show starring a Santa Claus who’s gone off the deep end, acting-wise, and giving us a performance that’s as opposite of scary as is possible — except for here.

Didja notice?

• This orderly is so dang suspicious, almost hilariously so
• Ricky’s time is very valuable
• Couples in movies really love to smile at each other while driving, don’t they?
• Who needs car seats in the early ’80s?
• Ricky’s Christmas slaughter coloring page
• Ricky doesn’t sleep, apparently
• Punching out Santa Claus
• That’s some good fake drunk acting!
• [Guy shoots an arrow into an innocent lady] “But it wasn’t his fault!”
• How many times they say the word “naughty”
• RED CAR!
• That umbrella seems unlikely to be lethal
• “I’m done talking!” says the guy who keeps talking
• I would’ve loved to seen Chaos: The Motion Picture
• I don’t think it’s legally murder if you kill a theater talker
• So they go to watch the movie… of the first movie?
• Chip’s very unfortunate ’80s hairstyle
• That poor dummy’s head. It didn’t deserve to be electrocuted like that.
• “Bingo!” And then the car explodes somehow
• These cops are very concerned that a murderer not kill himself
• “He walked out of here six hours ago. And it’s Christmas Eve!”
• Nothing like being outwitted by an elderly stroke victim in a wheelchair to make you seem so threatening