Editorials
[Revenge of the Remakes] Steven C. Miller’s Christmastime Slasher ‘Silent Night’
Welcome to “Revenge Of The Remakes!” Columnist Matt Donato’s journey through the world of horror remakes. We all complain about Hollywood’s lack of originality whenever studios announce new remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, but the reality? Far more positive examples of refurbished classics and updated legacies exist than you’re willing to remember (or admit). The good, the bad, the unnecessary – Matt’s recounting them all.
“Christmas Horror” has curiously developed into my #1 subgenre addiction, so why not kick this column off with a ferociously festive favorite? Steven C. Miller’s Silent Night (2012) gift wraps everything I want from a psycho Santa slasher, and furthermore, from a horror remake. The original? 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night. Billy Chapman’s red-suited origin as December 25th’s nastiest disciplinarian of all who are deemed “naughty.” Let’s start “Revenge of the Remakes” on a positive first foot stepped into freshly powdered and blood-soaked snow.
The Approach
Studios, take note. When opting to remake or reboot long-standing properties, approach from the angle of “reimagining.” Silent Night could stand alone as an original Christmas slasher on merits unto Miller’s conceptual identity, but still pays respectful homage to Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s cult-lauded unholy night. Miller isn’t here to dust off old blueprints. His villain, the film’s formula, general nastiness, artistic desires – everything works to prove why remakes are most certainly allowed and not a death knell to originality as some cinema dissenters assert.
Jayson Rothwell’s script flips the narrative of Silent Night, Deadly Night by shifting focus from the story’s villain to a team of Wisconsin law enforcers who become Silent Night’s heroes. Where Sellier chooses to establish Billy through intimacy as a focal killer who offs somewhat nameless marks, Miller keeps a distance from whoever’s under his version’s plastic mask to honor more time-tested slasher hallmarks. Jaime King’s Deputy Aubrey Bradimore is our narrative commander, fighting back against the lunatic who’s dismembering and defiling her sleepy town’s population. Characters are (most times) more than kill fodder, and Rothwell favors mystery over painting a portrait of some deranged Yuletide murderer.
Does It Work?
Heck to the yes! Miller’s strengths behind the camera separate as far as possible from Sellier’s original. Most scenes are spent trying to locate one bad Santa in a town where costumed Clauses roam streets freely during the buildup before Cryer’s local Christmas parade. Silent Night lifts Silent Night, Deadly Night’s general idea, but doesn’t recreate the same midnight-prime lunacy of Billy’s rampage. What Silent Night, Deadly Night becomes is so singular to itself and the ensuing (anthological) franchise. Miller’s gingerbread crime scene construction is a heightened flavor of its own frosted decorative signature.
With the above noted, it’s important than Silent Night still includes noticeable callbacks to iconic scenes. Maybe it’s “Crazy Grandpa” in the senior home who drifts out of his catatonic state just long enough to tell his punk nephew Christmas Eve is the “scariest damn night of the year.” Perhaps it’s Deputy Giles (Andrew Cecon) muttering a line about “garbage day” when taking out the trash. Maybe it’s the film’s ending “twist,” which we won’t spoil for Silent Night newbies. Miller’s vision comes from a place of love for retro horror and Sellier’s origin, which repurposes the original’s most iconic quotables as crazed carolers might. A nod of the cap that’s never beholden to tit-for-tat obviousness.
The Result
Silent Night is a brand of fangs-flashed, aggressive slasher that harkens back to the very era Silent Night, Deadly Night was born in but Hollywood since abandoned. Miller’s proclivity for gruesome storytelling never shies from in-your-face flexing, and Silent Night is the sum of all his nastiest emphasis. By 2012, popcorn slashers saw themselves sufficiently phased from mainstream slates in favor of the “dark, gritty” grime popularized by Zack Snyder’s lens. Horror’s morbidly comedic underbelly covered and clothed, leaving little place for 80s genre mentalities to flourish in conception. Miller’s reimagining is a reminder of what was once profitable, and a damn-fine example of how it could still thrive despite modern cinema favoring alternate trends. Maybe that’s why Anchor Bay never granted Silent Night the release it deserved.
As an all-spiced bite of Christmas horror, Miller’s heavy lean into jingle-bell-rockin’ brutality encompasses all we expect the subgenre to celebrate. Victims die by a cranky Kringle who roasts some like chestnuts, electrocutes others with a crown of multicolored Christmas lights, and sends a good fright when flashing his candy cane striped scythe. Production decor finds a gossipy rural town amidst Christmas Eve jubilee decked out in ugly sweaters, Naughty Mrs. Claus lingerie, and more ornamental sparkle than Clark Griswold’s estate. Even cinematography embraces wintery notes, soaking Act III’s climax in evergreen neon and blood red color filters while Aubrey fights back. Miller morphs cheer into carnage and satirizes every ounce of goodwill preyed upon by devils of the season, from bratty kids to pervy priests to cheating spouses.
When you think “holiday horror,” Silent Night is a poster child.
When filmmakers accept a remake gig, all you can hope is that a director’s creativity and signatures offer something fresh. Justify your decision to give us another [insert title]. In this case, Miller pushes the boundaries that Sellier once set by glorifying spectacle slasher deaths while asserting punishing darkness with a devious smile. It’s a bit sentimental because Silent Night marks an end to Miller’s hardcore horror catalog (thus far), but showcases practical-heavy talents and punk-as-hell confidence. Look no further than after the showpiece Lienna Quigley homage, where said hottie’s boyfriend eats a face full of axe. Right and left sides now with a sizable empty “V” in between, juices gushing outwards as the camera lingers on one dynamite prosthetic rig with great pride.
There’s so much appreciation in Silent Night’s product, but most importantly, Miller craves something grander, gorier, and more savage than what once was banned for its “killer Santa” marketing.
Does Rothwell get goofy? With references to Glee, Tim Tebow, American Idol, and so many other of-the-time pop culture phenomenons, there’s this unmistakable cheekiness that calls back to the original film’s unintentional comedy. Dated references can be a mood killer, but Malcolm McDowell’s performance as a gruff-and-sassy sheriff grump is legendary veteran character work. “Don’t put avocado on the burger,” he instructs instead of saying “don’t overcomplicate things.” When misspelling a perp’s name as “Karson” instead of “Karsson,” his retort upon being corrected is “Double ‘S?’ Double screwed.” Rothwell’s conviction when it comes to cheesy comedy is intentionally overplayed given connections to Silent Night, Deadly Night, but distinctly individualistic. Once again, we come back to differentiation.
The Lesson
Shoot your shot! Fortune favors the bold. Be more than “just a remake.” Silent Night is a brilliant resource on how to honor cinematic achievements of yesteryear by both building out existing walls but directing people back to where it all began. Steven C. Miller respects Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s contribution to Christmas horror canon as much as he stakes his own pepperminty claim. Anyone can copy someone else’s work – the true test is taking someone else’s product and making it your own. Silent Night? Every bit a true exemplification of the latter.
The great Ernest Dickerson turns seventy-five years old this month, so we’re looking back at his most memorable contribution to the horror genre – 1995’s Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight!
The film hit screens while the Tales from the Crypt series was winding down its run on television, and it stands apart with a story that feels a step or two removed from the franchise norm. That was the smart play, though, as the show’s stories – and those from the original EC comics – work best in short bites. The result is a film that holds up beautifully as a gory good time.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Commentator: Ernest Dickerson (director), Michael Felsher (moderator)
1. Dickerson was in post-production on Surviving the Game when he got a call from his agent saying that producer Gil Adler wanted to meet about a Tales from the Crypt feature film. It went well, so Dickerson met with Joel Silver next and secured the job.
2. The original screenplay for the film came to the producers as a spec script wholly detached from the Tales from the Crypt brand. They added the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir) bookends to make it fit.
3. Dickerson was more familiar with the original EC comic books having read them as a kid, but he had watched a few episodes of the HBO series, so he knew what the current vibe was for the project.
4. Adler directed the film’s wraparound segments, meaning Dickerson never actually got to work with the creepy puppet. “Gil and the Crypt Keeper had a great relationship,” he adds, “they worked together for years.”
5. While he was new to the Tales from the Crypt family, Dickerson had previously worked as a director of photography on the Tales from the Darkside anthology series. That show is underappreciated in my humble opinion, and I will go to bat for both it and the equally underloved Monsters.
6. A big appeal of the horror genre for Dickerson is the idea of dark mysteries that challenge our imagination. For this film, that came down to the mythology being created between the characters.
7. Five executive producers are listed in the opening credits, but Dickerson says the only two he had dealings with were Silver and Richard Donner. The other three were Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and David Giler.
8. Dickerson had only ever seen Billy Zane in movies with a full head of hair, so he was surprised when Zane showed up on the first day with a bald head. “He had this case, and he opened up the case that he had all these hair pieces in, and he says, ‘So which one of these do you think I should use?’” Dickerson looked at him and suggested he just go bald for the character.
9. While the bulk of the opening exteriors were filmed in a desert just outside Los Angeles, the shot of the old church at 11:26 was created on a warehouse hangar soundstage where the film’s interiors were shot.
10. When he had read the script, Dickerson pictured the character of Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith) “as a little, tough lady.” He had recently seen Smith in Menace II Society, and while the producers had someone else in mind for the role, he fought to get her instead.
11. Just as Zane surprised Dickerson with his hair (or lack thereof), Smith arrived on the first day with her hair dyed platinum white. He “liked the idea” but asked her to please get it tweaked so it looked more yellowish blond. “It’s definitely a statement.”
12. He had seen Brenda Bakke in the 1989 sci-fi/action film from Japan, Gunhed, and thought she’d be great here as Cordelia. The rest of us might recognize her from Death Spa or Trucks.
13. Felsher comments that the film’s setup does a good job not telegraphing who’s going to live or die, and he uses the “nice guy” (Charles Fleischer) and “the kid” (Ryan O’Donohue) as examples. “You don’t play by those rules here,” he says, and Dickerson replies that he wanted to subvert those rules. That extends to Smith as well because she’s Black, “and usually in movies like this they’re the first folks to die.”
14. Dickerson says they had forty days of filming, “which, the way I’m used to working, was a very generous schedule.” It was budgeted at around $10 million.
15. This probably won’t surprise you, but Zane improvised the bit at 26:25 after he jumps out the window and says, “Fuck this cowboy shit! You fuckin’, hodunk Podunk, well, then, motherfuckers!”
16. In the original script, the demons that The Collector (Zane) raises from the dirt actually looked more like the people they used to be. “They were more human,” but the very smart decision was made in pre-production to make them look far more unique instead.
17. The demons are killed by shooting their eyes, but Dickerson felt there should be one more element to it. “Shoot out their eyes, you gotta duck because the souls come shooting out, and if it hits ya, boom, it can kill ya.” This is a fun touch.
18. He’s been asked more than once if these demons are where Peter Jackson got the idea for how the orcs would look in his Lord of the Rings movies. “They do look like orcs.”
19. He recalls having seen Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair shortly before going to work on Demon Knight, and he hoped to bring some of that staged style into his own film. An example of that in practice is Brayker’s (William Sadler) brief flashbacks to Christ on the cross.
20. Character deaths were mostly based on the idea that “each person’s downfall was going to be predicated by their weakness.” The Collector discovers someone’s weakness and then uses it against them. Cordelia wants to be loved, Jeryline wants to travel, Uncle Willy (Dick Miller) is a horndog for both liquor and ladies, Danny loves horror comics, etc.
21. Dickerson says that plenty of genre classics were in the back of his head while making the film, including Assault on Precinct 13, Alien, Aliens, and more.
22. Cordelia is possessed into a demonic form, and Dickerson’s idea for how she’d look was originally a bit different. “Since Cordelia was a prostitute, I thought that her mouth should actually be a vertical slit that was in her stomach… which would open up with teeth and a tongue.” It was nixed, he says, when “the wife of one of the producers read that and said ‘no way you’re putting that in the movie.’”
23. The key makes an appearance in the followup, Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood, but it wasn’t originally meant to. Apparently, early test audiences expected it to be a more connected sequel to Demon Knight, so the filmmakers added it in to appease them. This is where I go on record saying that Bordello of Blood is a fun time. Can’t touch Demon Knight, obviously, but it’s more entertaining than its reputation suggests.
24. They had to film Uncle Willy’s bar scene “dream” twice, once with the women topless and once with them in bikinis, to have versions for both theaters and television broadcast. “Dick’s a pro.” (To be fair, Dickerson says this in regard to Miller having to endure the makeup application, but the sentiment fits both situations, so…)
25. Dickerson says he’s “always amazed at the love that people show this film,” and adds that fans bring it up to him incredibly often. This is great to hear, as we should always be telling artists how much their work means to us while they’re still alive and able to hear it.
26. Zane also suggested the gag at 1:08:21 with the sponge coming out of his mouth. The beat reminds Dickerson to praise the actor even more, adding that he was an “ally” to the director when “bad ideas” came down from the studio suits.
27. He didn’t get any pushback on killing little Danny. He did insist on one added element, though, as he wanted to immediately follow the boy exploding in the air with a shot of his bloody and torn sneaker hitting the ground below. “And the sneaker had to be a hightop.”
28. Dickerson says there’s “something kinky sexy about” Smith being covered in blood, and then the two commentators go quiet for almost two minutes out of respect for the scene. It’s a good opportunity to reflect on how Dickerson had previously mentioned Alien and Aliens as films being in the back of his head during filming, and how two scenes here reflect that – Jeryline stripping down to her underwear for the final confrontation feels like a nod to Ridley Scott’s film, while an earlier scene with Irene (CCH Pounder) and Dep. Bob (Gary Farmer) realizing they’re surrounded and choosing to blow themselves up alongside some of the demons is something of a callback to the air vent sacrifice in James Cameron’s film.
29. Asked about the film’s critical reception at the time of release, Dickerson says it received good reviews from horror-loving critics and then talks about the importance of horror in general. “Horror has always been a great way of putting out ideas, of talking about some of the things that affect us as people. Some of the best horror, like the best science fiction, talks about what it’s like to be human. Some of the best horror gets very political.”
30. The original ending would have featured The Collector showing “his true self, which is a demon made of fire.” They spent a lot of time trying to make it work, but it was “extremely difficult… back in the day of analog effects.” It was rewritten into the faceoff between him and Jeryline featuring the dancing, the crotch fire, Zane’s attempts at saying “love,” and his eventual demise from her bloody spit.
31. They both agree that a direct sequel to Demon Knight could be a lot of fun, but Dickerson says he’s unaware of any talk on the possibility.
32. Dickerson was super excited about this new Scream Factory Blu-ray in 2015, and he mentions that before its release, he had imported a Blu-ray from Germany presumably to enjoy the film in HD. He’s just like us! (Or am I the only one here who’s imported a German Blu-ray of the much maligned werewolf flick Big Bad Wolf…)
Quotes Without Context
“I was so happy to get Dick Miller for this movie.”
“There was a time when guys used to put ketchup on everything.”
“I’m a big student of Hitchcock, and the best way to make a moment of horror work is to lull the audience into a false sense of security.”
“A villain should always be the most interesting person in a movie.”
“They were a really great bunch of performers who were performing on these little leg-extension stilts wearing a diaper that had a radio-controlled tail that was being manipulated by a special effects tech right out of the frame.”
“It’s hard to direct air; it doesn’t do what you want.”
“The only censorship problem came from the producer’s wife, who didn’t want the vagina dentalis [sic] in the movie.”
“One of the executives wanted to know why the devil didn’t try to have sex with Jada.”
“It always starts with the script.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
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