Silent Night Deadly Night: We talk to the director of this season's sweetest serial killer slasher

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1:04Ho, ho, ho, hello and welcome back to Bah Humbug, the Christmas movies podcast that will absolutely not, I promise, be dressing up in a Santa suit and killing people this year. You wouldn't think I'd need to specify that, but today we're talking about Silent Night, Deadly Night. And so I feel like it's just worth making it clear because, you know, a lot of people get dead in this movie. Here today to talk to me about it is horror supremo, horror expert, Becky Dark. Becky, how are you doing? I'm so good. Hello. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas and a bloody new year, judging by this one. Yeah, my God.

1:44So this for people who are unaware of the franchise of the film. We're going to have an interview, by the way, from the director of the new one, Mike P. Nelson, who's going to be joining us a little bit later. But this is a remake and a very loose remake and basically a reinvention of a film from 1984, I think I'm right in saying. And it's about a young man called Billy Chapman who suffers a childhood trauma involving a person dressed as Santa Claus. He's played by Rowan Campbell as an adult. and it swiftly becomes clear that Billy, in addition to being a sweet, kind man who travels from town to town looking for a better life, is also hearing voices in his head that tell him to kill people, especially during the Advent period and that he has a sort of possibly mystical question mark Advent calendar that has to be appeased with blood daily and he is killing people every day up until Christmas, which is not your usual Advent calendar.

2:40It is not recommended, people. Just stick with chocolate. You get these fancy ones nowadays where it's gin or it's kind of, I don't know, fancy jam, fancy cosmetics. I think there might, you know, there are sort of slightly more sexy ones, you know, that you can get. But I have never seen one, Helen, where every day, the run up to the most magical day of the year, you have to do a kind of Dexter-esque little splat of blood behind the window to like feed it and tell it that you're kind of doing your evil Santa job. Yes, not just clock in at this job. No, you've got to put in a bit of a blood sacrifice.

3:24We do learn, now this is going to be a minor spoiler, but I think it's really important to talk about this because I think this is a major change from the original 1984 film. We do learn that the reason that Billy is killing people is that the voice in his head, who is called Charlie and is voiced by Mark Atchison. Great voice. Really, really good voice. Oh, yeah. Is actually telling him who is naughty and nice. And he is actually killing bad people. He is killing killers. He is killing abusers. He is killing real rotten people. And by doing so, he is saving the lives of good people. So it's a two player swing.

3:59get rid of one bad person save a good person it's like a perfect christmas bargain um and this is this is one of the things i really like about this new version because the original the 1984 version is bonkers and that is one of the things that i've always loved most about it is it's really odd it's an odd kind of mid-80s very violent quite sleazy slasher wrapped up in this Christmas bow. And it's got these really odd little details all through it, which you often get with these sort of lower budget 80s slashers in this kind of towards the end of the original slasher boom. What I really love about the new one is it just throws everything at the wall and sees what sticks.

4:51So you're right. You've got a kind of a schizophrenia-esque voice in the head that you then find out might actually be kind of supernatural. You've got the the advent calendar stuff and this kind of, again, this Dexter-esque kind of only killing bad people, which, again, is not what happens in the original. you get and I'm not going to spoil this but when you say Helen that he is killing bad people he kills like the baddest of the bad people yeah he does yeah which was an amazing kind of reveal and a bit of a jaw drop moment you get there's like a child snatcher as well and kind of red herrings around that so they really are just going all out and going right this is mad let's throw everything at it and see what sticks.

5:41And I was actually really satisfied to see that a lot of it stuck. It really did. I think, to be honest, the scene you're talking about, I think is the one that they already have spoiled by putting on online. And you can actually watch that scene, apparently, on a 48 hour loop, which is a fun way to spend some of the Christmas holidays. Yeah, get that on at midnight on the 23rd and it will just see you right through. See you right through to Christmas. Absolutely. But no, I completely agree. I think it's absolutely jam-packed with stuff and nonsense and and in a good way you know I didn't know what was coming from one minute to the next and I'm pretty sure I've seen the original now there's apparently like seven films in this overall franchise I have definitely not seen all of them I think I saw the original years ago when I was sort of first trying to get educate myself on slashers and educate myself on the biggies and I had no memory of it and I was sitting in this screening having done no research before going in.

6:36I hadn't watched the trailer, nothing. And I was going, gosh, this is a much cooler premise than I remember this film having. And that's because it's entirely new and I didn't remember it. But it's a nice, it's a nice way of approaching it. It's like, oh, here's this guy who's very sweet and lovely. I genuinely can't stress this enough. He seems really nice, but is also a killer of at least mathematically, I would say 240 plus people. oh my god the body count in this is unreal if you want limbs flying and blood spraying across your screen this christmas then this is the film for you because i mean as i say the the original and you're right i think there are five from the original franchise you know with the sequels i've only seen the first one and then the first sequel silent night deadly night 2 although So you kind of have seen Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, House, because about 40 minutes of that movie is just the little brother from the first one retelling the events of the first one.

7:47and so the vast vast majority of Silent Night Deadly Night 2 is Silent Night Deadly Night which they've just kind of slightly re-edited and re-show you and then tack on about I don't know 25 minutes at the end of new footage it's ridiculous and outrageous but what's nice again about the new one is they're kind of picking bits from the other sequels as well so there isn't really anything supernatural in the first one but it is hinted at in the later films and there is this quite sort of gruesome I mean it is a gruesome film the first one but the body count is as it isn't as high but what often you get with slasher sequels is the body count has to increase and so what they've just done with this one is just gone no first one out the gates we are just going to kill like you say 240 people let's just get it done let's just throw the numbers at the screen And I like that about it.

8:43I find that the, I don't know what you think is as a horror expert, I find that a lot of the kills in this are really played for laughs rather than really horror. I mean, there is gore, don't get me wrong. There's a lot of blood being spilled here, but it felt like those were, it was kind of yucking it up, in particular in the big show stopping Massacre in the Middle. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, this isn't, you're not going to see something sort of bleak and nihilistic at Christmas. Like this, you know, there are actual sort of straight Christmas films that are bleaker than Silent Night, Deadly Night.

9:17This is a good time. Like I came out and I saw a sort of special screening and there was a Father Christmas there who had little presents for everybody and you could go and sit on his lap and there were cocktails. So it was all very sort of festive and all of that. And everybody came out with grins on their faces. Nobody was like thinking, you know, well, that's the best movie I've ever seen. But everybody seemed to have just had a really good time. Yeah, exactly that. I just find it such a pleasant surprise because, I mean, apart from anything else, the first one, like you said, it's nasty. Like he's killing people who are not bad people.

9:55And we're still, I think, a little bit expected to sympathize with him. you know it's a bit sexist again it's very much of the era and it's really quite gnarly and by comparison this is a breath of spring air and like you say yeah cheerier than many other christmas films i mean we have a christmas film this year about helen mirren dying slowly you know this this is by comparison positively oozing christmas cheer that's absolutely right and there are really funny beats as well even away from the kind of very over the top sort of blood and gore and killings there's an amazing bit where he has to play santa at the toy shop that he's gotten a job in and well it's sort of a trinket shop is it it's like it's basically one of these like christmas kind of um year round shops is the impression that i get yeah it was a little it's all little trinkets and Christmas decorations.

10:56It was a weird one. I didn't believe that that shop would be that big of a draw to the local populace, but I'm willing to overlook it. It's fine. Okay. And she says, I don't know if you've ever played Santa before and opens. He's got, they sort of show that the Santa suit, she's trying to show him how to sort of do the buckle ups and stuff. And then at home, he opens his closet and he's got a different father a Christmas suit for every day of the year because I assume everyone that he puts on gets splattered with blood so he's got you know it's amazing it's almost like a kind of one of those 80s movies where men sort of have all of their perfect Armani suits and they've got a different one for every day in the office and he's got you're seeing the sort of American gigolo you know exactly very The only American gigolo, yeah.

11:47Except with Santa suits, which is the one thing that really Richard Gere is lacking in that film, if I remember correctly. The only thing, the only thing he's lacking in American gigolo. But yeah, it's, I don't know, I feel like this has been, and maybe you've seen more than I have, but it feels like this has been a light Christmas for horror. In the last few years, we've had a good few Christmas horror movies. I've had to kind of choose one or two to do on this podcast. but there's been there's been quite a lot out there and it feels like this year is a bit quieter that way we haven't had quite so many to choose from you know things like there's something in the barn a couple of years ago there have been some really good ones what do you think it is about christmas and horror that works so well i mean horror at christmas just goes back you know hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years back to reading ghost stories to each other by candle light.

12:40There's something about this time of year when it's darker, it's cold outside, you maybe want to keep your kids inside so you're reading them stories about the Krampus or some other sort of nefarious Christmas sort of nightmare outside so you're keeping them close. There are all of these sort of winter solstice practices about bringing the outdoors in and so when the nights draw in and they get cold there's something about creating that atmosphere folklore and keeping people safe but also before tv you know before everybody was getting the radio times every christmas to circle the films that they wanted to watch on the telly you had to entertain yourself in a different way And I think there is something about horror in the wintertime and around Christmas.

13:34It's almost like a counter-programming thing. Like Christmas is so cheery and happy and, you know, you're feasting. And it's like this, I don't know, this sort of counter to all the sweetness is this kind of spookiness of like ghost stories. And then when horror cinema started picking it up, I think there was so much fun stuff that you can do around the season, whether that is kind of monsters like Krampus, whether it is slashers. You've got stuff like, yeah, the more sort of Scandinavian things like gnomes in barns and that kind of stuff. And it just seems to fit so beautifully in as this continuation from the more traditional ghost story.

14:22So even, you know, one of the most famous stories around Christmas, A Christmas Carol. But now it's like there's so much more opportunity to kind of play with it. And that has been the case for years and years. And there are so many amazing Christmas horror films. I mean, I, you know, everybody has like a Christmas playlist every year. And there are some solid Christmas horror films that are on my sort of hard rotation every Christmas. Well, that was going to be one of my questions. So I ask everybody on this podcast, what is your favourite Christmas movie? But can I get two answers then from you, your favourite Christmas movie overall and your favourite Christmas horror?

15:00Yeah. So my favourite Christmas movie overall is Muppets Christmas Carol. Hard to argue with that. hard to argue although I do have to cheat slightly I do have a Christmas trio every year that around sort of the padding them with lots of Christmas films there are three that I can't go without Muppet Christmas Carol, Die Hard and Meet Me in St Louis which I know yeah has you know Halloween and summer and all that kind of stuff as well but yeah it's but have yourself a merry little Christmas it's just don't stand out I don't when Tootie goes down and knocks those knocks the heads of the snowman there are tears streaming down my face every year doesn't matter how many times i watch it but best christmas horror is probably bob clark's black christmas from 1974 which speaking of slashes is probably up there it can be argued as being the original slasher film even before Carpenter's Halloween.

16:03And it's got Margot Kidder being absolutely wonderful in it. I think that it really kind of encapsulates that really creepy feeling of being in a house and not knowing who else is in there with you as people are being picked off. You're in your place, but you're not safe. It's a very creepy film. I remember being shocked because I thought it would be a kind of a, if it makes sense, a fun slasher. I honestly thought it would probably have more of the tone of this film in the sense of being more of a fun slasher, but it's really creepy and it's really unsettling, that film. And you find yourself looking very askance at doors and windows and, God help you, attic doors afterwards.

16:48And glass ornaments and plastic bags. And, yeah, I mean, it's really dark. And there's a kind of pro-choice, like, B-plot running through it as well, which is really amazing for 1974. Olivia Hussey in the lead role is incredible. And it's got one of the most unsettling final shots of any horror film. But it still feels distinctly Christmas. And I think that's the important thing. Absolutely. And then let's have the interview with Mike P. Nelson, which as we record, I haven't done yet, but it's due to happen this afternoon. And I'm sure he was delightful. So here's Mike P. Nelson having been delightful.

17:28Here we go.

17:34ho ho ho hello welcome to bar humbug mike nelson how are you doing oh my gosh i'm doing great it's been a really crazy week let's just put it that way i can imagine i can imagine i didn't know what to expect of this film i'll be honest i'm i watch a lot of horror movies i'm a film journalist but then you know i wouldn't give myself a proper died in the world horror girl i've seen the first Silent Night, Deadly Night, I think, but I haven't seen all the sequels and the other more recent version. So tell me about your relationship, I guess, with this franchise. Are you like diehard, seen them all, know them all backwards kind of a fan?

18:09You know, I'm actually, I went into this, not necessarily like a, this is the movie I watch every Christmas. You know, I've watched it. I actually, if anything, the connection that I had with it that was the most memorable was growing up going to the video rental stores and seeing its poster and vhs case oh um so that was like that was where it all started basically and i was like oh my god what what is this about wasn't allowed to watch it obviously sure so for from more so that because i saw the movie much later in life and it was like okay yeah this is fine it wasn't like this like oh my god this is my favorite movie this is like the christmas movie i always watch or whatever like i i have those this one wasn't that but I will say for kind of coming you know doing a full 360 which was kind of cool is that you know I was obsessed with that poster that image growing up as a kid and then I got this opportunity this door kind of open I've always wanted to do a Christmas horror movie it's kind of been on the bucket list and it was like the time was right and I just had to go I had to go for it you know like with a lot of these things I don't I don't always say no just right off the bat i like to like i like to give it a shot because why not what's the worst thing that's going to happen no this is too this is this doesn't work for us all right moving on next place like you just you kind of just have to have this idea like who knows what could happen and the more and more that i work more and more that it makes up the more and more i'm surprised by these sort of like these sort of doors that open and it's like the fun of of filmmaking for me is Like you just you have to be open.

19:47And that was something with this one that that was kind of how it went. Yeah. You've given it a lot of heart. I think I haven't seen the original in many years, but it feels like this has a lot more heart and a lot more warmth to it, even though I'm essentially talking about a mass murdering serial killer. I mean, like, you do not hold back here. Billy has killed a ton of people, but he still seems like a nice guy. And it's a very weird thing, but it works for this movie. Well, it's because, honestly, he is a nice guy. Like, he's, I mean, let's just be real. I don't want to give too much away, even though, like, I feel like the world is sort of starting to understand more and more what this movie is about just by, like, reviews, interviews, trailers, all this kind of stuff.

20:32Look, he's just been dealt a very interesting hand in life. Let's just put it that way. And he sees it as a job. He's got to do this. You know what I mean? So and right now, like where the movie kind of picks up on is he's kind of ready to move on to the next chapter. And that's that's our story. It's going through that sort of transition. What does that look like? What does that feel like? What are the problems that arise? And yeah, it was always supposed to be kind of a sweet movie. Like when I wrote it, I remember being like, this is a lot kinder and like full hearted than I was even expecting.

21:06And I wanted to make something like all my work is tends to be there tends to be like a heart in the middle, no matter how dark it gets, no matter how violent it may may get. I always got to have that like that warmth, that beating heart in the middle. You know what I mean? That you can always gravitate back to if like things are getting too much. and that to me was like something that this film really allowed me to do and that it was also a discovery like wow we are making something that does have a lot of like that warmth and charm and you know what that's that's kind of cool because then the next scene it's just whack whack whack you know what i mean you're smashing a face in with a hammer and you're like geez louise i did not expect to see that right after that okay here we are that's what I loved I think about the tone of this is a lot of that a lot of the gore and this is a gory movie there's a lot of blood being splattered here but it is kind of played with a little bit of a wink and a little bit of a laugh at the same time because it is so absurd in contrast to this very sweet love story that's also happening I mean there's a romance here you've basically made a rom-com just a slightly unconventional one I mean I do have a soft spot for especially those movies around Christmas time.

22:20Gosh, one of my wife and my favorite movies to watch around the holidays is The Holiday. And I don't know if that completely discredits me. This is a safe space. You're fine. It is definitely, I don't even want to call it a guilty pleasure because I think it's a good movie. But we'll call it that. I think it's a combination of that and loving Pixar movies and especially during the holidays. Charlie Brown's Christmas, Elf, the Santa Claus like you know I have a young son we love watching these movies you know during the holidays Home Alone like these are all these like really good feel good movies and I kind of wanted to make sure that we weren't doing something so doomy and gloomy and so heavy even though we get two little areas of that in the movie at times you know there's obviously the Pam story that She's dealing with like an abusive relationship.

23:13And then you have some interesting, interesting folks that do some pretty terrible things that you're like, yikes. You know, we talk about the foster system. We talk about, you know, trafficking. It's we don't we don't we don't shy away from it. But I also wanted to make sure that, again, we were making a Christmas movie that you can watch and be like, oh, oh, God. And then you can go back to, you know, drinking your cocoa and warming yourself in a blanket. And then, oh, geez, like, oh, my goodness. You know, like, that's the roller coaster. That's the fun of it. Absolutely. So tell me about bringing your cast in, because they're a huge part, I think, of giving it that heart and that warmth and making making this work as well as it does.

23:55Yeah. Rowan and Ruby, I got to give them I mean, literally. They deserve the credit for that, like they had the chemistry, they came on to the project and they just locked in. I mean in the short span that we had to do this like we had 22 days to shoot this thing not a lot of pre-pro time you know but we'd cast them and that casting process was very easy like sent them the script Ruby was like the only one I had sent the script to there was a couple people we sent the script to for a Billy but Roan was like immediately was the guy who's like I want to do this like it was it was boom boom like and even Mark Atchison who's Charlie again And boom, like I saw he auditioned for it.

24:37And I was like, that guy, I want like he gets it. The voice, the sort of like, oh, there's something weird going on here. But then he also had this warmth to him as well. And I was like, OK, 100 percent. Anyway, that chemistry was something that Ron and Ruby just had on set. They were able to spend time together. They just hung out a lot, which I love when actors do that, especially prior to a movie. We didn't have a lot of time here, so that didn't happen quite as much. But they really made sure that they took the time to, you know, they ate together. They worked lines together. They went around Winnipeg together.

25:13Like then they found these things like they found each other's like strengths and weaknesses. What got under their skin? You know, what made them tick kind of thing. And so they were able to use that on set on the day. And that was that was a lot of fun. It was fun for me because then, of course, I'm seeing these characters that I kind of saw one way when they came to life. you're like, oh, that was a really interesting choice. I wasn't expecting that. They're like, no, no, no, let me do it again. I'm like, actually, I like that better. We're going to go with that, you know? So they gave me a lot to work with, and that was very exciting to play with for sure.

25:48Absolutely. Talk to me about, because this is a Christmas movies podcast, so talk to me about getting the Christmassy-ness levels right, because obviously you have a guy in a Santa suit. There's a certain amount of Christmassy-ness just baked into that. You've got a sort of head start there. But you want to get both in terms of tone and I guess in terms of the look of the thing, you've got to kind of balance the rest. How do you kind of manage that question? I mean, I think it's our DP, Nick, was really good at like finding that balance of like finding things that weren't like too overly polished, but felt very Christmassy and very dingy small town, but like imperfect small town.

26:27You know what I mean? It really made it feel lived in. There's, you know, there's always the twinkle of lights. There's always, you know, some snow. There's this feeling of warmth that Nick was able to bring to screen. So I definitely give him credit. And it was something that we were definitely trying to go for. I think Jeff Klein, our editor, also was really good with finding kind of tonality with some needle drops and some Christmas tracks. Just to find that kind of joyful vibe, both with like vintage tracks and choral tracks and sometimes silly tracks to kind of weave in and out. And we also got to use some original of some of the original soundtrack stuff from the from the original Silent Night, Deadly Night, which was a lot of fun to play with and drop those in.

27:09And he was really smart about like finding some of that tonality throughout with that. And we had so much fun playing around with that. That was a blast. Then it was, you know, then Blitz Berlin, our composers who brought in a certain level of Christmassy vibe with their score, but not necessarily always on the nose. I mean, actually very rarely on the nose. Like we found our sort of Billy and Pam theme. And that's something that I feel like every Christmas movie has. They have this sort of almost like a waltz, especially like when it's between two people. You know, it's something like Edward Scissorhands sort of has that.

27:46And Elf kind of has that. There's like a hook that's in there. And we wanted to do that with ours. And so like we found this kind of doo-doo, doo-doo. You know what I mean? Like it kind of goes back and forth. and but that's not necessarily Christmas but they were able to then incorporate these other sounds that you associate with Christmas into those moments that just give you the feel of it it's never oh we're just gonna give you jingle bells he goes no we're gonna give you jingle bells but we're gonna sprinkle them in here we're gonna like stretch them and make them really dissonant and weird and then we're gonna have them kind of hanging in the background like and then it is this weird like thing where you're like this this feels right like this feels like a christmas movie but also a christmas horror movie yeah you literally have an advent calendar it couldn't be more christmasy albeit it's a slightly unusual one maybe chocolate would have been a slightly safer option for for a girl i don't know um can i ask just very quickly on that christmasy question when in the year did you shoot this was this sort of last january february kind of time or It was post-Christmas, yeah.

28:51We were kind of ramping up March into April. And this was up in Winnipeg, Canada. Yeah. So was there still a little bit of snow in the ground maybe that you could rely on? We had some snow. We did have to bring in some snow and do some fake snow and do a little digital snow here and there. I remember by the end of that shoot, there was one day we were shooting and it was almost 90 degrees. Oh, wow. It had been cold. Like, I mean, there were some days where we were like, oh, we were standing outside and just like shivering and like we get these little blusters of snow coming in. And then just a few days later, we're at a completely new location and suddenly like grass starts sprouting and the buds on the tree, like it just out of nowhere.

29:35And we're like, oh, dear Lord, this is not good. We thought we were going to be finishing the movie before all of this happened. But as a lot of the people from Winnipeg said, they're like spring's coming early this year. I'm like, great, this is amazing. But we try to be very smart about it and how we shot things. And, you know, you got to be a little scrappy, especially with a project like this. Yeah, it feels Christmassy to me as a viewer. OK, there's a couple of questions that I ask every single person who comes on this podcast. You've kind of answered one of them a bit already, but just to nail it down.

30:05Is there a Christmas movie that you have to watch every year or it isn't Christmas? Like, what's the one go to nailed on got to happen? I mean, there's a lot. I did say basically all the ones that we do watch, but the one that feels like if I don't, we're missing something is it's Elf. And what's so interesting about that is I was so much on the, oh, I don't like this movie looks terrible when it came out. Like I was in college and it was like the too cool for school thing. Like, oh, man, like I'm going to watch like. I'm a serious. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm only going to watch like Charlie Brown's Christmas.