Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) centred on Billy Chapman (Robert Brian Wilson), who suffers psychological trauma after witnessing his parents killed by an armed robber dressed in a Santa Claus suit. After his parents died, Billy spent the rest of his childhood in an rather abusive orphanage ran by the Catholic Church. Once reaching adulthood, Billy becomes a serial killer who dresses in a Santa Claus suit.
The origins of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) go back to 1981 when Scott Schneid, then training to be an agent at the William Morris Agency, received a screenplay titled He Sees You When You're Sleeping by Paul Caimi, who had completed a Harvard writing seminar during which time he wrote the screenplay. As it turned out, Scott Schneid had attended the same prep school as Paul Caimi's older brother Bill. At the time Scott Schneid was not familiar with any of previous movies featuring killer Santas, so he agreed to read Paul Caimi's script.
Although Scott Schneid thought the script was not particularly original, he sent it to Dennis Whitehead, who would also become one of the producers on the film. Dennis Whitehead decided that they could actually do something with the concept of a killer Santa in He Sees You When You're Sleeping. Scott Scheid and Dennis Whitehead then took the idea of a killer Santa from He Sees You When You're Sleeping, and developed a while new movie project with Michael Hickey as the writer. Eventually Tri-Star Pictures agreed to finance and distribute the movie, which received the working title Slayride.
It was Ira Barmak, who had a deal to produce B-movies for Tri-Star, who approached Charles Sellier about directing the film. Charles Sellier had produced the feature film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and the subsequent television series of the same name, making him something of a surprising choice to direct a slasher film. Under the working title Slayride, the movie was shot in thirty-two days on a budget of $750,000. It was in post-production that the film was finally titled Silent Night, Deadly Night.
As mentioned earlier, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) was not particularly original. Ghost stories had been a part of Christmas since at least the Victorian Era. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is a famous example of this. Horror beyond ghost stories has been linked to Christmas well before the release of Silent Night, Deadly Night. The classic British horror anthology film Dead of Night (1945) had a sequence set at Christmas. Black Christmas (1974) was a pioneering slasher film set at Christmas. Even the idea of a killer Santa was not particularly original. It was perhaps the EC Comics story "...And All Through the House," from The Vault of Horror no. 35 (February-March 1954) that pioneered the idea of a killer Santa. It was adapted for the 1972 Amicus Productions portmanteau horror movie Tales from the Crypt. The year 1980 saw two movies featuring killer Santas. To All a Goodnight (1980) had a limited release in January of that year. Christmas Evil (1980) was released in November 1980. None of these films, not Tales from the Crypt (1972), not To All a Goodnight (1980), not Christmas Evil (1980), generated any controversy. Unfortunately, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) did.
So why did Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) generate so much controversy where previous killer Santa movies had not? The reason was simply that Tri-Star was a bit unwise as to when they bought time for TV spots adverting the movie. The TV spots aired at times, such as Sunday afternoon, when entire families, including children, might be watching television. One of the TV spots aired during a Green Bay Packers football game. Others aired in between episodes of such family friendly fare as Little House on the Prairie.
By the time Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) was released on November 9 1984, protests were already rising. They appear to have begun in the Milwaukee area, where a protest group known as "Citizens Against Movie Madness" was organized. Tri-Star pulled the TV spots, but it appears to have been too little, too late. While Silent Night, Deadly Night initially did well on box office, but it was not long before theatres began dropping the film. By November 15 1984 three theatres in Milwaukee, two theatres in New York City, and one in New Jersey, stopped showing the movie. News articles published on November 24 1984 reported that Tri-Star had dropped distribution of the film.
Despite the controversy over the film, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) would not disappear. While a release on home media by RCA in early 1985 was cancelled due to the controversy, it was released on VHS and Betamax in 1986. Despite the controversy, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) proved successful enough to have two sequels and two more Christmas-themed horror movies using the "Silent Night, Deadly Night." A loose remake of the movie, simply titled Silent Night, was released in 2012. A reboot was announced last month.
As mentioned above,the controversy over Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) most likely emerged because of the TV spots promoting the movie aired when families, including children would be watching. It probably did not help that the television advertisements emphasized Billy killing people while dressed as Santa Claus. Of course, the TV spots for Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) might not have had quite the same impact had the movie come out a few years earlier or a few years later. The 1980s saw many Americans shift towards conservativism. Such people would probably not look kindly on a movie about a killer Santa, especially not one advertised during family television time. As it was the Eighties was an era for moral panics over everything from Satanism to alleged backmasking in rock music. It is for these reasons that Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) became a cause célèbre , whereas previous killer Santa movies, such as Tales from the Crypt (1972) and Christmas Evil (1980) did not.
Since its release Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) has become a cult film, even if only a very few would regard it as a classic, even in the slasher movie genre. Regardless, it is remembered as possibly the most controversial Christmas movie of all time and one of the most controversial movies of the Eighties. It might never make most lists of the greatest movies of all time, but it will certainly always be remembered.
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