Holiday Horror (pt. II)

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

‘Twas the Thursday before Christmas and all through the humid Texas bog, not a single thing feels jolly, not even my blog. But seriously, with Christmas falling on a Monday this year, I don’t know a single person who has grandiose holiday plans, and I only know a few people who haven’t fallen ill with a holiday cold or virus. Therefore, dear reader, there is nothing for us to do but watch a double feature that reflects the ho ho horrendous vibes of this Christmas. Now that I’ve gotten some holiday romances out of the way, it’s time to watch some selections my favorite holiday film genre: holiday horror. As I always say this time of year, Christmas, and the days following it, bring about too much pressure and anxious uncertainty. As a child, you stress about whether you’ve been a good enough kid that year to garner gifts from Santa, and as an adult you worry about… everything else. Both as a child and an adult though, I fear the idea of strangers breaking into my house. But I love to kick back and watch a delightfully predictable and oddly whimsical set of Christmas horror movies to get me into the holiday spirit, and to remind myself just how bizarre the habits and traditions and practices of this holiday are. Last year’s viewing of Christmas Evil proved to be a bit too cynical and gloomy to put me in a good, scared mood, but I still crave a solid, scary evil Santa movie, and this year I found not one, but two. Up first was Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s cult Christmas classic that pissed off all of the normie Christmas cultists in 1984: Silent Night, Deadly Night. Silent Night, Deadly Night opens on Christmas Eve in 1971, with a happy family driving through the snowy Utah mountains, on their way to visit grandpa at the local clinic for the mentally insane. Little five year old Billy Chapman is bright-eyed and excited to see Santa, until his grandpa breaks out of his catatonic state just to warn him: “Christmas Eve is the scariest damn night of the year.” Billy is frightened back into the arms of his parents, who stupidly brush his fear off. Nearby at a gas station, a man in a Santa suit robs and murders the clerk, before taking off and getting stranded on the side of the icy road. As Billy and his family make their way down the road, they spot this hitchhiking Santa, and even though Billy warns them that Santa is evil, his dad foolishly pulls over—resulting in the murder of the father, and the assault and murder of the mother. Billy and his little brother are the only survivors of this vicious attack, as we see them years later at an orphanage. As if the Christmas trauma wasn’t enough, Billy must now endure the ruthless regime of a Mother Superior who believes that punishment is a good thing. On top of Christmas trauma, regular relgious-charged beatings, and being an outcast among the orphans, Billy accidentally stumbles upon a nun and a man having sex before they are also beaten by Mother Superior—only adding to his confusion and terror. The cherry on top of this trauma sundae is when Mother Superior brings a man dressed as Santa to visit the children, and forces Billy to sit on his lap. Billy subsequently punches this Santa in the face, but there honestly could’ve been way worse reactions to being triggered by Kris Kringle—as we’re about to find out. Ten years later, Billy is now 18, and the one kind nun at his orphanage hooks him up with a job in the stockroom of a toy store. The now handsome and hulking Billy does quite well at his job, helping around the store, being kind to the children, and even sparking a flirtationship with a female coworker. It was nice to see this kid finally have a good time stocking shelves as the fakest music I’ve ever heard plays behind him. But when Christmas rolls around, there is no protecting Billy from his Santa-related trauma, and when he’s forced to put on a Santa suit, all holiday hell breaks loose. Due to the horrific death of his parents, the years of abuse from a masochistic Mother Superior who drinks children’s tears for breakfast, and a general naivety about the world, it only makes sense that Billy would then go on a murderous rampage during Christmas! Billy kills swiftly, impressively, and in very creative ways that include a hammer, an ax, a bow and arrow, and deer antlers. And all the while more fake sounding music plays, plenty of naughty people are killed, and countless titties are shown to meet that titty quota of 20th century slasher movies. I shan’t spoil anymore of this fun, frenzied movie but I will warn you, because there’s really only one disappointing aspect to Silent Night, Deadly Night, that the one person who deserves to die most does not. I tell you this now, so you don’t get your hopes up like I did. But apart from this case this revenge oversight, I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed Silent Night, Deadly Night, in all of its gory glory and cacophonously Christmassy terror. When this film was first released, there was so much controversy surrounding its advertising—particularly during family television programs like Little House on the Prairie—that entire families would stand outside theaters and protest its screening. There was such an outpour of outrage, especially after Siskel and Ebert lambasted it, that the film was pulled from several theaters before it could even be shown in some cities. The film now has a cult-following of sorts, as many controversial and banned films do, and I can only hope that the hunky actor who played Billy knows this now, because it certainly ruined his career (even though he’s literally so hot it makes no sense to me?) And listen I was afraid of Santa when I was a kid too, but I wouldn’t be wasting my Christmas holiday standing outside of a theater protesting a movie that rightfully depicts the mythic man as scary. And when so many of these murderous Santa movies exist in culture still, it really makes one wonder just how many people are trying to carry on Silent Night, Deadly Night’s legacy, and how many are harboring genuine holiday PTSD. One film that takes the idea of evil Santa to an entirely different level was Jalmari Helander’s Finnish film, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. We begin at the top of a snowy mountain in the Korvatunturi fell in Lapland (the northernmost region of Finland), where a team of British and American researchers are embarking upon an ambitious digging project. The presumably wealthy leader of this project encourages his men to keep digging, for he believes that the ancient tribes of this land have buried Santa Claus beneath the ice. He also tells his men that as they dig closer to their subject, they must mind their manners, language, and general naughtiness. Close by, two local boys named Pietari and Juuso are spying on these men. While Juuso tells Pietari that Santa isn’t real, Pietari has been doing research that would suggest otherwise. In nearly all of the folklore and history books he’s read, Pietari learns that not only is Santa real, but he tortures bad children. As Pietari aptly explains: “The real Santa is something else, the Coca-Cola Santa is a hoax.” Juuso, with his mullet and gun in tow, isn’t afraid, but should be. Not too long later, hundreds of reindeer corpses show up on the snow—effectively taking away this small town’s sustenance and revenue supply. And this is only the first strange occurrence to befall this fell. The men at the excavation site have all vanished, as have many of the town’s children—including Juuso. Things only become more chilling when Pietari discovers that the bait from his dad’s wolf trap is gone, and that what they’ve caught is no animal, and hardly a man. I hesitate to mention any more details of Rare Exports because this film does such a superb job of building genuine suspense and crafting its own sinister Santa mythology. What I will tell you is that as frightening as our Western world’s Santa is, the Finnish really give us a run for our money, and this film introduces you to even more Christmas figures to fear. Rare Exports is a hilarious and innovative fairytale-action-movie-mashup that makes an excellent addition to a horror subgenre that can be a bit predictable normally. Not all holiday horrors are a gift but these two certainly were, and I highly highly recommend them both. I hope your holidays are free from horror and familial drama and full of peace, joy, and lots of good movies to watch!