Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 1987 - REVIEW

I know it's a little early but I just could not help myself.  Last year for the Christmas season I reviewed the controversial holiday horror hit Silent Night Deadly Night.  This year why not review its direct to video sequel Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2?  There are probably a handful of reasons why this movie is not very popular, but if you are going to watch the original may as well pop part 2 in instead.  You will see most of the original within part 2 anyway.

Years after his brother went on a murderous rampage, Ricky (Eric Freeman) is committed to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation from his recent actions.  Seems it may run in the family.  After remembering everything from what his brother had done, Ricky is now the disturbed one.  Ricky went on a rampage of is own and has become a full fledged psychopath.  After telling the doctor about all the murders he has committed, and playing them all back.  He then decides to do away with the doctor and escape the hospital.  Ricky is out and looking for someone in particular to take his rage out on.  Will he find what he is looking for?

I realize that the description of the movie is really not that long.  The reason being is that majority of the movie is a rehash of the original.  The producers of the original wanted part 1 re-cut and add just a few new scenes and pass it off as the sequel.  The final cut of the movie is indeed not far off of that but they did add more than just a few scenes to make it a true sequel and give the audience a little something.  The movie itself is not good at all, but has all the qualities to make it fun and easy to enjoy.  The acting like the movie in general is just horrid.  I honestly has not seen acting this bad in a movie before.  There are no big name actors in this.  The only 2 worth mentioning are Eric Freeman who did alot of work on In Living Color for a while, and Elizabeth Kaitan from Friday the 13th Part 7 and various soft core porn movies.  They wanted to interview Eric Freeman as a special feature part of the dvd release but  were unable to locate him.  As of right now his whereabouts are unknown.  The original release of the double set featuring 1 and 2 has long since been OOP due to licensing issues.  Anchor Bay however evidently worked all that out because on December 4th they are releasing the double pack again.

I do enjoy watching this yearly around the holiday season.  It really is a fun movie to watch.  Nothing really scary or even creepy about it but it has the qualities of a slasher mixed with alot of cheesy comedy.  While this does nothing to really satisfy the fans of the original, it gave them something to chew for a bit.  There are a total of 5 sequels in the franchise, but only the first 3 have continuity to the original story line.  All the sequels really lacked the success the original found on video cassette.  I suppose the franchise has somewhat of a cult following.  I went years without seeing the rest of the sequels until they were released a few years ago as a triple set.  The 3rd is OK, the 4th and 5th really are terrible.  If you are looking for a good horror movie to watch this holiday season I recommend Black Christmas.  If you want a good slasher I recommend the original Silent Night Deadly Night.  If you want a good laugh with a little blood watch this, or at least skip to the point in the movie when the famous line is said by Ricky "Garbage Day"!  Stay twisted everyone!