Recently I had purchased some DVDs which I will eventually review. One I partly reviewed a few weeks back - it has four horror films on it, and I reviewed KILL BABY KILL. The first of the four horror flicks was SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT, which I was finally able to watch today. Although an independent film production (which occasionally looks it - the production unit would have gone to town in the era of the Video camera), it holds up well. The cast is not a wash-out, with Patrick O'Neill, Walter Abel, John Carridine, Mary Voronov, and Philip Bruns among the performers - and all giving it their best shot.
This story is one of the past and secrets, buried secrets. All buried with blood and horror - and oddly centered on the date December 24th. The holiday that most people think of as one of love and hope (even if they are not Christians) turns out to be the key to tragedy in the past. But the background is given properly - in dribs and drabs to the audience. We are told at the start that on December 24, 1950 one Walter Butler (who built the most notable mansion in the New England town that the story is in) had returned to his home after years of being away. And promptly burned to death (we see a man running out of the house burning and dying outside - ironically doing everything except the one thing he should have: role on his back in the snow. The coroner declares that Butler accidentally set fire to himself, and he is buried. Shortly afterward his will reveals that his grandson Jeffrey (James Patterson) is to get the house but the will stipulates that the house is not to be sold as it is a monument to Walter Butler.
Twenty years later we see that 1) the house is about to be sold by Jeffrey through his lawyer (O'Neill), and 2) there has been a recent escape from a nearby insane asylum of a maniac. O'Neill meets the Mayor (Abel), the Sheriff (Walter Klavuns), the town telephone operator (Fran Stevens), and the town newspaper editor (John Carridine). Jeffrey wants to sell the house for $50,000.00, and the town can then tear the house down. Although the price is high (remember the film is from 1974), Abel and the others decide to buy the house to destroy it. It is the first time we are aware that the town regards the house as one of horror.
The film follows a trail of bloody murders all in the house or on the grounds. But we are soon finding that the two characters we are most involved in are not O'Neill and his girlfriend (Astrid Heeren), but Patterson and Abel's daughter (Woronov), who slowly unravel the story of the town tragedy. It involves them in a series of mysterious phone calls and disappearances, and then a review of old newspaper clippings. All of which leads to final revelations and tragedies at the mansion.
The film is a bleak one - even for the narrator who survives it (getting a final horrible double killing to witness). But it works in it's way, despite the shoddy appearance of the film's shooting - which may actually make the bleakness all the more real.
This story is one of the past and secrets, buried secrets. All buried with blood and horror - and oddly centered on the date December 24th. The holiday that most people think of as one of love and hope (even if they are not Christians) turns out to be the key to tragedy in the past. But the background is given properly - in dribs and drabs to the audience. We are told at the start that on December 24, 1950 one Walter Butler (who built the most notable mansion in the New England town that the story is in) had returned to his home after years of being away. And promptly burned to death (we see a man running out of the house burning and dying outside - ironically doing everything except the one thing he should have: role on his back in the snow. The coroner declares that Butler accidentally set fire to himself, and he is buried. Shortly afterward his will reveals that his grandson Jeffrey (James Patterson) is to get the house but the will stipulates that the house is not to be sold as it is a monument to Walter Butler.
Twenty years later we see that 1) the house is about to be sold by Jeffrey through his lawyer (O'Neill), and 2) there has been a recent escape from a nearby insane asylum of a maniac. O'Neill meets the Mayor (Abel), the Sheriff (Walter Klavuns), the town telephone operator (Fran Stevens), and the town newspaper editor (John Carridine). Jeffrey wants to sell the house for $50,000.00, and the town can then tear the house down. Although the price is high (remember the film is from 1974), Abel and the others decide to buy the house to destroy it. It is the first time we are aware that the town regards the house as one of horror.
The film follows a trail of bloody murders all in the house or on the grounds. But we are soon finding that the two characters we are most involved in are not O'Neill and his girlfriend (Astrid Heeren), but Patterson and Abel's daughter (Woronov), who slowly unravel the story of the town tragedy. It involves them in a series of mysterious phone calls and disappearances, and then a review of old newspaper clippings. All of which leads to final revelations and tragedies at the mansion.
The film is a bleak one - even for the narrator who survives it (getting a final horrible double killing to witness). But it works in it's way, despite the shoddy appearance of the film's shooting - which may actually make the bleakness all the more real.