Director Mike P. Nelson already has a track record of completely subverting horror franchise expectations after his recent remake of Wrong Turn – but even with that in mind, you probably won’t predict what was the biggest inspiration for his take on Christmas slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night.
He told Zavvi: “I was trying to work out how to tell a great character story with heart; I wanted it to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy while also delivering on the high body count. Whilst writing, I was watching a lot of Pixar movies with my family, and the emotion and storytelling in those in so solid – they're great character stories, but they’re also very f***ing relatable, and a movie like Up can completely destroy you in 10 minutes with a fully realised lifelong journey.
“This isn’t an adventure film in the same way, but it is still character focused, with these two leads dealing with their inner demons coming together and getting through it in different ways. Pixar movies manage to have these similarly intense emotional journeys whilst also functioning as great buddy movies, and it was that balance I found inspiring.
“On the darker side, Frailty and The Guest were inspirations as they’re dark and twisted, but have a surprising heart to them that you might not expect. The family dramas are at the core of both stories, which makes for something strange that you can’t fully shake.”
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a very loose remake of the 1980s slasher of the same name, with this take on Billy Chapman – the Santa-costume donning serial killer played here by Rohan Campbell – having a far clearer moral code driven by the voice in his head. His axe-wielding carnage is still the result of PTSD from seeing his family slain as a kid, but from that origin story, we deviate heavily.
If the original wanted you to be shocked by the murder spree, then Nelson’s take wants you to be emotionally invested in its killer’s journey.
“I want you to like Billy from the moment you meet him, even if you don’t understand him and must watch the whole movie to understand his shtick. Pulling that off all came down to casting, and Rowan Campbell embodies that; you’re charmed seeing him smile, but this contrasts with the weird, nervous energy he’s bringing to the role, which just magnetises you more.
“The challenge I gave Rowan was creating somebody you’d fall in love with right off the bat without fully knowing him and hopefully fall in love with even more when they do start to understand his inner darkness!”
It’s a complete reinvention of an even more complicated slasher character, who caused untold controversy when the original premiered in 1984. Nelson isn’t shy about confessing his take is more of an adaptation of the original film’s poster, which left an impression when he saw it in a video store as a kid, years before he would be old enough to watch the movie itself.
He explained: “Obviously I know that I'm dealing with a movie that exists and there's characters that already exist, but going back to that memory of seeing the poster was a huge part of it. I wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies growing up, so I was making the movies in my mind, and I wanted to go back to that feeling of being five years old and imagining the movie I’d make based entirely off the poster alone.
“I did still do my homework and revisit the first one, as I wanted to reacquaint myself with Billy Chapman, and I still wanted to bring elements from the original, if only to disarm the audience when it goes in a different direction! I never want to see a shot for shot remake, even though I truly believe everything has already been done before; my approach is taking pieces of DNA from other things that have inspired me and piecing them together in new ways, so even a remake starts feeling like an original film rather than IP.
“My main goal is to make sure it feels like an original story, so you feel like you’ve seen something different, whether you want me to take that approach or not! That’s how you’ll get the best movie out of me, I have no interest in doing the same thing over and over.”
One of the biggest left-turns happens less than 15 minutes in, as we’re introduced to Pam (Ruby Modine), a character who in the original is one of Billy’s earliest victims. Here, she transforms from a one-sided object of affection to a co-lead very quickly, equally as messed up as Billy even if she doesn’t have the same kill count to her name.
In this iteration, she becomes the rare strong female character in a horror movie that couldn’t be described as either a final girl or a scream queen.
“I felt like that there was a very subtle spark in the original between Billy and Pam, but her jealous boyfriend got in the way, and things changed when Billy saw how cruel he was to her. The original film was very different though, as when Billy loses it, he’ll kill anybody in the way, and Pam happened to be there!
“I felt like there was an opportunity to create a strong female character who is less expected in a movie like this; someone who is extremely flawed and can fly off the handle. Ruby has said in interviews that Pam “loves ferociously”, which is the best way to describe her temperament, and the dynamic she brings to that relationship with Billy!”
Many of the reviews have suggested this dynamic makes the film feel like a blood-soaked romcom at times – Fangoria even labelled it a “Hallmark movie with two psychopaths”. The original also had a wild, hard-to-pin down tone, and this reimagining shares that; it can go from gory carnage to feeling like a warped mirror version of a cheesy Christmas movie.
“I love Christmas movies in general, and I love the way that they make me feel, especially the family and romcom ones – I'll be the first to admit that I love The Holiday, which might take away all my credibility! Making sure that this had that same, sincere warmth was important to me, especially because it’s great to follow that up with something really grotesque and violent.
“The original had a weird f***ing tone, where it could be silly one minute, sad the next, then utterly brutal after that. I didn’t want to copy that, but I still wanted to take the audience on a roller coaster, as that’s what Silent Night, Deadly Night is to me.”
Nelson hopes his film will join the canon of the horror movies he loves to revisit every Christmas; Gremlins and Black Christmas are his two annual rewatches.
“I feel like Gremlins doesn’t get enough attention as a Christmas movie, but it is about the horror of being given a gift you weren’t prepared for – only this is a Mogwai rather than a puppy! And on the darker side, I love the original Black Christmas, because it conjures this incredible sense of dread.
“I think Christmas is a very warm and cosy time of year, but it's also very mysterious. There's something innately spooky about a dark street at night, lit only by Christmas lights, and it’s that contrast which powers the best holiday horror movies...”
Silent Night, Deadly Night is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 12th December
