Not Your Grandma’s Santa: The Silent Night, Deadly Night Reboot is a Creepy, Clever Gift

Silent Night, Deadly Night

When Billy witnesses his parents’ grisly murder at the hands of Santa, it ignites a lifelong mission to spread holiday fear. Every Christmas, he dons the red suit and embarks on a blood-soaked massacre to feed his twisted sense of justice.

Release date: 12 December 2025 (UK)

Director: Mike P. Nelson

Let’s be honest, the  franchise was always a bit of a mess. A glorious, bloody, sometimes Mickey-Rooney-starring mess. You didn’t exactly respect it. You endured it, maybe with cheap eggnog in hand, laughing at the sheer audacity. So, the news of another reboot? Eyebrows raised, for sure. Then you hear it’s from Mike P. Nelson, the guy who already resurrected Wrong Turn with a viciously modern twist. Now that gets your attention.

He’s not making a museum piece. Nelson, he’s doing something trickier. He’s playing in this sandbox, the one littered with broken candy canes and 80s horror guilt, and having a blast. The plot? Familiar beats: young Billy, childhood Santa trauma, grown-up homicidal urges. But they’ve added a voice, the actual, ghostly voice of that murderous Saint Nick living in his head, a genius move played for creepy fun by Mark Acheson. It’s Halloween Ends meets chaotic Christmas, especially once Ruby Modine shows up. A little insider baseball that actually lands.

Not Your Grandma’s Santa: The Silent Night, Deadly Night Reboot is a Creepy, Clever Gift, A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

Not every bad, low-budget, unreasonably beloved Eighties horror movie needs to be rebooted. Do I rewatch Charles Sellier’s 1984 holiday slash fest Silent Night, Deadly Night every holiday season? Maybe.I don’t rewatch its 1987 sequel every single year. I’m not a masochist. Nor have I watched SNDN 3, 4, or 5 (starring Mickey Rooney!) more than once apiece. Anyway, I’m obviously if begrudgingly the audience for Mike P. Nelson’s new update on the old Santa suit, Silent Night, Deadly Night.

And maybe it benefits from low expectations, but I liked it.Nelson, who writes and directs, revisits the important beats of the ’84 original but he’s smart about it. Billy (Halloween Ends and The Monkey’s Rohan Campbell) listens to the voice in his head. That voice belongs to the Santa who murdered Billy’s parents when he was 8.

That’s an added layer to the triggered homicidal lunatic that populates every previous installment. It’s a welcome change that the filmmaker, Campbell, and Mark Acheson—as the voice of Shotgun Santa—maneuver for creepy fun.Nelson does have a good time with the franchise, tossing Easter eggs around like a holiday crossover. But these moments feel more like communal celebration than pandering, a wink from one fan to another.

The casting is on point, even eerie, as Nelson’s tale feels like a Yuletide merging of SNDN and Halloween Ends, once gift store owner Pamela (Ruby Modine) gets involved—again, an inside joke that works better than it has a right to.The carnage is often quite fun—one party scene, in particular.

But even with the humor, Nelson never stoops to camp or spoof. He’s a little hemmed in by the limitations of the franchise itself, breaking no remarkably new ground. But Silent Night, Deadly Night is often clever fun. There are creepy moments, funny moments, bloody moments, but his film hangs together as a solid holiday horror.

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