Hi EDITOR’S NOTE: When Bill Van Ryn asked me if he could write something for the holidays, I was overjoyed. This is such a gift for all of us. Check out Bill at Groovy Doom and Drive-In Asylum.

Nothing can derail a festive holiday with the relatives like dark family secrets bubbling up to the surface, and there’s likely to be at least one of those loved ones that are downright ornery. This is the case in one of my favorite holiday horror films, the 1972 film most commonly known as Silent Night, Bloody Night. Originally released in 1972 as Dark Night of the Full Moon by the Cannon Group, they reissued it in 1973 with the new title and ad campaign that emphasized the Christmas connection in the story, and it played grindhouses and drive-ins throughout the rest of the 1970s, often as a co-feature to other Cannon releases such as I, Monster, It first appeared on TV in 1974 as a CBS Late Movie, but it also screened on WOR-TV more than a few times, including their beloved Fright Night time slot on Saturday nights, which is where I saw it as a kid. It was resurrected for theatrical release yet again in 1981, The Year of the Slasher, as Death House, or Deathouse as appeared on the title card. I can’t imagine what it felt like to go see this movie in 81 and realize that you’d seen it on TV seven years ago, but nobody should have complained, because seeing it a few times makes the convoluted plot a little more clear. I know that it was very confusing to ten-year-old me watching it on WOR in the middle of the night.

It’s hard to imagine this low key film appearing so often in front of glassy eyed moviegoers and TV-
watching night owls. It’s got a few shocking moments, but it was a weird experience to be confronted with this at 1 in the morning. It’s a murder mystery involving a big old mansion with a sinister past.
Jeffrey Butler, the grandson of the now-deceased proprietor, Wilfred Butler, inherited the house after the death of his grandfather about 20 years prior. Jeffrey intends to sell the place, but when this news get out, an unseen inmate of a local mental hospital breaks out and returns to the house, murdering anyone who dares step inside. The first to go is the lawyer closing the sale of the house, who makes the mistake of sleeping there overnight with his young ladyfriend. Since he’s played by Patrick O’Neal, the moment when they get graphically axed is the Janet Leigh shock of the film.

O’Neal was likely the highest profile in the cast at the time, but there are numerous actors in the film who would later become well-known cult icons. Mary Woronov plays Diane, a young woman from town who happens to be the daughter of the Mayor. She helps Jeffrey unravel the mystery of the house, and all sorts of unsavory history is exhumed while the killer slashes his way through several other cast members. Together they learn that Jeffrey is actually Wilfred Butler’s son AND his grandfather, since Wilfred raped his own daughter, Marianne. The baby was spirited away to another state, while Marianne suffered a psychological breakdown. Rather than institutionalizing her, Wilfred set up his mansion as an insane asylum, where he could keep a close eye on her. Eventually he became disillusioned with her so-called doctors, and turned the violent inmates loose on them, resulting in a Christmas Eve massacre where Marianne herself was killed. Diane doesn’t escape the curse of the mansion either, as she learns some unpleasant information about her own family and her connection to the tragic events.

Director Theodore Gershuny (“Sugar Cookies”) was married to Woronov at the time, and he displays
some style with his camera and his concepts. The most breathtaking and frightening sequence of the
movie is the moment when the inmates of the asylum silently surround the drunken doctors and their party guests before murdering them. This scene is full of Warhol personalities, including Ondine and Candy Darling -although technically her final film, this was actually filmed in 1970 and not released until 72. John Carradine also appears in this, because of course he is in every movie. His character is mute, so we don’t hear his distinctive voice, but he communicates by ringing a bell, as if he’s summoning a missing clerk to a vacant drug store counter.

The holiday imagery is not quite as pronounced as it is in movies like Black Christmas and Silent Night Deadly Night, but we do get some very yuleish (as Barb Coard would say) moments. The characters listen to Christmas carols on the radio, Woronov wraps gifts in front of a fire, and the tone of the film is very wintry. Certain outdoor scenes look as if they were filmed some time after a snowfall began to melt, as portions of the ground seem to have a thin layer of snow and others are muddy. This isn’t the scenic kind of winter, it’s the unpleasant kind that has you tracking mud into the house. Whether or not this was intentional, it takes the romance out of Christmas just a little. And incidentally, it seems as if the Black Christmas game plan of menacing phone calls placed by a killer on Christmas may have been inspired just a little bit by this movie – or perhaps that’s just another Christmas miracle. I love the muted, downbeat atmosphere of Silent Night, Bloody Night a lot, and it does seem to be the movie that knows the most about how family dysfunction can easily lead to an eyeball being gouged out with a wine glass on Christmas Eve. Happy holidays!