Silent Night, Bloody Night – 1970s Gothic Holiday Horror

Review by Steve D. Stones 

This 1972 film – Silent Night, Bloody Night is not to be confused with the infamous 1980s horror film – Silent Night, Deadly Night about a murdering Santa Claus. This film was made long before Silent Night, Deadly Night. Although Silent Night, Bloody Night takes place at Christmas time, the film is not a Christmas movie, but more of a Gothic horror suspense film that lays the foundation for many of the late seventies and early eighties slasher and mass killer films.

Wilford Butler owns a mansion with his family in East Willard, Massachusetts. On Christmas Eve 1950, he dashes out of the house engulfed in flames. He is pronounced dead from the fire and the official medical examiner's report indicates that his burns were an accident. No one attends Butler's funeral on New Years Day 1951. Butler's will leaves the mansion and the surrounding property to his grandson – Jeffery Butler (James Patterson). The house remains empty for twenty years and used briefly as an insane asylum for the criminally insane.

After twenty years passes, Jeffery Butler decides he wants to sell the mansion. He sends a New York lawyer named John Carter (Patrick O'Neal) to Arlington County, Massachusetts to meet with city officials to sell the home. Charlie Towman (John Carradine) a journalist who runs the local newspaper and mayor Adams (Walter Abel) are two of the city officials Carter meets with. Towman cannot speak, so he communicates by ringing a bell. Carter proposes to the officials that Butler wants to sell the mansion for $50,000. While the group contemplates the offer, lawyer Carter stays in the mansion that night with his girlfriend.

Later that night, Carter and his girlfriend are murdered in bed by an intruder with an ax in one of the most grisly scenes in the entire film. The murderer leaves a crucifix in the hand of Carter before he leaves the violent scene. The room is left in a bloody mess. Butler arrives at the mansion and takes Carter's car after his own car breaks down earlier that day.

Although Butler sent Carter to the city officials to propose a sale price for the mansion, he goes to the mayor's house to speak with him about the mansion after finding the sheriff's office empty. The mayor's daughter Diane Adams (Mary Woronov) greets Butler at the door with a gun after seeing him earlier that day broken down on the side of the road. Diane mistakes him for a dangerous stranger. Butler identifies himself and asks if the mayor or sheriff could provide him with a key to the mansion. The mayor is not home, so Butler takes Diane with him to go find mayor Adams.

Sheriff Mason, the town sheriff, is killed with an ax at Milford Butler's grave. Butler and Adams arrive on the scene at the cemetery and find Mason's glasses crushed in front of Wilford Butler's tombstone. One by one, city officials appear to be missing or murdered as the night progresses.

The last fifteen minutes of the film reveals a great deal about the plot and secret past of the Butler family, as well as many of the murdered city officials, with interesting flashback sequences filmed with a sienna filter in soft focus. The killer calls city officials on the phone and speaks in a creepy, whispering voice, which is something we see in other future horror films – such as Black Christmas (1974). The camera also shows interesting point of view shots from the perspective of the killer, much like director John Carpenter did in opening shots of the original 1978 – Halloween.

It's interesting to note that a number of cast and crew members of Silent Night, Bloody Night were Andy Warhol superstars – Mary Woronov, Candy Darling, Tally Brown, Lewis Love, filmmaker Jack Smith and artist Susan Rothenberg. Although released in 1972, production of the film took place in 1970 at Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York under the alternative titles of Death House (Deathouse) and Night of the Dark Full Moon.

The film was never registered with the United States Copyright Office, so it immediately fell into the public domain. Most public domain prints I've seen of this film are very worn and out of focus. This may not be the best holiday horror film, but it's an interesting little gem that is rarely discussed, and has mostly been forgotten, which is unfortunate. Happy Holidays and happy viewing.

This film currently is included as an Amazon Prime film free to Prime members. A better print is also available for free at Tubi.