Christmas Horror Watch: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Watched:  12/13/2025

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lee Harry

Sometimes horror fans complain that critics will say "this is pretty good for horror" or something of the like.  And I agree - that's a bit dismissive of a whole genre.  But my suspicion about why this happens is that sometime in high school, a person who would one day become a critic was with friends who rented something like Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987), and their takeaway was "this is what you guys are watching?"

On its face, yes.  This is a movie with problems.  It's three years after the first film's release, and this sequel - put out well into the age of VHS where most people probably saw the first Silent Night, Deadly Night - spends 36 minutes doing a mix of clip show of the first movie and having our new villain/ protagonist relay the story of the first film to a psychiatrist.  Then it spends ~30 minutes relaying the fate of the brother of the first Kill Krazy Kris Kringle (our hero/villain) before it unleashes our guy onto the world, where he immediately goes after his abusive former Mother Superior.  

There is, to my surprise, an added bit of pretension at the end as we learn the surviving nun was the same woman our Second Santa avenged after near SA - killing the dude with a Jeep.  I did not think this was the sort of movie to include dramatic irony, but here we are.

By the way, I did figure out immediately that at some point I'd seen the first half of Silent Night, Deadly Night, but I must not have finished the movie.  

But if your critics' only takeaway was "that wasn't very good", I am afraid they're missing the point.  This is the opposite of "elevated horror" - this is Santa Exploitation Horror.  This is a mad man walking around a suburban street firing off something like 20 shots from a six-shooter while he laughs stiffly and badly.  This is a guy murdering people for talking in the movie theater and punishing "naughty" people with an axe to the head.  It's not scary - it's basically a comedy.

So does it succeed as a film delivering on that premise?  

I mean, I think so.  This is a Rental movie to watch while drinking beer, and maybe cheer a bit when some murders happen.  

Thanks to the merging of the first film into the first act of this movie, it's also a wildly overcomplicated movie for a movie about a guy who puts on a Santa hat to kill people.  And it's part of the movie's charm.

I am only sad that I watched it by myself.

One day I need to do a post about how maybe the usefulness of critics and awards is minimal, and that what really makes a movie survive is a culture that can sustain those movies.  And horror and the horror fanbase is amazing about keeping movies alive and making lowkey celebs out of people who made a cheap movie 40 years ago.

Dick Van Dyke at 100

 

Dick Van Dyke is now 100.  What a delight to do a "at 100" post and have the person still with us and in terrific shape.

He's easily one of the earliest actors whose names I knew who wasn't a Star War.  As a kid, I remember being taken to a re-release of Mary Poppins, and it was part of how I fell in love with movies.  And, of course, reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show played well through when I was a young adult - when I feel like I finally got the appeal (no, not just Mary Tyler Moore - it's really funny and now I kind of want to watch it again).  Not bad for a show that ended 9 years before I was born.

Later, I'd see him in Bye Bye Birdie and other films.  The man is an entertainer.  

Here's to lasting a century and somehow remaining universally beloved.  You have a lot of choices of how you want people to think of you at 100, if you're remembered at all.  This may be the absolute best case of all.

Chabert Watch: Slightly Single in LA (2013)

Ah, the "look at our galaxy of stars" rom-com poster.  Always a promising sign.

Watched:  12/12/2025

Format DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  Christie Will Wolf

Editor's note:  we've decided to Thelma and Louise our way through the remaining Chabert filmography.  I've been looking to see if I can find the Chabert films I haven't seen yet via very cheap used copies or online (one way or another).  

Ugh.  

File this under "this movie was never aimed at me" but also "never write fiction that is a thinly veiled version of a story about yourself".

Christie Will Wolf (here listed as Christie Will) is the writer/ director/ producer of Slightly Single in LA (2013).  These days she's a prolific director and producer of Hallmark movies, and I've seen some of them in whole or part.  She also was the mastermind behind 2011's Holiday Heist, one of the hardest-to-watch movies viewed during ChabertQuest 2025.  

The movie is a rom-com/ would-be Sex in the City about the foibles of a group of women and their token gay friend (Jonathan Bennet).  The story follows around Chabert's character, Dale, who has had bad luck in love.  But what's played for comedy is merely comedy shaped but at no time made me so much as crack a smile.  The movie feels like it's about someone with terrible risk analysis and decision making skills.  But the movie is written, directed and produced by one person - who seems totally unaware that the characters are not just unrelatable, but deeply unsympathetic.  

This lead character sucks.  But she sucks the least of all of the characters, so... yay?

DC Studios: Supergirl Trailer Arrives

The movie isn't arriving until late June of 2026, but we have our first trailer for the upcoming movie, Supergirl.  

For comics readers, we're going to recognize this is a loose adaptation of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely.  It's a pastiche on revisionist westerns, especially True Grit.  So she comes by the duster thematically and honestly.

Yes, this is a different Supergirl than Helen Slater or Melissa Benoist.  And I shock myself to say this - but that's okay.  I adore Silver Age Supergirl, and Bronze Age Supergirl, but Supergirl, with her story, was in need of a serious overhaul, which I think she got locked in via comics scribe Sterling Gates several years ago now.  

The basic idea is - she's not Superman.  He was an infant foundling, she was a survivor of a catastrophe she saw first hand.  She is walking trauma.  Ma and Pa taught Clark to be kind and love everyone, Kara learned the world will literally explode beneath you.  Anyone who thought Superman was a bit too sunshine-y now has their flip side of the coin.

Milly Alcock seems a solid choice for this Kara from her appearance to her spirit, and I think The Youths will like Alcock and her Kara Zor-El.  I've seen nothing that makes me anything less enthused about her as the choice.

Here's that trailer:

Chabert Holiday Rewatch: The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014)

My original rules for ChabertQuest 2025 included not re-watching and re-posting on movies I'd already seen and written up.  Somehow it bothered me that I didn't rewatch this one even though I'd previously seen The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014) and wrote it up back during lockdown.  

All I remembered was that the snow was pretty much non-existent (in Vermont on December) and maybe you could see some blankets thrown down to double as snow.  So, I decided to give it one more whirl to make sure no Chabert-stone was left unturned during ChabertQuest.  

This may have aired on Hallmark, but, is so, it's a small, indie movie that was licensed to Hallmark, which was their model for a while.  These days, I think they own a lot more of the movies that they air.  Thus, older movies like this are out there, but not officially Hallmark at this point.  

This movie arrives in Year 2 of Chabert making movies for Hallmark-type outfits.  She'd made Matchmaker Santa in 2013, and by 2014 was in A Royal Christmas, which is kind of considered a Hallmark classic by Hallmark nerds, and is arguably the real start of Chabert's rise to Hallmark supremacy.  In 2014, for good or ill, she also made this movie.

Christmas Classic Watch: White Christmas (1954)

Watched:  12/09/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Michael Curtiz

I always wonder how contemporary audiences received the Michael Curtiz movie, White Christmas (1954), when it came out.  It's not exactly The Best Years of Our Lives, but does speak to the post-war era as people moved on with their lives, from enlisted soldiers to retired Generals.  But also is aware of the camaraderie forged among pairs of men in war, as well as that of whole battalions.  And, the people who waited at home and their relation to the fighting men and women.  

People may not be nostalgic for getting shot at constantly, but they do miss the people they knew who got them through.

The movie opens on the last December of the war as Bing Crosby - playing an analog of himself - performs alongside Danny Kaye, who is not famous back home.  They' salute their outgoing General Waverly, knowing he actually cared about all of them.  

Netflix Watch: Stranger Things - Season 5 Part 1

I am sure my observations are in no way unique, but here we go.

I don't think Stranger Things is for me.

SPOILERS

Three years between seasons is way too long for serial television.  The problem is not unique to this show, and Stranger Things has already taken it on the chops a bit for trying to suggest that the first season to this season took place within 4-5 years when our kid actors are now old enough to run for Congress.

The bigger problem with the delay between seasons is that, at best, I'm a casual viewer.  I'm not a person who often rewatches serialized TV, and with multiple years between seasons I have a very hard time remembering what previously happened unless prompted very specifically.  And even then, it only kind of comes back.  

But, really, the show became something I was less interested in altogether after Season 2.

Chabert Christmas Watch: She's Making a List (2025)

Watched:  12/06/2025

Format:  Hallmark Channel

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stacey N. Harding

Job: Spy for the Naughtylist

Location of story:  Unclear but LA?/ Snowy generic USA

new skill: Empathy

Man: Andrew Walker

Job of Man: Restaurant consultant

Goes to/ Returns to: Goes to?

Event: Christmas Eve

Food: dessert pizza

Here you go, Randolph.

For a while, actor Lacey Chabert has been tapped The Queen of Hallmark Christmas.   At the start of 2025, Hallmark signed an exclusive contract with Chabert, and as far as I know, the only such contract ever signed by the media concern, locking in talent.  What numbers they had on hand to drive that decision must have been pretty interesting.

This year, Chabert would go on to star in a Halloween movie,  this movie - She's Making a List (2025) , and in January, she's starring in a movie about being stranded in paradise.  She has both her own product line in Hallmark stores, and Keepsake - a line of ornaments at Hallmark - released a Lacey Chabert ornament.  Not a "here's a Star Trek character" ornament, just a Lacey Chabert ornament.  

Just before starting on this post, NathanC sent me an article from Variety that states Chabert is filming a Hallmark movie at Disney World for Christmas 2026.  So, she's doing okay, if you're wondering.  

So, for Hallmark and Chabert both, a LOT was riding on the film.  Would all this investment pay off? 

Santa Watch: Violent Night (2022)

Watched:  12/06/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Tommy Wirkola

LOL.  Oh my.

Really enjoyed this more than I should have, but I also really liked Deadly Games/3615 code Père Noël.  And after so many Hallmark movies, it's honestly kind of nice to spice things up a bit.

I guess the plot summary is:  An insanely rich family with government ties is taken hostage by a group of well-armed thieves.  Santa Claus happens to be in the house at the moment and gets involved, remembering how he was once a viking berserker with a war hammer named "Skullcrusher".  Things get intensely violent.

It's a knowing mish-mash of holiday favorites, from Die Hard to Home Alone, of having to fight back on the quietest night of the year.  

David Harbour plays ol' Kris Kringle as a miserable drunk, who bemoans - as one does in modern movies - the lack of meaning in Christmas and lack of belief in Santa.  John Leguizamo plays "Scrooge", the Hans Gruber of this bunch of international thieves.  Beverly D'Angelo - who looks great, btw - plays the cut-throat matriarch of the family.  Edi Patterson plays her alcoholic daughter with an obnoxious influencer son and a himbo actor boyfriend.  

The focal family with the young girl with belief in Santa is played by people I've never seen before, Alexis Louder and Alex Hassell, plus Leah Brady as Trudy.  

I guess I just loved how they manhandled some aspects of how holiday movies work - like the power of belief, of Christmas magic solving problems, how Home Alone works, and Santa's usual bag of tricks.

Anyway, it was a lot of Rated-R fun, and I was cackling.  A really good palate cleanser if things got a little too sweet for you in your holiday movie watching.  

Chabert Watch: Hometown Legend (2002)

Watched:  12/05/2025

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  James Anderson (I fully believe this is an Alan Smithee name for someone)

Editor's note:  we've decided to Thelma and Louise our way through the remaining Chabert filmography.  I've been looking to see if I can find the Chabert films I haven't seen yet via very cheap used copies or online one way or another.  This one set me back about $6.10.

First, this DVD, purchased as "used" from a Goodwill had never been opened.  Not since the movie was released in, like, 2003 on DVD.  It was wrapped in some sort of transport wrap from the seller, then the original shrink wrap, and THEN still had the vertical AND horizontal security stickers across the packaging intact.

This movie was produced by a Christian production company and some involved are still in movies.  As I bought this on a 2000's-era DVD, it has bonus features including a full Director's commentary I really want to listen to.  But, more importantly, there's all kinds of bonus content about Jerry B. Jenkins - which the DVD itself says is the most famous writer you never heard of.  Apparently he's the mastermind behind this movie?  And (deep sigh) the guy who wrote the Left Behind books.  And a bunch of other stuff.  This seems to be the Jenkins family parlaying their book money into movies.

But, yeah, he essentially uses the bonus features to promote himself.  Amazing choice.