I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Movies So Bad They Make You Say "What In The Blazes Did I Just Watch?" 




Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974)


This is kind of an old movie to call bad. Wait, no it isn't. It wouldn't matter if it had been made in the 1800's it still would be bad. And it was supposed to be good. At least, the makers thought so.They had high hopes and expensive cast and crew. Most of them were said to be former Worhol superstars, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Ask your grandparents, maybe they know. All I know is this movie blew chunks so hard it was not even funny, just pitiful. The movie was described as a psychological horror film - to me that means they wanted to see how many could stand watching it all the way through. The audience must have been seen as rats in a maze, this was just that awful.

The house that love/hate built.

The plot is simple: The attempt to sell a house in Massachusetts prompts an insane asylum inmate to escape and start carving up whomever shows up at the house. That's it. That's the movie. Oh, except that it happens on Christmas Eve, thus the title. Because it's being sold conveniently at the same time a horrible nasty secret occurred there years ago. Want to know what it was? No? Not at all? Now you know how I felt.

Okay I'll narrate but I get to do it in a monotone.

This supposedly preceded slasher films but had it's own share of the 70's type of gore. Implied blows, runny blood, no guts. But we get extra goodies: rape, incest and crazies. Not necessarily in that order. SNBN didn't do that well for obvious reasons despite a cast that included Patrick O'Neal (big deal in the 70's) and John Carradine, patriarch of the Carradine acting family.

Wait, I think I'm allergic to strawberries...

In the mid 80's this film was featured on Elvira's Movie Macabre (so you know it REALLY sucked) and, probably more due to her witty comments than anything else, it became sort of a cult film. But that still doesn't make it a good one. Sigh. I'm exhausted and I haven't moved for almost two hours.


Story in short - house was built, house was made huge in the 20's. Wife of owner Alfred Butler dies of TB in 1930. Daughter is brutally attacked and raped at age 15 in 1933, gives birth, goes nuts and needs treatment. To keep his daughter near him, father opens up house as an asylum. Oh but the nutjobs don't get to stay in the house, they stay in an outbuilding. The doctors and nurses stay in the house and quickly become slobbering gluttons. Father has enough, lets the loonies go, they slaughter everybody in the house - unfortunately including his daughter - and escape. On Christmas Eve. Fast forward to 1950 father dies of burns (as he runs in the snow, guess he didn't think it would be cold enough to put out the flames). On Christmas Eve. Fast forward again to 1970, grandson who inherited house wants to sell it. On Christmas Eve. That's when the lunatic escapes and the major players in town including the mayor, sheriff and other city officials start getting whacked.

Where's something cold when you need it?

I'm going slightly mad...

Summary in short - owner Wilfred Butler is the one who attacked and raped his own daughter (incest was still majorly shocking in the 70's). She gave birth, he sent his son/grandson away. He 'tried' to help her (HA!) but like I said she got killed. The guy burned in 1950? Some hobo. Guess they didn't check the body very well. The inmates that escaped? The mayor, the sheriff and other city officials... are we getting the whole majorly sucky picture yet? The escaping psycho doing all the slaughter? A decrepit and extremely ugly Wilfred Butler, still alive - until he dies. Duh. 

We may be mad but we still rule as city officials.

Unfortunately this takes them almost 90 minutes to play out and I'm played out and I'm going to bed now.