Last Friday, the remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night—Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s 1984 original scripted by Michael Hickey—hit theaters. By most accounts, it’s a competent disappointment: glossier, more serious, and far more “moral” than the first film, with a killer Santa who only slays truly awful people.
Buy Silent Night, Deadly Night: The Official Novelization of the Original MovieThe original filmmakers, by contrast, stuffed their Christmas turkey with dark camp and bad taste. The result was bonkers nihilism—an exploitation picture that reveled in its own ugliness. The remake misunderstands that appeal. Thankfully, Armando Muñoz’s novelization of the original (first published two years ago by Beyond Killer Games, a horror-gaming outfit) understands it perfectly. This is what Silent Night, Deadly Night should be—and then some.
Like its source, the book is exploitation, and it knows it. As the foreword explains, the movie’s executive producers encouraged Muñoz to expand the story and to go all out. He obliges. Faithful to the film, he escalates everything that made it both reviled and beloved, leaning into the excess rather than sanding it down.
Muñoz is one to watch. A seasoned novelizer, he’s penned tie-ins for My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, and Basket Case. His affection for Silent Night, Deadly Night is obvious. The book recreates every scene from the movie while adding material that deepens the experience, smoothing out what was underdeveloped or illogical without domesticating it.
A quick recap of the plot: Christmas Eve, 1971. Growing up in Christmas-obsessed Christmas Joy, Utah, young Billy Chapman watches his parents murdered by a gunman dressed as Santa Claus. He and his little brother are sent to a strict Catholic orphanage ruled by a sadistic nun. Thirteen years later, an 18-year-old Billy is trying—barely—to live a normal life. Then, at the toy store where he works, playing Santa no less, something snaps. Axe in hand, Billy begins punishing the “naughty.” His spree ends at the orphanage, where Mother Superior receives one final gift.
Muñoz knows exactly who he’s writing for. Fans of the movie—and slasher diehards more broadly—will slaver. This is a longer, richer version of the story that lets you relive the original with extra trimmings. Even minor characters receive surprising levels of backstory and interiority, and most notably, Billy himself becomes more sympathetic without being redeemed.
Unlike many old tie-ins—often dashed off by talented genre writers working from early screenplay drafts under tight deadlines—Muñoz had the advantage of adapting the finished film. He uses it well. Rather than merely transcribing scenes, he dives headfirst into the adaptation, enriching Silent Night, Deadly Night by embracing its nastiest instincts.
And nasty he gets. Consider Billy’s childhood visit to the sanitarium housing his senile grandfather. Grandpa Chapman only pretends to be catatonic. In truth, he’s a manipulative pervert, honking women’s breasts and shitting in other residents’ beds. In my favorite scene in the book—and its purest expression of horror—he waits until he and Billy are alone to whisper lies about Santa’s evil intentions. Billy is mortified. His love of Christmas is poisoned forever. This moment distills Silent Night, Deadly Night to its essence.
Muñoz doubles down on the movie’s nuttiness. He cranks the sexual violence and moral rot to eleven. His Silent Night, Deadly Night is unapologetically gross, hilariously violent, and deeply feel-bad. It’s a love letter to the original film, succeeding precisely where the remake fails. It understands that the story’s power lies in shameless, immoral excess.
Muñoz’s novelization is brilliant proof that sometimes horror works best when it’s dumb, ugly, and sincere all at once.
If you’re not on the book’s wavelength, stay far, far away.
And if you’re fond of the original film (and I’m not—I find it second-rate, amusing, and forgettable), Merry Christmas.
