Movie Review: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

Synopsis: Several years after his older brother, Billy, went on a killing spree, a now-adult Ricky tells a psychiatrist about his life immediately after the violence and how he eventually became a killer as well.

Who's in it? The movie stars Eric Freeman, James Newman, Elizabeth Kaitan, Jean Miller and Corrine Gelfan.

Review: Since it was Christmas, my wife and I wanted to watch a holiday movie. However, none of the many Hallmark movies we had in our library seemed appealing so we decided to watch this holiday-themed horror movie sequel instead. After seeing it, we both regretted not picking out a Hallmark film after all.

The best way to describe this movie is to imagine watching the first film a second time and calling the second viewing a sequel because that's basically what this movie did. More than half of the film was a replay of the first movie, re-showing each murder in order. By the time Ricky (Freeman) reached the point he was becoming a serial killer too, I had lost interest.

Also not helping was Ricky's sudden ability to re-tell his brother's story in detail, something that honestly made no sense. He was just a kid when the events happened and was locked away in an orphanage when the killing spree happened. I find it very hard to believe he would know everything that happened to Billy (Robert Brian Wilson) that night. Even him remembering his parents' murder seemed a bit farfetched considering he was an infant at the time.

The film would have been considerably better had the focus been solely on Ricky with just a couple flashbacks to remind us who his brother was. In fact, the only reason I even bothered watching it until the end was I kept hoping we would see him pick up where his brother left off. Unfortunately, that never actually happens, at least until the very end. Most of his murders are completely unrelated to the events in the first movie and, without the flashbacks, I'm not even sure I would consider this a sequel.

Final Opinion: I thought the first movie was decent and there was real potential for the sequel to be good as well. It's just too bad the filmmakers decided to just re-show the first film with a few minor changes rather than try to create something unique.

My Grade: F