[Yuletide Terrors] Day 23: SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT

Throughout the month of December, we will be highlighting a film a day that has some tie into the holiday somehow. Some titles will be obvious, others won’t be. Some films will be good and, again, others won’t be. However, we think all titles are worth your time whether to give you chills inside your home or to make you drink more eggnog until you puke laughing.

Ten shopping days before Christmas, and people are being attacked by zombies, but we better not use the zed word because no one else does. Two cops roll up on some deadheads and one tries to gnaw on Jackson’s (Andy Hopper) foot. Thankfully his partner Frank Talbot (Jack Forcinito, not Lon Chaney) shoots his toe off and kills the zombie. Hustle back to Jackson’s second floor apartment and Frank’s wife, Sarah (Nadine Stenovitch) is there fighting off more zombies. The trio hold up in his apartment as things get worse. Sarah was planning to leave Frank and she’s staying with Jackson.It’s the end of the world and a love triangle. Oh no!

If you have low expectations for zombie movies, you should dig it. Don’t get me wrong, I can forgive a movie for a lot of things. Low budget (check), bad acting (double check), but if it’s boring look out. Silent Night, Zombie Night looks pretty good for the most part. I don’t know what the budget was but writer/director/editor Sean Cain and cinematographer Jim Wright have this movie looking more expensive than it was. The zombie makeup is solid if uneven. It seems there are two types of undead in this flick, Olympic sprinting super zombies and shambling through mud variety. The fast zombies look gruesome, their slower counterparts look like the latex ran out so they were covered in fake blood.

After watching 23 Christmas Horror movies this month I understand why low budget movies like to use the season as a setting. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to add production value. Or perhaps it’s supposed to be ironic, a counterpoint to the “happiest time of year”. Christmas really has no bearing on a movie filmed in LA. Considering the deluge of zombie movies in the last decade, Mr Cain wanted his movie to stand apart. That would be fine if it wasn’t also for A Cadaver Christmas, Christmas with the Dead, Suburban Zombie Christmas, and a zombified Santa in Nixon and Hogan Smoke Christmas.

Maybe I’ll watch those next year. Nope.