Maybe catch It’s a Wonderful Life one more time.
Unfortunately, a ton of really bad Christmas-themed horror pics have been pushed on the public through the years, but a couple stand out for their ability to turn off both critics and fans. This is subjective, of course, but these two films have been panned by critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
You have been warned.
While the 1984 original is considered a cult classic, filmmakers made the 1987 Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 sequel, and wound up using about 30 minutes of stock footage from the first film–passing it off as “flashback scenes.” This didn’t appear to help the film move the story.
The sequel–directed by Lee Harry from a screenplay he wrote with Joseph H, Earle–follows Ricky Caldwell and his trauma caused by his parents’ Christmas Eve murders–which, of course, triggers his own killing spree.
The film was universally panned, was slapped with a zero rating from RT and earned just $154,000 at the box office on its $250,000 budget. “Garbage day!” Indeed. Despite all that, another sequel hit the big screen two years later with the imaginative title, Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!
And then there’s 1982’s The Dorm That Dripped Blood, another descriptive title that was slapped with a zero rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow and written by Carpenter and Stacey Giachino, this holiday horror follows four college students who remain on campus for Christmas to clear out a dormitory–where an unknown assailant begins stalking them.
The violence and gore in this film would have earned it the kiss of death of an X rating, but it was heavily edited by the MPAA, with some especially bloody portions cut out entirely.
Two examples: a man killed by being bludgeoned with a spiked baseball bat was trimmed to just show a couple of head blows, and footage of another man being drilled through the head with a power tool was left on the cutting room floor. Party poopers.
Keep reading Horror News Network…and enjoy the holiday weekend!
