An international trailer for slasher remake Silent Night, Deadly Night has been released online, and it includes plenty of gruesome Christmas carnage that didn't feature in the domestic version.
Though it seems tame by today's standards (just look at Terrifier 3), the original 1984 movie was met with quite a bit of controversy due to its "killer Santa" promotional material and content, and was actually pulled from theaters a week after its release. It has since developed a cult following, spawning four sequels ("Garbage day!") and a loose 2012 remake.
"I wanted there to be a love story, but I wanted it to be a challenging one," director Mike P. Nelson told GamesRadar+ during NYCC. "You have two people dealing with inner demons, and what does that look like when they come head to head? That can either go really, really bad, or it can go really, really good, depending on how you look at it."
"It could have been, and I mean for me honestly, like the butting of heads, the Mortal Kombat between two crazy people is sort of the way to go," he went on. "But I thought there was more to it than that. And honestly, while I was writing it, I was sort of finding that. And the more and more that I wrote and realized that, Billy and Pam started to connect. I was like, I want them to win. I want there to be a win in this movie. There's so many horror movies now more than ever where it just feels like nobody gets a win. And I really wanted there to be a solid win with these two."
Check out the new trailer below.
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT reimagines a 1984 cult horror classic in which a young boy witnesses the murder of his parents at the hands of a man dressed as Santa, only to grow up and become a killer himself. Haunted by trauma and fuelled by a twisted sense of justice, he dons the red suit, turning the advent calendar into a series of nights of terror. As Christmas Eve approaches, a small town becomes his latest hunting ground, where the naughty and bad pay the ultimate price.
Blending psychological horror, brutal slasher thrills, a touch of the supernatural, and – more shockingly still – a sprinkle of romance, the film delivers a modern chilling new take on the ultimate holiday nightmare.
Directed by Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn, V/H/S/85), the upcoming feature brings together the original 1984 Tri-Star film’s producers Scott Schneid and Dennis Whitehead, alongside Jamie R. Thompson of New Dimension, with Erik Bernard who also joins the team as Producer.
The film stars Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends) as Billy and Ruby Modine (Happy Death Day) as Pamela, alongside Mark Acheson, David Lawrence Brown, and David Tomlinson rounding out the cast. Principal photography was completed in spring 2025.