One of the few major horror franchises not yet rebooted was Silent Night, Deadly Night, the controversial Christmas horror series that just got nuttier and nuttier as it went on. That all changed today when Variety announced that The Aggression Scale director Steven C. Miller would be taking the helm of a new, loose remake, with a title shortened to merely Silent Night, starring Malcolm McDowell (who is no stranger to horror remakes, having starred in Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies). Principle production is scheduled to begin next month, in an effort to secure a release in the 2012 holiday season.
The new remake is a departure from the original, in that it focuses less on the homicidal Santa Claus than the small town Sheriff look to make a name for himself with his arrest. The original Silent Night, Deadly Night included several humorous asides with the police department as they used unnecessary force to take down innocent bystanders who only happened to be dressed as St. Nick, so this approach seems a lot less sacreligious than, well, the Silent Night, Deadly Night movies themselves.
And as much as we love the Silent Night, Deadly Nights, most of them are so bad (see below) that remaking them doesn’t bug us very much. The concept of a killer Santa Claus is such an iconic one that doing it again probably won’t do any harm, even if it goes over a giftwrapped fruitcake.
CraveOnline will be back with more Silent Night news on garbage day.
