Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Sam Panico Christmas Eve, 1950: Wilfred Butler runs from his home, on fire, and supposedly dies in the snow. Christmas Eve, 1970: John Carter (Patrick O'Neal, The Stepford Wives, The Stuff) and his assistant Ingrid arrive in a small Massachusetts town. He meets with the town's mayor, sheriff and major citizens like Tess Howard and Charlie Towman (John Carradine!), who may have lost his voice to a tracheotomy but not his need to smoke, about selling the Butler mansion as soon as possible. While staying overnight with Ingrid, who is also his mistress, they are both killed by an axe. The killer calls the police and says that they are Marianne. Tess, the town's telephone operator, hears the call and drives to the mansion, where she is greeted by Marianne Butler before she is hit in the head with a candle holder. Meanwhile, Sheriff Mason finds that Wilfred's grave is empty. He is killed and thrown into the empty hole. Mayor Adams is asked to go to the Butler mansion but leaves his daughter, Diane (Mary Woronov, Death Race 2000, Chelsea Girls) at home. She meets up with a man who claims to be Jeffrey Butler, who has taken the sheriff's abandoned car. Together, they search for the lawman but can't find him. After taking Towman to the mansion, Jeffrey goes back to get Diane. On their way to the mansion, Towman stumbles blindly in front of them and is hit and killed. His eyes had been stabbed out and Diane grows worried about Jeffrey. Well, this movie is also about incest! A diary found at the house reveals that Jeffrey is the son of Wilfred and his daughter, Marianne. Afterward, Wilfred turned the house into an asylum and admitted his own daughter. However, on Christmas Eve 1935, he turned all of the inmates loose. They killed every doctor as well as his daughter. Of note here is that many of the inmates in the flashback are played by former stars of Warhol's factory, like Ondine, Tally Brown, Kristen Steen and Lewis Love, as well as Flaming Creatures auteur Jack Smith, artist George Trakas and his wife at the time, Susan Rothenberg. Warhol superstar Candy Darling also shows up in the film as a party guest. Well, it turns out that some of the inmates of the insane asylum ended up being important parts of the town - that's right, all of the important people John met with in the beginning! Mayor Adams arrives at the mansion and he and Jeffrey face off, guns drawn, each believing the other is the killer. They kill one another as Marianne shows up, but she is really Wilfred, who is alive. He went after the inmates for their role in the death of his daughter and used his grandson/son/secret shame Jeffrey as a patsy. Diane gets the gun and kills the old man. One year later, the mansion is demolished as she watches. Director Theodore Gershuny worked on plenty of episodes of Monsters and Tales from the Darkside after this film. He was also married to Woronov. The original title for the film was Night Of The Dark Full Moon and it was also nearly called Zora, which makes little to no sense. There are some really interesting techniques here, especially in the flashback sequences, which feel like tinted photographs come to life with the sadest version of "Silent Night" ever playing behind the action. I love how experimental and dark these sequences look - they remind me a little of the film Begotten. This is a dark film for your holiday viewing, so if you want to chase away the family for awhile, this is the one to do it.

MartinHafer "Silent Night, Bloody Night" is a frustrating film. It manages to set a great mood--chilling and brutal. Yet, it then seems to lose so much momentum late in the film--and left me feeling totally uninterested.When the film begins, you learn that a rich guy died 20 years ago under mysterious circumstances. In the meantime, his home has sat abandoned until recently when his son declares that he's going to sell the place. Soon after his attorney arrives in town to finalize the deal, folks start getting hacked to pieces (the first few are amazingly realistic). All this worked well. However, to explain who it was and how it was, the film had a HUGE and awkward flashback sequence that seemed to take up the last third of the movie!! Surely all this could have been done in a much more straight forward and less sloppy manner. And, as a result the film left me wondering if perhaps a re-write might have resulted in this becoming a much more popular and worthy movie. As it is, I'd only recommend it to die-hard horror fans or folks wanting to see a young Mary Waronov in a major role.

Roman James Hoffman Made in 1972, but not released until 1974, 'Silent Night, Bloody Night' ('Night of the Dark Full Moon) stands as an (undeservedly) obscure footnote to the slasher genre which went onto blossom in the late seventies/early eighties with the likes of 'Halloween' and 'Friday the 13th'…and which has been a Hollywood staple ever since. However, while its footnote status could be argued to be undeserved in that it is actually a fine exercise in suspense as well as a brutal exercise in obsession and madness, it is somewhat understandable as the movie's charms are somewhat obscured by a certain amount of low-budget B-movie sloppiness.The film takes place as a flashback from final girl Diane (Woranov) and relates the attempted sale of a house-cum-asylum owned by a reclusive local man by the name of Wilfred Butler and which, after his death is passed to his grandson Jeffery (Patterson) and subsequently abandoned. Jeffery hires a big-city lawyer type who travels up to the town where he meets the mayor, the sheriff, Tess the switchboard operator, and the mute Mr. Towman, all of whom show some concern about the house and its sale. The atmosphere from the off is eerie and oppressive, due in part to the looming presence of the house, the oddness of the locals, and also in part from the fact that, intentional cinematographic choice or not, the film is very dark. To this is added the information that a lunatic is loose and when people start dying Diane and Jeffery begin to uncover the disturbing history that the house has been witness to.As the plot begins to unfold, culminating in a bizarre sepia-tinted recollection (which has cameos from a couple of people famous for hanging out in Warhol's Factory), I was surprised by how twisted and genuinely horrific the backstory actually is. However, I must admit that in the first 30 minutes I was tempted to stop watching the film on a couple of occasions as I felt it to be a bit amateurish! This was mainly due to the overuse of narration which seemed to be a lazy way to communicate what's going on: simply telling, rather than integrating it into dialogue or communicating it through cinematic craft etc. In addition, the film breaks its own logic as the whole story is told as a reminiscence from Diane which in literary terms situates the film as a first-person limited narrative and yet there are countless scenes which don't feature her and which she would therefore have no knowledge of and be unable to recollect.Having said this, I am happy I kept with the film as, whether despite or because of its flaws, the overall impact of the movie was more than I was expecting and many ideas in the film stayed with me for a good while afterwards. Overall, 'Silent Night, Bloody Night' is a gritty, intelligent, and surprisingly affecting film, which deserves slightly more recognition than it has…but which nonetheless serves its role in the hidden history of the slasher movie admirably and with pride.*************************Public domain movie. Watch for free here (as 'Silent Night, Bloody Night'): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jGmLrLn0xY

Tender-Flesh If you hate low budget schlock, tread not towards the TV when this is playing. However, should you be a lover of obscure weird old trash, this might be just what you are looking for.The basic plot follows a sordid family tree and the mysterious Butler house, an isolated "mansion" off in the woods near a tiny town. When the home suddenly is put up for sale after so many years of laying empty(or is it?) the town VIPs are hopeful that there might be an end to the trouble associated with the house. However, almost before the very finale, you will discover that all the townies worth mentioning are somehow tied to the history of the home and its bloody trail.This is shot on grainy, murky film with terrible editing and lackluster sound. Some of the dialogue is dubbed. John Carradine has more than a cameo but slightly less than a minor role and has no speaking parts. He does, however, ring a little bell frequently and annoyingly. Mary Woronov is quite a dish and this is the first film I recall watching with her in the cast. This is a largely bloodless film, except for a "meh" scene near the beginning where two people get the axe. While a bloody scene, it is not realistic in the slightest. The axe hits the bed sheets several times, but you never see it penetrate any bodies.Yes, there is some atmosphere to be had here, but it is mainly due to the low budget and murky quality of the film overall. I wouldn't give any props to the actors or director(or writer) since they don't add up to much. As I said before, though, Woronov is nice on the eyes if you like 70's tarts. A sepia-tone flashback adds an unusual touch towards the end, but several voice-over narrations are tedious.Effective time waster.