New Christmas thriller with 81% on Rotten Tomatoes is available to watch now

We predict this will become a festive cult classic.

For those not aware, the original Silent Night, Deadly Night was released in 1984 and is essentially a riff on John Carpenter's seminal 1978 slasher Halloween, but set at Christmas instead.

The first film in the franchise begins with a young boy named Billy, who witnesses his parents being killed by a murderous thief dressed as Santa Claus.

Following this, he is raised in an orphanage by an abusive nun, who is unsympathetic to the child's growing fear of the festive season and Old Saint Nick.

When Billy turns 18 and gets a job working at a toy store, his boss asks him to be the shop's new Santa in the run-up to Christmas.

This, however, dredges up old trauma, causing Billy to snap and go on a violent crime spree, punishing anyone he deems to be naughty.

The original Silent Night, Deadly Night is well-made and tense, even if it has a mean streak and suffers from some of the same issues as many slashers of its era, mainly the inclusion of gratuitous nudity and several female characters that only exist to be brutally dispatched.

Nevertheless, it wound up being one of the most controversial horrors of its era. Parents weren't happy about the depiction of axe-wielding killer Santa, believing the ads for the slasher could cause their children to fear the mythical present-giver.

As a result, the '80s flick was pulled from numerous cinemas within the first fortnight of its release, something which probably led to the movie becoming a source of fascination for horror fans.

Not only did it still become a financial success, but it spawned half a dozen sequels and remakes, including the latest reimagining from rising writer-director Mike P. Nelson (V/H/S/85, Wrong Turn).

The 2025 version of the story retains the same basic set-up, but makes several significant changes that result in a more successful movie overall.

Having watched his parents die at the hands of a killer Santa as a boy, a now adult Billy (scream king Rohan Campbell - Halloween Ends, The Monkey), is plagued by a mysterious, persistent voice in his head dubbed 'Charlie' (Marc Acheson, Brand New Cherry Flavor).

Every year during the festive season, Charlie urges Billy to kill, even suggesting potential victims. Unable to ignore the voice and stop committing crimes, Billy lives a nomadic existence.

Needing a place to lay low, Billy lands in a sleepy town in Wisconsin named Hackett ('I like the sound of that!', Charlie slyly quips) and takes up a job in a trinket store.

There, he falls in love with Pam (Happy Death Day's Ruby Modine in a star-making turn), a co-worker who suffers from anger management problems and loves true crime. Their blossoming romance makes the young man want to suppress his dark side.

Can the love birds make it work, or does Billy have too much baggage, particularly as he finds himself drawn into a small town conspiracy?

It's actually tough to talk too much more about the plot of Silent Night, Deadly Night 2025. That's because its plot is pleasingly complicated and twisty.

We'll just say that, instead of regressing into those tired slasher tropes we mentioned above, Nelson takes the original's basic set-up and remixes it with the likes of Bill Paxton's underseen masterpiece Frailty, the Tom Hardy-starring guilty pleasure Venom and Netflix's You to create something that feels fresh.

Billy is pitched less as a straight-up villain and more as a conflicted antihero, which makes him far more interesting. It helps, too, that the people Charlie urges Billy to take out reveal themselves to be extremely bad indeed (without spoiling, Billy discovering the extent of Sharon Bajer's character Delphine's evilness, is one of the film's funniest jokes).

The real reason to watch the remake, however, is the charming performance from Modine (daughter of Matthew), playing a character who feels far more complex than the typical love interest in a horror. While Silent Night, Deadly Night is often outlandish, the scenes in which the damaged souls Billy and Pam start to bond are genuinely electric and moving.

We're sure there will be a subsection of horror fans frustrated that the new Silent Night, Deadly Night sands off some of the rougher edges of the original, perhaps making for a less scary or disturbing movie.

That said, the climax of the remake (particularly a segment involving a ball pit) is genuinely nail-biting. Plus, some late-in-the-game plot revelations put a clever new spin on the franchise, while subtly setting up a sequel.

On the strength of the 2025 festive slasher, we'd gladly tune in for a festive follow-up.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2025 is in cinemas now. The 1984 original is currently streaming on Shudder.