The True Villain of ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ [Fatal Femmes]
Most of us grew up with the happy version of Santa Claus, a jolly old man with a round belly who snacks on whole milk and cookies while crisscrossing the globe in a flying sleigh. Our greatest fear is that this yuletide saint might drop lumps of coal in our stockings or fail to bring our desired gift. But in Silent Night, Deadly Night, Billy Chapman (Robert Brian Wilson) knows a darker version of Saint Nicholas.
As a child, he crosses paths with a murderous Santa who makes him an orphan on Christmas Eve. Thirteen years later, Billy takes on this iconic persona, rampaging through his snowy town and punishing those on the naughty list. Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s Silent Night, Deadly Night has been accused of perverting a beloved holiday with concerned parents protesting nationwide. But 40 years later, this irreverent film has become a classic of the Christmas horror subgenre with kills destined for the slasher hall of fame. However, the film’s iconic poster features an ax-wielding Santa climbing out of a chimney while the story’s true villain hides in plain sight. Mother Superior (Lilyan Chauvin) may not be the initial cause of Billy’s trauma, but her callous abuse makes his pain all the worse and arguably causes a murderous rampage on Christmas Eve.
Her Story
Mother Superior is the brutal headmistress of the Saint Mary’s Home for Orphaned Children. She prides herself on being a stern disciplinarian and chides the softer Sister Margaret (Gilmer McCormick) for her compassionate efforts to understand Billy’s pain. The orphaned boy is deeply triggered by the Christmas season and shows classic signs of PTSD. Mother Superior has no patience for behavior she describes as “running wild” and responds to Billy’s symptoms with severe castigation and outright abuse. When the child’s holiday artwork features a decapitated reindeer and mutilated Santa, the cruel headmistress sends him to his room. In the wake of a horrifying nightmare, she ties the boy to his bed. Ignoring clear signs of mental distress, she’s determined to prove that only unflinching discipline can raise a well-behaved child.
But Billy is not the only one provoking Mother Superior’s ire. While wandering the halls of the orphanage, Billy spies a couple having sex in a spare room. The curious boy watches through a peephole until Mother Superior shoves him out of the way then savagely beats the young lovers with a belt. Moments later, she explains to Billy that what he’s overseen is “very, very naughty” and that “when we do something naughty, we are always caught. Then, we are punished. Punishment is absolute, punishment is good.” She can’t know this, but she’s echoing sentiments Billy heard on the worst day of his life.
Silent Night, Deadly Night opens with Billy’s fifth Christmas on a family trip to visit his catatonic grandfather. Left alone with the old man, Billy is startled when Grandpa (Will Hare) suddenly snaps to attention and delivers a dire warning about Christmas Eve: “Santy Claus only brings presents to them that’s been good all year. All the other ones, all the naughty ones, he punishes!”
While driving back home, Billy’s father stops to assist a stranded man dressed in a Santa Suit. Hoping to give Billy a Christmas surprise, he’s surprised when the jovial hitchhiker pulls out a gun and tries to hijack the family’s car. The sleazy Saint Nick shoots Billy’s father then drags his mother out of the car, rips open her shirt to expose her bare breasts, and slits her throat on the icy road. Billy watches this harrowing scene unfold and believes that Santa is punishing his “naughty” mother for an unkind comment made just moments before.
This traumatic event has naturally caused a deep fear of Santa Claus and everything related to the holiday season. Sister Margaret mentions Billy’s pattern of disturbing seasonal behavior and worries that the violence he witnessed is still trapped inside. Rather than empathize with the suffering child placed in her care, Mother Superior uses Billy as an object lesson to support her callous parenting style. She will force Billy to sit in Santa’s lap on Christmas Day, proving once and for all that she has bent the boy to her will.
However, Billy rejects this spiteful torture. He must be dragged into the room and absolutely refuses to sit on the stranger’s lap. Billy punches Santa in the face and sends him careening into the Christmas tree. Outraged, Mother Superior follows the terrified child up to his room and prepares to administer a brutal beating. It’s this image of a looming nun that Billy will return to for the rest of his life. In addition to the memory of Santa murdering his partially nude mother, Billy’s dreams will be haunted by Mother Superior and a savage spanking designed to curb reactions completely out of his control.
Her Weapons
In Silent Night, Deadly Night, Mother Superior uses a variety of disciplinary weapons to torture the poor girls and boys in her care. She beats the fornicating couple with the young man’s belt and then uses this makeshift weapon on Billy himself. More upsetting, Mother Superior attacks her victims with shameful comments and orders to repent. When dragging Billy to Santa’s lap, she insists that he will “learn gratitude,” implying that his understandable panic is the result of childish selfishness.
Her insistence that punishment is good leads Billy to believe that his behavior is a manifestation of inherent naughtiness and that he has earned each element of her brutal torture. Dressed in a nun’s iconic habit and robes, Mother Superior purports to act on behalf of God himself. It would never occur to the child to question her assertions that he is bad or the methods she uses to break his spirit. He believes her abhorrent behavior is necessary to drive out the darkness still lurking within his soul.
Despite this abuse, Billy grows into a strong, healthy, and attractive man. At 18, he leaves the orphanage and secures a job at a local toy store. It’s a perfect fit for the gentle giant and a cheesy musical montage reveals pleasant days helping customers while stocking the shelves. But unsurprisingly, Billy’s attitude begins to sour as the holiday season approaches. Remembering the couple from the orphanage, Billy has a sexual dream about his coworker Pamela (Toni Nero) which morphs into images of his mother’s death. Billy screams himself awake then cowers in the corner. Flashing back to that fateful day at the orphanage, he begs his memory of Mother Superior not to punish him for this innocent fantasy. The two traumatic events have merged in his mind and Billy now conflates breasts and his own sexual desire with severe correction received from Mother Superior.
With the store’s hired Santa incapacitated, Billy must don the iconic suit. Staring at himself in the mirror, the confused young man begins to identify with his abusers. He finds dark strength in the ability to punish others instead of waiting for pain to be visited on him. During the employee Christmas Party, Pamela slips back to the stock room alone with her paramour Andy (Randy Stumpf). At first consensual, this interaction soon drifts into assault and the frightened young woman cries out for help. Billy steps in, killing Andy with a string of Christmas lights while wearing the infamous Santa suit. However, Pamela’s bare breasts cause Billy to snap. He stabs the poor young woman with a knife, mirroring his mother’s disturbing demise. Billy has unknowingly become Mother Superior’s ultimate weapon through disciplining another fornicating couple.
Her Victims
Unfortunately, Billy doesn’t stop with Pamela. Anyone who could be considered “naughty” becomes a target and for the rest of Silent Night, Deadly Night, Billy sweeps through the town “punishing” anyone who crosses his path. Next up are the members of the toy store staff. As they drink the holiday away, Billy hunts them down one by one and murders them with weapons found in the shop. Billy then ventures into the larger community where Denise (Linnea Quigley) happens to be making out with her boyfriend. When she opens the door to bring in the cat, Billy spies the topless woman and goes in for the kill.
In the film’s most iconic scene, he picks up the screaming teen and impales her on the antlers of a mounted deer’s head then slaughters her boyfriend with an ax. But given the option to kill her younger sister, Billy demures. The vengeful Santa believes that the little girl has been good all year and delivers a gift—a utility knife—rather than a painful death.
Next, he stumbles upon a group of teens out sledding in the moonlit woods. Witnessing a pair of larger boys steal sleds, Billy waits at the bottom of the hill and decapitates the ringleader as he rushes down the slope. Possibly reminded of cruel children at the orphanage, Billy exacts absolute justice for this petty crime. Each victim on this murderous spree would be deemed naughty by Mother Superior’s high standards, from teens indulging their sexual needs to adults kicking back with alcohol to kids out causing mischief past their bedtimes. Only the good little girl survives his vicious wrath. Not only is she too young to provide sexual temptation, but she also embodies the type of child Mother Superior would prize.
Her Motive
Mother Superior’s sadistic motives in Silent Night, Deadly Night are unfortunately familiar. Clothed in righteousness, she uses extreme religious beliefs to sort the world into the naughty and nice. Anyone who does not abide by her strict moral code becomes a sinner in need of discipline. This myopic worldview hides a deep need to control her surroundings. Having chosen a life of celibacy and spiritual devotion for herself, she forces this moral choice onto others. A sadist, she believes that purification through pain is the only path to a virtuous life. This narcissistic abuser believes she is helping Billy grow into a strong young man and will not accept any words to the contrary. Confronted with evidence that her methods have only made matters worse, she doubles down and concludes that the poor child simply has not suffered enough.
Her Legacy
It’s no surprise that Billy’s murder spree ultimately leads back to the orphanage. As the sun rises on Christmas Eve, this deadly Santa returns to his childhood home and prepares to use his ax on the woman who tortured him as a child. Though he has adopted her merciless ideology, somewhere inside, Billy knows that Mother Superior is the naughtiest of them all. She may not have murdered his parents, but she spent years intentionally rubbing salt in his wounds and convinced the young orphan that his mother deserved her fate. As Billy stumbles towards the old woman, he’s shot down by police and dies at the feet of his younger brother, whispering that they will all be safe now that Santa is dead. Mother Superior watches this tragedy, still convinced she’s done nothing wrong.
Silent Night, Deadly Night‘s Mother Superior is made all the more terrifying by the fact that she feels so familiar. We’re constantly bombarded by judgment from self-aggrandizing women and people in positions of power who believe that any behavior not aligned with their strict worldview must be rooted out with shame and scorn. They cannot stand to see women making different choices with their lives and devise ways to chastise them for the “sin” of existence. Men are not immune to her insidious brand of tyranny, but they often become punishers by proxy.
Billy grows up believing that the women he finds attractive are naughty and it’s his responsibility to reprimand them before the pain of this wicked arousal can be visited on him. Though he murders men and women alike, it’s breasts that seem to trigger his rage. Based on a perfect storm of trauma and religious indoctrination, he’s been taught to eradicate impure thoughts with violence directed at himself and others. And he’s sadly not alone. Millions of children have grown up with similar messaging, creating entire generations terrified of their own sexuality. Silent Night, Deadly Night may be an over-the-top seasonal slasher, but its horrific villain becomes a lesson in the pain and destruction caused by unflinching cruelty and strict puritanical belief.
Categorized:Editorials
