30th Anniversary Silent Night, Deadly Night Retrospective: Part 2
The real joy of the film of course lies in the whacky and totally over the top performance of Eric Freeman, who was hired for the role of Ricky Caldwell based mostly on the fact that he looked right for the part – Harry admits that a more experienced actor was also in the running, but that he went with Freeman anyway.
Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part 2 was the young actor’s first major acting gig, and his inexperience most definitely shows in the film, resulting in an oddball performance full of strange eyebrow movements and even stranger delivery of a stocking full of ridiculously corny lines.
Most iconic of all is the moment where Ricky shoots a man taking out the trash, screaming out the words “garbage day” as he does so. It is this one small moment of the film that is largely responsible for turning an otherwise throwaway sequel into a beloved cult classic, the scene becoming a popular internet phenomenon that is embraced even by those who have never watched the movie.
A simple search for the term ‘garbage day’ on Google or YouTube turns up hundreds of hilarious results, and Freeman himself has become a thing of legend over the years. Entire websites and Facebook groups have sprung up in an effort to track the actor down, a dead end pursuit that has yielded little in the form of results.
So whatever happened to him? Did he die of embarrassment, as some have humorously suggested? Well, I was fortunate enough to spend two hours on the phone with Freeman in preparation for this piece, and he offered up to me a whole lot of insight into the things that resulted in the performance we’ve all been enjoying so much, for so many years.
Freeman describes the set of the film as being quite chaotic, and Harry as a director that just didn’t have the time to, well, be a director. According to Freeman, he had little to no interaction with Harry on the set, and the only real direction he was ever given came from writer Joseph Earle, who would stand on the sidelines and shout out commands that oftentimes included the words “more” and “crazier.”
From what he remembers, Joseph had taken a particular liking to the other actor who was originally up for the role of Ricky, impressed by the fact that he legitimately seemed like he was crazy. Earle would constantly bring this up on the set, and would direct Freeman in such a way as to elicit that sense of over the top craziness from him.
Though Freeman accepts full blame for his acting, and readily admits that it was the worst performance of his career, his story paints a picture of a film set that was not exactly conducive to quality performances.
Between a lack of interaction with the director, and constant nagging to go more and more over the top from the writer, the young and inexperienced Freeman was forced to deliver a performance that belied everything he had learned about acting up until that point, and it would seem that he lost himself amidst the rushed chaos of the production. He repeatedly told me that he knew better, and that he was a better actor than that, but that he listened to Earle anyway, and never stood up for himself.
When I asked him about the iconic “Garbage Day!” line, Freeman said he tried to go much more subtle with the scene, delivering a few takes in a monotone Clint Eastwood-style manner, but that Harry chose the most over the top take of the bunch. It was one of many times that Freeman tried to infuse some of himself into the performance, which the inexperienced filmmakers just didn’t have any interest in. They wanted over the top, and they got over the top… to say the least!
In retrospect, Freeman says, he’d love to be able to do it all over again. Watching the film in recent years, he admits that he barely even recognizes himself, given how bizarre the forced performance was in comparison to anything else he’s ever done. “There are not many performances as awful as that,” he told me with a chuckle, showing that he’s made peace with the film and his role in it.
Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part 2 embarked on a brief theatrical run at the tail end of May in 1987, garnering little in the form of money or interest. It lasted only a couple weeks in theaters, and shortly thereafter found its way on home video. It would be many years before fans discovered it, their enthusiasm for the film’s unintentional humor breathing new life into a sequel long forgotten.
Looking back, Lee Harry has a good sense of humor about his first of only two directorial efforts, echoing many of Eric Freeman’s sentiments and making no bones about the fact that he was focused more on camera shots, stunts and gaining experience as a filmmaker than he was on performances or making a serious movie.
“I think if we had more time we might have stepped back and turned it all down a notch,” he told me, in regards to how he feels about the film nowadays. He went on to say that Freeman was great to work with, rightfully taking on some of the blame for his over the top performance by admitting that he only did what he was told to do. “I probably should have sacrificed the dolly for a few actor rehearsals,” Harry confesses.
Despite the fact that it’s for ironic reasons that Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part 2 has become a cult hit, Harry told me that he’s both pleased and surprised at the reaction horror fans have had to it, and that his intention was only ever to entertain people.
“Ultimately, Joe and I just wanted to get that laugh,” he says, “so I guess it all worked out.”
Check back tomorrow for Part 3 of our 30th anniversary retrospective, where we cover the three direct-to-video Silent Night, Deadly Night sequels!
Categorized:News Retrospectives
