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Released
1984 · FILM

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Haunted by his parents’ murder at the hands of a killer Santa, a tormented man is forced to become an in‑store Santa, and as his trauma resurfaces he teeters on the edge of unleashing deadly mayhem on Christmas night.

“He knows when you've been naughty.”

Directed by
Charles E Sellier Jr
Written by
Paul Caimi, Michael Hickey
Runtime
79 min
HorrorThriller

Synopsis

When Billy Chapman is a child, a man dressed as Santa Claus violently kills his parents, leaving him to suffer the harsh treatment of a cruel nun at his orphanage. Many years later, as an adult, Billy is forced to take on the role of an in-store Santa when the regular performer is absent, and the trauma from his childhood resurfaces, pushing him to the edge.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 23

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Michael SpenceShot by Henning SchellerupScored by Perry Botkin JrDesigned by Dian Perryman

Box Office

1984 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.3× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$2.5M

Budget$1.1M
Worldwide gross$2.5M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $1.4M — 58% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $1.7M — 69% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 398 theaters

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Also known as

  • Stille Nacht - Horror Nachtde
  • Douce nuit, sanglante nuitfr
  • Natale di sangueit

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