Paula Hammond - Features EditorSilent Night, Deadly Night, by Armando Munoz is the slasher horror novel of the slasher horror movie…. which does exactly what it says on the cover.
It’s Christmas Eve, 1971, and five-year-old Billy Chapman witnesses his parents brutally murdered by a man disguised as Santa, leaving him and his little brother to be raised in a strict Catholic orphanage, ruled over by a sadistic Mother Superior.
Fast forward to December, 1984 and Billy is eighteen and finally on his own. Determined to put his past behind him and live a normal life, he lands a job at the local toy store, where he’s forced to play Santa Claus for the holiday season. Still in his red suit at the employee Christmas party, Billy snaps, going on a violent rampage, punishing all those he deems ‘naughty.’
Now, with one last gift to deliver, Billy makes his way back to the orphanage, where he has a literal axe to grind with Mother Superior.
Author Armando Munoz’s debut novel Hoarder was hailed by Fangoria as a “sickening, imaginative shocker.” His second novel, Turkey gained him praise from the master of horror — Clive Barker —who declared himself “a fan”.
Fans of the Silent Night, Deadly Night film will find that this is a novel that’s doesn’t slavishly follow the plot of the movie, but instead echoes it tonally. The result is a book that’s disturbing, and more than a little sick. And if that’s your idea of a good time, then this is definitely a read that will keep you ghoulishly entertained for the Halloween season.
