For some reason lives of the cult B-movie actors tend to be shrouded in mystery. Often it takes years of investigation just to track them down and get them to do even a simple interview. On the other hand I would say that it’s almost always worth it. From the ongoing search for “Trash” Mark Gregoryto the “Samurai Cop”Matt Hannon aka Karedas seemingly coming back from the dead the search is as fascinating as the people themselves.
Now, after decades of questions we finally have a teaser trailer for the Scott Pearlman‘s documentary Finding Freeman.
Synopsis:
“In 1987, a young actor named Eric Freeman starred in one of the most infamous films ever made, “Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2.” His loveably over-the-top performance made him a cult sensation, and the advent of YouTube turned him into a phenomenon. Scenes of his raucous performance have garnered millions of views, while hundreds of parody videos and memes were created in his honor.
Over the years, Eric’s face would be adorned on t-shirts and a fanbase was growing by the day. There was just one problem: Eric had vanished off the face of the Earth. With an acting career that came to a screeching halt in 1992, and no social media presence or digital footprint to boot, Eric Freeman the person had been erased from public consciousness. All that remained was his alter ego, Ricky Caldwell from “Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2.” With his whereabouts a complete mystery, fans got curious.
In 2008, a small group of fans from different corners of the globe banded together to create Finding Freeman, a Facebook page dedicated to tracking down the elusive actor. They searched diligently for five years, and when Eric finally resurfaced, the real story began.
Finding Freeman is a new documentary that examines the effects of fandom in the digital age, and how technology has the power to preserve the past, and change lives.”
Eric Freeman (Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, Murder Weapon, Young Rebels ) was one of our inspirations for starting this page in the first place and for the longest time he was a mystery wrapped in enigma. After decades of obscurityEric Freeman finally resurfaced in 2013 and even more significantly he finally returned to acting (after 18 years) with logically- a Christmas themed movie: A Husband for Christmas, also staring Eric Roberts,Vivica A. Fox and Ricco Rossin 2016 and then episode od CBS’s Bull recently in 2017.
Wishing us all the best for holidays and also promoting his new website: http://www.theeericfreeman.com – up and running starting this December! You can order lots of fun stuff including a Garbage Can with his picture on it!
…and just in case you want some more of those sweet Freeman guitar licks we got one for for you. Check this out:
Here we have another jewel from Iranian director Amir Shervan (Samurai Cop, Killing American Style). The story about revenge, family strings and cleaning up neighborhood. If you ever had a chance of watching any of abovementioned movies then you’ll know what to expect in this one.
Young Rebels is about a crime boss Mr. Vincenzo (played by G. Alexander Vidrion), who deals drugs and hates everything and everyone (which is not a surprise at all since he is an old man). His son Joey (played by Robert Z’dar) is one of his enforcers. The Crime boss hates him too. With a reason, since Joey had managed to fuck up drug deal which can be seen in the opening scene. If you pay close attention you’ll notice that one of the goons attending this drug exchange was played by none other than legendary Eric Freeman. Anyway, they wanted to keep both drug and money and now they are left empty-handed. That is why they need a plan B (as in B movies). That’s when we get to the main story. Our hero of the film Charlie (played by John Greene) has a younger brother Ben (whose name is listed wrong on the IMDB and I can’t tell which non-photo, never-acted-again) who borrowed money from the boss and he owes big time. The only way he can get out of debt is if he has Charlie fly a helicopter to Mexico to transport two drug kingpins to the states. Charlie shrugs his shoulders and agrees despite the risk. Meanwhile, Mr Vincenzo solved a problem when his workers went on strike action by killing them all. Simple and efficient!
A possible solution for the immigrant crisis?
Of course, the deal goes sour with the two kingpins ending up dead. Now the crime syndicate is after the brothers. So Joey and his thugs make an ambush at Charlie’s girlfriend place. Ben rushes is and manages to warn Charlie, but both him and the girl end up dead. Some cowboy style showdown occurs, followed by funk music playing in the background, from which only Joey and few goons manage to come alive, while Charlie ends up hiding and wounded. His friends find him and now they are plotting a revenge against Mr Vincenzo since every single one of them had some quarell with the crime boss.
And he got shot to his back moments ago
Meanwhile Joey spends some relaxing time with his stripper girlfriend (played by Delia Shepard) when he gets interrupted by one of his goons. His father wants to see him. Apparently they found a lead about Charlie’s whereabouts with a help of crooked Judd (played by Dale Cummings) who is a deputy to senile old Sheriff (played by Aldo Ray). They now bust some Mexican party, trying to extort any info about Charlie but their attack once again got repelled by Charlie, his friend Genza (played by Tadashi Yamashita) and others. So everyone have gone back to doing what they like. Charlie’s girlfriend’s corpse didn’t even gone cold properly and yet he is already onto her sister Liz (played by Christine Lunde). Meh no point living the past, I guess. And Joey went back to his girl so she can finish striptease in peace.
Hello ladies
But Joey can’t catch a break. Charlie interrupts their little show. Joey then heroically uses his girlfriend as a living shield and manages to escape. Meanwhile Mr Vincenzo once again visits immigrants farm and kills Chico (played by David Kinder), in a chainsaw torture scene which manages to produce very little blood, after refusing to give him info about Charlie. Charlie arrives to the place just in time to be accused of Chico’s murder by crooked Deputy. Again, he manages SOMEHOW to escape and long car chasing scene occurs, in which Charlie managed not only to outsmart police but even to locate Joey after and execute him. It is worth mentioning that like for any other action scene in this movie sudden location changes are characteristic for this scene as well.
A perfect example of knighthood
Mad with death of his son Mr Vincenzo goes after Charlie for revenge. Liz joins the fight too. With her help and help of his friends Charlie disposes of goons and crooked cops one by one in several ridicolous action scenes. Eventually, he corners Mr Vincenzo at some house and we get to see some fistfight with more sudden location changes and punches that don’t connect. Now, I have to point out shameless way in which Charlie came victourious out of this duel. Although Mr Vincenzo was kinda 30 years older than Charlie he beated a living crap out of our “hero”. Charlie was forced to reach out for less honorable measures. While Mr Vincenzo wasn’t looking Charlie kicked his butt (literally), pushing him away just enough to have a time to shoot him from his gun (somewhere near the end of that scene the producers suddenly realized they should have added some blood). Meh what can you expect from a man who sleeps with a sister of his girlfriend just couple of days after she was killed? Sheriff arrived just in time to conclude that he has absolutely no idea what is going on here. And that conlcudes this movie too.
Conclusion: First thing wrong about this movie is its title. There are no particularly young people in this movie, nor could they be said to be rebelling against anything. Sidetracked again! I have already mentioned confusing sudden location changes. This isn’t quite all. There’s some of the worst acting I can remember, primarily from Ben but also from Joselito Rescober, who you’ll remember as the ultra-camp waiter from “Samurai Cop”. There’s the way that punches sound like a bomb going off and are so ludicrous that I can’t even imagine a late 80s no-budget action movie seriously going “yes, this is effect we’re going for”. But the most confusing were cuts from one scene to another with no particular order. Of course, this results in many continuity and plot holes (like the one when Ben’s fiancé turned out to be Charlie’s girlfriend couple of minutes later). Still, just like other Amir’s movies, this one is a hella lot of fun to watch.
We are back to the good old ’80s slashers (personally my favorite genre). We just can’t say no to cheesiness, gore and a lots of tits. Especially when it is about two demented hot chicks having a party and one of them is the screams queen Linnea Quigley. Another interesting fact about this creatively titled movie is that it had been made when slasher craze was going out of style. So let’s see where this leads to.
The movie starts with a wordless, pointless 10-minutes intro which actually made me wonder if the filmmakers couldn’t afford sound equipment. During this intro we see a hot brunette oiling herself near the pool for entire five minutes, then leaving to the room to have sex with her boyfriend, just to be assaulted by teenage blonde girl after her boyfriend left and went to have a shower. And yeah, he was killed by blonde under a shower in another sex scene.
It turned out this scene was a memory flashback (just the first of many) of blonde girl. Her name is Dawn (played by Linnea Quigley) and she was committed to asylum for many years. Now she is having a conversation with her shrink about her releasing. There we find out that she was touched by her mobster father when she was a little girl, that she made a deal with Amy, who also ended up in nuthouse after her boyfriend was killed by Dawn, that whoever gets out first is going to throw a party when the other one comes out. Now, the shrink is obviously a pervert which helped Dawn to achieve her wish of becoming party organizer by blackmailing a not-so-good-doctor with a sex tape. Yup, doc actually didn’t have much care about professional ethic since he had Dawn molested during their hypnosis séances. Not much after, Amy (played by Karen Russell) had also managed to “convince” Dr. Randolph (played by Lyle Waggoner) to sign her release form. It occurs to me that Amy wasn’t quite the victim in gruesome crime Dawn had committed since she holds hatred for men as well and she is obviously a feminist (though, I have never seen anything even remotely to hot feminist chick). Oh, and Amy is daughter of mobster as well. Anyway, both Dawn and Amy have finally gotten out of nuthouse which means it is a party time!
Seriously, a feminist?
And what kind of girly party it would have been if there weren’t for a boys? Dawn and Amy had invited all of their ex-boyfriends. Now think about it. Two certified crackpots who hold a grudge towards men are throwing a party for themselves and inviting their ex-boyfriends? Call me paranoid but it seems to me that there is something more to it. Something sinister. Muahahahaha. Man, who would be dumb enough to attend such event? Well, I guess we are going to find out that soon. First ones to come were Cary, Kevin, Jeff, and Billy. They were all at some point in the past in relationship with either Amy or Dawn. Cary (played by Allen First) was first to reignite the flames of old love. He displayed a remarkable lack of any male dignity since he jumped immediately to shave Amy’s legs during which she dreamed about cutting his veins. At least it wasn’t without purpose. Yup, he managed to score and pass out of exhaustion after that act. Amy’s comment when she found Cary laying on the floor was “Shit, I think I fucked him to death”. Not many such modest girls these days.
He forgot to shave his wrists
Meanwhile, Dawn and Jeff (played by none other than Eric Freeman from Silent Night Deadly Night 2; although he was credited under a different name Damon Charles) are having their own exhibition in Jeff’s car. Dawn had no problem with fucking with him in convertible but backed out after Jeff (who is Richard Grieco wanna be) asked to perform the blowjob. We can see some nice pair of tits here as well. Back inside Billy (played by Richard Sebastian), after following a trail of Amy’s flirtatious look, ended up in the basement with his head smashed by sledgehammer in this hilarious scene:
He is got PHD – Pounded Head Down
Who could have done such a horrible thing? Was it Eric (played by Michael Jakobs Jr.) who was seen arriving at party moments before Billy’s head was flatted to the ground? I wouldn’t place my bet on him. He is just a pathetic overconfident singer of metal band with a retarded name “Chainsaws”. And he is also one of the Amy’s ex-boyfriends. Just like Cary (who btw went to recharge himself with a dose of good old speed), he hurried up to reignite the old flames. But we won’t be seeing any sex scene between them. What we will see is a sex between Dawn and her friend Bart (played by Rodger Burt) who died instantly after in a Alien related scene for which I have absolutely no explanation.
I guess she learned in asylum how to tie a knot
Now the killing spree is starting. Next victim is poor Cary who just wanted to have some late night snack. But instead of food, someone had his throat stuffed with a broken bottle of Champaign. From behind. Hm at least he doesn’t need to worry about dangers of drugs using anymore.
Jeff and Kevin (played by Stephen Steward) have found Cary’s body. Forgetting their roles of tough guys they started to panic and make a wild assumptions about being targeted by mob hitmans. They even assumed that the murderer had already cut phone lines without even trying to call a cops. Instead they went to one of the cars in which they found a gun. Just when it seemed that lady luck has finally smiled upon them Jeff somehow had transformed himself into the mannequin a moment before the murderer had blown his head in another ridiculous scene.
Masks started to fall off
Kevin decides to team up with Eric (not Freeman) and Amy in order to stop the killer. Well, it is not that he had much of a choice. They finally started suspecting who might be the killer. The Final confrontation took a place where it all had begun – in the basement. Two bulked up guys with guns barely managed to overpower tiny girl with the help of Amy who previously splashed the killer with gasoline. The ending then is written by itself. Or is it? Kevin approached the steaming corpse and removed a mask from it’s head. Scorched face of Dawn appears, she opens her eyes and starts choking Kevin. And that’s the ending that leaves a plenty of room for a sequel. Which luckily never happened.
If you see this girl run for your life!
Conclusion: From the movie in which the killer was the most suspicious person from the beginning and half of it’s crew used fake names (even the director David DeCoetau used strange alias Ellen Cabot) you can’t expect much of a quality. Dialogues are hilarious. Plot attempts to be deceiving with frequent flashbacks like it wasn’t so damn clear who is the murderer. I can’t help the feeling that the hidden message here is some feminist crap about girls power and all men being a pigs (which I am proud of). That’s probably the reason why director took a girly name as his alias. More likely the message is that pussy is the MURDER WEAPON. But it is not everything that bad. Yes, the movie is a complete piece of trash, we could all agree on that. But it is also very entertaining flick, consisted of all slasher elements such as nudity, sex, gore and cheesiness. Worth watching.
If you know anything about us, WM Club started with couple of guys challenging each other to watch some of the most ridiculous, cheese movies they can think of. One of the first movies we watched- and the first to grace our blog was the absolutely terrific Silent Night, Deadly Night 2.
Remember this?
Now, the mystique around this movie kept expanding ’cause at the time no one could tell what happened to the main actor, striking Eric Freeman who after couple stint on TV disappeared for something like two decades. Next we fallowed the story with a surprise return of Eric Freeman (only second to the resurrection of Samurai Cop) taking his rightful place in the fandom. But now something even more awesome happened, Freeman himself took it upon himself to close the circle and write the final, real chapter of the story of Ricky Caldwell.
Scott Pearlman (the director working on a documentary on Freeman) read the script and said “Eric put a lot of care into it creating a very logical and satisfying way for Ricky to return and evolve, it’s not a slasher film per se which may turn hardcore fans off but it truly respects the character and takes him in a different direction while paying homage to what came before. If I had to describe it its like a blend of North By North West and the Fugitive fused with Death Wish and set in the Silent Night, Deadly Night universe. It’s also hyper violent, which is a must have of course.”
So, if everything works out, and I have every reason to think it will, Garbage Day will be upon us again… and that alone is reason enough to celebrate!
“This story was written as a natural progression of the character Ricky Caldwell from 1987’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. That movie came to a climax with a bloody carnage-laden rampage and the death of Mother Superior and Ricky Caldwell being shot. Twenty five years have elapsed and Caldwell is a patient at Waverly Psychiatric Hospital. He is seemingly normal, but things quickly go awry when a body is found in Caldwell’s room. This script can be a sequel to SNDN 2 or as a standalone movie with no tie-in whatsoever. Obviously, there is a monetary advantage of having a huge built-in fan base from the cult hit movie.”
*you can see the below mentioned rampage in the video
Lets get one thing straight- first one didn’t make much sense… or any sense for that matter. Your parents are killed by a dude in the Santa Clause costume, you end up in an orphanage run by an devious nun and you naturally grow up to be a killer in a Santa Clause suit too? I mean come on! But those were the 80s, people did a lot of coke and you can forgive them for wanting to see some blood and some boobs.
So after a (kinda) success of the first one, they decided to make a Part 2. How can you make a part two you say when a main hero (well, a villain) is all kinds of dead you might ask. Not a problem! He had a brother! No he didn’t you say… Yes he did! And that’s final!
Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 just plays almost a whole footage of a first movie interrupted by a police psychologist’s interview and they also splice the original footage with some random footage of a baby brother. He was a baby when his parent died but it doesn’t matter. If you survive a traumatic experience youHAVE TObecomea CRAZED KILLER! Some thing are just written in stone… or something. So, little Ricky grows up in the orphanage under an evil Mother Superior, gets out, gets incredibly big and muscle bound- in about a years time ( I guess anabolic steroids where popular thing these days too) and naturally starts killing people. At some point he finds himself a nice blond girl to settle down with and starts acting normally but that doesn’t last too long and soon enough he losses his mind again (because he ran into moronic ex- boyfriend of the said girl ) and than Ricky does what Ricky does best- goes on the murdering rampageof EPIC proportions!* Immortal “Garbage day” moment is of course a part of this rampage 🙂
What fascinates me the most is the way men act in this movie. We are portrayed as animals, obiasly unable to control our urges… I mean you see a dude who was in relationship with a woman for 5 years or something who after being gently rejected starts tearing girls shirt and soon enough tries to rape her? He got his punishment of course (Ricky run him over with a tractor I believe) but that kind of behavior is common theme in this movie, men just randomly rip apart girls clothing, some breasts are exposed as a result and than they pay the ultimate price. Truly fascinating…
Anyway, The Verdict- this movie is truly terrible by all accounts, but it’s also the most fun we had in ages so if you want to watch just one terrible film ever- Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 is your movie!
Trivia: The director on the commentary track claims they tried to find Eric Freeman (Ricky) to participate for the commentary track, but the director claims he is untraceable. Freeman’s current whereabouts remain a mystery.
Worsemovies 