Saturday Scream Queen: Mary Woronov

Mary Woronov got her start in show business as part of Andy Warhol's entourage, but it wasn't until she parted ways with Warhol (and drug addiction) that her career really began to take off.

Since her debut in 1966, Woronov has appeared in 90 or so movies, many of them horror films or black comedies. Among her best roles--even if the films aren't necessarily all that good-- are "Silent Night, Deadly Night" (1971), "Sugar Cookies" (1973), "Death Race 2000" (1975), "Hollywood Boulevard" (1976), "Eating Raul" (1982), "Blood-o-Rama" (1984). "TerrorVision" (1986), "The Halfway House" (2003), and "The House of the Devil" (2003).

In addition to her acting, Woronov is also an accomplished writer with three published books to her name.

It's not much of a Christmas homecoming in'Silent Night, Bloody Night'

Silent Night, Bloody Night (aka "Death House") (1973)
Starring: Mary Woronov, James Patterson, Patrick O'Neal, Walter Able, Astrid Heeren, and John Carradine
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Jack (Patterson) moves to sell the mansion he inherited from his grandfather, a past believed to be dead and buried returns to haunt the living with furious, bloody vengeance. Poor Diane's (Woronov) Christmas gift list will be reduced to virtually no-one by night's end.


"Slient Night, Bloody Night" is not as overtly Christmas-themed as the title might imply, but it is a great little proto-slasherflick and quite possibly the first horror film to flirt with a holiday theme. (In fact, it might be more than a proto-slasherfilm. It's got all the elements that are present in "Halloween", except for fornicating teenagers. We do, however, get an cheating lawyer (O'Neal) and his horny secretary (Heeren).

The bodycount is low by modern slasher-movie standards, but every death is shocking and unexpected. Although I had a vague notion of what I was in for, the first murders took me completely by surprise.

It's a fast-moving film with a bare bones plot, although I wish it could have been a little less bare-bones. I'm still wondering why Jack had to "borrow" his lawyer's Jaguar when he appears in the story. How did he get to the mansion in the first place if he didn't have a car? I also feel that the framing sequence was an odd choice... telling the movie as a flashback undermines a bit of the suspense.

Still, as an example of a thriller/horror movie that was part of the cinematic evolution that led to the slasher flick subgenre, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" is far better than several of its contemporaries.