Ice Nine Kills celebrate the holidays with a music video for their song “Merry Axe-Mas” off their latest album, The Silver Scream. The track is inspired by the 1984 slasher film Silent Night, Deadly Night which was directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr. The 1984 film is about a young man, Billy who suffers PTSD after witnessing his parents Christmas Eve murder and surviving an abusive upbringing in a Catholic orphanage. In adulthood, the Christmas holiday leads Billy into a psychological breakdown, and he emerges as a spree killer donning a Santa suit.

The video for “Merry Axe-Mas” starts out with an innocent child looking at all the presents under the tree on Christmas Eve. His parents come in to remind him he needs to go to bed, after all he doesn’t want to make Santa’s naughty list. On Christmas Day, the young boy awakens to open his Christmas gifts as his cheerful parents watch him in a hearty and loving fashion.

The little boy opens a suspicious gift wrapped in brown packaging which is a video game. He pops it in the machine and the video begins with lyrics, “Twas the night before Christmas at just five years old. My parents were butchered in the blistering cold. He seemed jolly at first in his suit stained with red. He let out a laugh but then left us for dead. Ha, ha, ha.”

Frontman of Ice Nine Kills, Charnas had this to say about the film, “Silent Night, Deadly Night is one of my all time favorite slasher flicks. In our song and video for, “Merry Axe-Mas” I wanted to pay tribute to the film’s brilliant combination of sleaze, holiday cheer, absurdity, and vicious gore. Released in 1984 at the height of the 80’s slasher craze, the film’s axe wielding Santa marketing campaign threw uptight parents and the PC police into an unholy rage.”

Charnas continues, “Angered families staged protests in front of theaters and PTA groups across the country petitioned for the film’s banishment. Tri Star Pictures subsequently caved and ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night‘ was pulled from theaters after only one week. However, all the negative publicity only fueled the forbidden fruit factor and the infamous film quickly gained cult status. This story just goes to show you that if you try and suppress something, it’s only more likely to rear its (decapitated) head.”

While successful during its opening week, the film was a moderate success with $2.5 million made overall. Since its release, the film has developed a cult following and was followed by four sequels.

Ice Nine Kills is an American metalcore band from Boston, Massachusetts who are signed to Fearless Records. Best known for its horror-inspired lyrics, Ice Nine Kills formed in its earliest incarnation in 2002 by high school friends Spencer Charnas and Jeremy Schwartz. The band recently performed in the final Vans Warped tour.

Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi