While he may have spoken out against the controversial Silent Night, Deadly Night, Mickey Rooney found himself as the title villain in fifth entry The Toy Maker. John Carpenter's Halloween kickstarted the slasher genre in the 1980s, with many filmmakers seeking to replicate the movie's formula. This often included stories based around themed holidays or dates, including My Bloody Valentine, Friday The 13th, or Prom Night. A killer with a unique mask or weapon was also a must.
Naturally, some of these slashers were better than others, but this wave did produce classics like A Nightmare On Elm Street or cult favorite Silent Night, Deadly Night. This 1984 slasher became infamous upon release for featuring a killer dressed as Santa Claus, which led to a severe backlash from parents and critics like Siskel & Ebert. The film was a modest success despite being pulled from theaters after its first week of release and it later spawned a bizarre little franchise.
Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 was a tiny budget follow-up that infamously reused about 40 minutes of footage from the original to pad out the run time and followed Ricky, the evil brother of the first film's killer. The sequel itself is still a cult favorite today, especially for it's "Garbage day!" murder. The third film was a direct sequel with horror icon Bill Moseley playing Ricky, but Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation was a bizarre entry from Faust: Love Of The Damned director Brian Yuzna and involved a cult. It also had no connections to the previous movies aside from taking place around Christmas.
The final entry in the origina franchise is Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker, which again has no direct connections to the original three movies. Co-written by Yuzna, it instead revolves around an old toymaker named Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney) and his weird son Pino, who makes toys that kill people, including killer tanks and centipedes. It's another strange little film that ends with one of the series' most surreal, outlandish twists - think Pinocchio - but also of note is the casting of Mickey Rooney as the villain. Rooney was so incensed by the original Silent Night, Deadly Night he wrote a letter of protest, stating:
How dare they! I'm all for the first amendment but... don't give me Santa Claus with a gun going to kill someone. The scum who made that movie should be run out of town.
Given how he felt about Silent Night, Deadly Night its a surprise to see him in the franchise's fifth entry. While his character Joe is technically a villain and later dons the Santa Claus outfit, he notably doesn't kill anybody onscreen or hold a gun. Nobody involved with the original film was part of The Toy Maker either, so it seems any misgivings Mickey Rooney had with the project were dealt with.