Silent Bite Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Silent Bite Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 19, 2024

If the pun in this film's title strikes you as ingenious, and the sight of several robbers dressed up as Santa Claus seems positively innovative, Silent Bite may appeal, though this is a film that kind of cobbles together any number of elements you've seen in countless other properties, including those aforementioned dastardly Saint Nicks (how many films have there been either with a nefarious minded jolly old elf or several?), not to mention a bunch of people more or less trapped in an isolated location on Christmas Eve, in this particular case in a motel where some of the other "guests" are vampires (yet another plot point that may feel more than a bit familiar to many).

Silent Bite aims for about equal amounts of gore, suspense and just flat out goofiness, and if undeniably derivative, the film is at least agreeable and obviously does not take itself seriously. The characters are all pretty much cartoons or one dimensional, though scenarist Simon Phillips attempts to inject a little interest courtesy of both a venal motel desk clerk as well as a hapless young woman who hasn't quite been "turned" all the way yet. There are also some stylistic quirks, including brief interstitial "title cards" announcing various characters or counting down the hours/minutes until dreaded sunrise.

In a brief scold to whomever was this film's set decorator, there's a glaring error on display in several scenes, where an American flag hung on a wall has the "union" (i.e., the stars) on the right, which is incorrect. Had my late father, the very model of a modern Major General, been there, he would have corrected things, vampires notwithstanding.

Silent Bite Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Silent Bite is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Unsurprisingly I haven't been able to find any authoritative technical information on the shoot (as of the writing of this review the IMDb has nada, and I couldn't find anything else online). This is a competent looking digital capture that offers generally nice detail levels and a solid accounting of the palette, though things are rather curiously skewed toward yellows a lot of the time, meaning those Christmasy reds can get toward orange territory on several occasions. Close-ups deliver good fine detail levels. Some of the "special effects" probably unintentionally show the budgeting constraints of the film.

Silent Bite Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

In the good news department, this is a Blu-ray release from Cleopatra with at least one uncompressed audio track, though in the bad news department, it's not the surround outing, which once again for head scratching reasons Cleopatra offers in Dolby Digital 5.1. The surround track definitely opens up ambient environmental effects and scoring in particular, but the lossy audio just didn't have the energy of the LPCM 2.0 track in the midrange and (maybe surprisingly) low end, at least to my ears. The stereo track suffices perfectly well, delivering dialogue cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Note: Along with offering lossy audio, there's another unfortunate repeat on this disc from Cleopatra, namely an incorrectly authored Settings page which does not allow any of the settings to actually be set. That page of options had the Dolby Digital 5.1 track already selected when I accessed it, but I wasn't able to change anything, and in fact I couldn't even exit the Settings menu page without pressing Top Menu on my remote. In my PC drive, the Settings menu page had absolutely nothing pre-selected, but was similarly "stuck", meaning Top Menu had to be chosen to get back to selectable items. Luckily, changes can still be made by toggling the appropriate options with the buttons on your remote (i.e., audio, subtitles, etc.).

Silent Bite Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:19)


• Slideshow (HD; 1:50)

Silent Bite Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Silent Bite aims for an actually at least occasionally achieves some cheeky humor, but perhaps the funniest thing about this release is how the subtitles are redacted so that the many swear words are offered with asterisks (as in f***). With tongue planted firmly in cheek it might be suggested that the holidays are horrifying enough without yet another slew of Santa Clauses and/or vampires, but Silent Bite has a few moments of fun scattered throughout a largely predictable enterprise. Technical merits are generally okay, if Cleopatra's kind of frustrating "tradition" of offering lossy audio continues apace here (at least they've moved on from MPEG-2), for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.