It's not too often that Christmas yuletide festivities merge with the profoundly apocalyptic. So in this respect, Silent Night is a somewhat refreshing take on typical genre motives.
In other aspects, writer-director Camille Griffin subliminally explores topical themes such as the climate change conundrum and our apparent societal indifference in combating its spread.
With cosmic-scale ecological disaster imminent, Silent Night offers a peculiarly tense Christmas dinner party, especially towards its crescendo, packed with all the typical trimmings but laced with a strictly dystopian sense of dread.
However, instead of enjoying some chocolate log with a healthy side dollop of cream, dessert involves the inevitable mass extinction of humanity, as a pervasive mist of poisonous gas destructively sweeps across the planet. Merry Christmas!
Despite the sinisterly inescapable doomsday scenario securing Earth's future demise, the family is determined to celebrate Christmas. Seemingly succumbing to their forthcoming fates, the parents even prepare the children suicide pills to spare their pain.
It is, by nature, a decidedly dark, damningly bleak premise, but one whose deepest roots are far more relatable than we might initially consider.
Of course, the concept itself is probably too darkly ominous to truly explore in isolation without some sense of real-world commentary, and, in many ways, Silent Night feels like a very visceral critique on climate hesitancy.
Spearheaded by a captivatingly powerful child performance by Roman Griffin Davis, Silent Night issues plenty of dark humor and some tensely-charged confrontations, made all the more palpable, with the unavoidable conclusion of death's door lurking ominously in the backdrop.
Naturally, Silent Night's fatalistic nature floods the air with slow-burning suspense. Yet sadly, its characters feel undercooked at times, and I'm left with the nagging sense that some ultimately needed further screentime, despite decent performances.
The final scene may possess an incline of predictability. Still, thanks to the performance of Roman Griffin Davis, its dark comedic undercurrents, and an external threat offering optimum stakes, Silent Night offers up a serviceable slice of festive horror.
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