James Proclaims!

It turns out that there are quite a few films in existence that go by the name ‘Silent Night’. At least one of them, and quite possibly more than one of them, achieved greater critical acclaim and/or commercial success than the one that makes the cut for today. But the 2020 British crime thriller known as ‘Silent Night’ was freely available on a streaming service I subscribe to at a time when I had nothing better to do.

Well, I probably could have found something better to do. Like watching a different movie. Watching this low-budget, highly derivative flic probably isn’t the best use of anyone’s time. Although it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, and even though I could spot all the twists coming a mile away, I did find this film vaguely entertaining in an ‘I’ll-probably-never-watch-it-again’ kind of way.

Score for Christmasishness

I’m not sure this movie needs to be set at Christmas-time, but the film would probably need a different title if it wasn’t. It’s not an especially apt title anyway as the events of the movie don’t exclusively happen at night at all, certainly not on one night and none of the nights that do feature are especially silent. But you are always aware that the action is set around Christmas time and there are several ham-fisted attempts to make Christmas relevant to the paper-thin plot. Extra Christmasishness points can be awarded for the most bizarre and macabre of Christmas dinners, in which a jar of cranberry sauce makes for a unlikely but fairly effective plot device.