Silent Night 4K Ultra HD SteelBook

"Silent Night" is a gritty revenge tale of a tormented father who witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve. While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, he makes vengeance his life’s mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son’s death. (Gary Reber)

Special features include the featurette "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" (HD 16:50), theatrical trailer and a digital copy.

The 2.00:1 2160p HEVC/H.265 4K Ultra HD HDR10 picture, reviewed on a VIZIO Quantum X P85QX-JI UHD/HDR display, was photographed digitally using the Arri Alexa camera system and sourced from a 2K Digital Intermediate. Picture quality is superb with sharp and clear imagery throughout. The color palette exhibits naturalness as well with colorful hues that are warm and rich with excellent depth and fine hue shadings. Flesh tones are perfectly natural. HDR contrast is naturally realistic with deep black levels, revealing shadows and natural white levels. Resolution is excellent with very fine detail exhibited, especially during closeups of facial features, such as skin pores,,beards, tattoos, hair and eyes, as well as body gore and inflicted wounds. Object textures, such as city buildings and neon lights as well as tire skid marks exhibit excellent detail. Clothing also is finely resolved with fabrics nicely detail. The resulting resolution enhances the gruesome realism. This is a fine looking cinematic presentation that delivers the gruesomeness of the story. (Gary Reber)

The Dolby Atmos/Dolby TrueHD 7.1-channel soundtrack is interesting from a sound design perspective as the overall impact, while dynamic, feels distant and a bit subdued, with ostensibly no dialogue (if you can call essentially grunts as such and some subdued backgrounds), as the main character lost his voice when shot in the throat in the beginning of the movie. Sound effects though increasingly energize as the action and shootings explode on the screen. Surrounds are aggressive with intense gang killings and shootouts with discrete directionalization and panning of vehicles and flying bullets. Atmospherics exhibit realism throughout. Marco Beltrami's orchestral/choral score serves as a background element yet covers a wide and deep soundstage that extends to the surrounds. Dialogue, as mentioned, is virtually absent from the soundtrack.

The Immersive Sound element is comprised of the extension of the music, various sound effects, including tire squeals, gunfire and an explosion, and realistic atmospherics throughout the presentation. The result is very effective height layer spatial dimensionality.

This is a very different holosonic® sound design from that of the typical action thriller but nevertheless nicely creative and compelling in its reliance on sound effects. (Gary Reber)