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The holiday season is supposed to be a time of happiness and togetherness—a time to get together with the ones we love, to enjoy good food and great company. But in Silent Night, the holiday season has turned dark and foreboding for a bunch of old friends.
Silent Night travels to a country house to celebrate Christmas with four couples and their children. Everyone shows up in their best party clothes, ready for a night of good food and holiday cheer. But this isn’t like the typical Christmas party—because they know it’s their last Christmas party. A cloud of toxic gas is about to kill everyone in the country, and they’ve all been given pills to allow them to die peacefully. So as their time runs out, they dance and laugh and have awkward conversations—but some still have doubts about what’s to come.
Though the characters all try to make the most of their last night together, the tensions are obvious. Some of these characters clearly have years of unacknowledged issues and conflicts—and while Nell (Keira Knightley) tries her best to maintain control of their perfect Christmas, with just one last night to confront all of those issues, some of them come out in some very awkward ways.
While Silent Night is marketed as a horror-comedy, though, that’s a deceptive description. Though some of the lines and some of the situations may earn some laughs, it’s not really funny. And while the premise of the story is certainly horrifying, it isn’t the standard horror movie, either. No masked murderer stalks his next victim, and no monster lurks outside in the countryside. Nothing jumps out from the closet or from underneath the bed. The horrors here are much more terrifying: a man-made disaster that will wipe out everyone in its path. These people all know that it’s their last night alive—and they’ve had to choose when and how they and their children will die.
Somewhere in here, the film also tries to tackle topics like privilege, examining how these wealthy and generally entitled characters handle the end of the world as they know it. But while it sometimes makes its point through characters like Roman Griffin Davis’s Art, its message misses the mark.
Silent Night is not an easy film to watch—and its occasional comedy doesn’t soften the blow. While the holiday season often features festive films and holiday comedies—and even dark, quirky twists on the typical holiday fare—this is more of a holiday punch in the gut.
Silent Night opens only in theaters on December 3, 2021.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
