Silent Bite

 





Nosferheistu

Silent Bite
Canada 2024
Directed by Taylor Martin
Blue Eyes Media

Okay, this one isn’t great but it’s certainly not too shabby compared to some Christmas horror movies I’ve seen over the years. Silent Bite is a ‘heist aftermath gone wrong’ movie with four bank robbers dressed in seasonal disguises, holing up in a motel (the Jolly Roger Inn) while they wait for their fifth gang member, who is decoying cops away from the scene of the bank robbery depicted at the start of the film, to double back and come get them with the getaway vehicle later.

Well, I say depicted... the film shows its low budget early on as the heist in question actually plays out as a series of motion graphics while the opening credits roll. Which is fine because they look pretty good and you get the idea easily enough. Then the four check in and wait for their friend but, unknown to them, the motel also has a family of female vampires calling the place home, who see the guys as a Christmas present.

Now there’s good and there’s bad on this one. Some of the acting is pretty good and two of the four especially, the leader codenamed Father Christmas played by Simon Phillips and ‘the rowdy one’ codenamed Snowman, played nicely over the top by Michael Swatton - do have a certain British charm and good chemistry to their characters. They kind of save the film in a way and it helps, for them and the rest of the cast, that a lot of the dialogue is quite humorous and smartly written. At least, for the male contingent in the film... the vampire gals are a different story with the credibility of the writing for their characters and the performances of them, well, just about scraping by.

That being said, although some of the dialogue is really nicely done, the story itself is not very original and it doesn’t really do much to rise above its initial premise. There are certainly questions about the use and misuse of vampire lore which one could maybe delve into if one were being picky (of the ‘why did that happen for one person but not that person’ variety) and the film does kinda drag in the last third because of it.

And some of the kills are off camera and don’t really work in a satisfying way... again, I suspect some of these scenes were a casualty of a comparatively low budget and I’m guessing certain things got axed during the shoot (I hope... or the writing really is a lot worse than I realised).

Then there’s the music. The opening animation also has a strong, electric guitar dominant version of Jingle Bells to set the mood which is helpful because, without some of the window dressing employed throughout, such as this music, then the film really didn’t need to be something set at Christmas... it’s not integral to the plot and could have taken place anytime. But Darren Morze’s score throughout the film is not as unsubtle as the opening titles might lead you to expect and it does a good job of supporting the action and keeping things buoyant.

All in all, I don’t have much more to say about Silent Bite. I thought the film was, for the most part, competently made and certainly entertaining enough. I suspect it could have been a much better film if the production company had thrown more money (and also time) at it but I don’t know what the pitch was like. If you like seasonal horror movies however, it fills it’s hour and a half running time nicely and most fans of this sub-genre shouldn’t feel too short changed by it. Definitely worth a look if you have nothing better to do.