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Santa Clauses vs Vampires in “Silent Bite” Now Available!

Four armed bank robbers hold up in a sleepy hotel on a snowy Christmas night as they hunker down and wait for their police-diverting and getaway driver to double back for them. With the front deskman on the take, a quiet place to shelter, and no cops in sight, the eclectic bunch of thieves believe they’ve escaped scot-free from the long arm of the law with $1 million dollars in cash. Unbeknownst to them, the desk clerk didn’t disclose the other guests staying at the hotel, a vampire mistress and her three daughters who have been hidden away waiting for the felons’ arrival to feed on their blood. Refuge becomes an inescapable trap as the nearly unstoppable and ruthless force of beautiful, deadly women bear down on the scantily armed thieves whose automatic rifles are no match against the vampiric bloodsuckers. With options limited, they rely on each other and a bitten young woman to survive the night.

Christmas time is upon us. Joy to the world! While cheerful idols of Saint Nick and Jesus Christ are erected for one of world’s holiest of days, while candy-canes, gumdrops, mistletoes, and wreath deck the brilliantly warm, primary-punchy colored lights, and while neatly wrapped presents present themselves under the garishly garnished evergreen tree with neat little tied ribbons and bows for all the good little boys and girls, the rest of us unsavory lot have blood red and scary monsters still on the brain. This is where Christmas themed horror movies come in handy, a little blend of both worlds and holidays to sate our dueling desire to enjoy each holiday. To begin this year off right, Taylor Martin’s 2024 vampire horror, Christmas comedy, “Silent Bite,” is the first genre-splitting seasonal movie to come across our desk! Martin, actress of “Till Death Do We Rot” and “Anathema” turned director of short films, helms her first feature from a script by British writer-actor Simon Phillips, who is no stranger to the possible malevolence of a good Christmas horror film having penned and starred in a serial killer couple Mr. and Mrs. Clause “Once Upon A Time in Christmas” and it’s sequel “The Nights Before Christmas.” Filmed at the Jolly Roger Inn & Resort hotel of Otter Lake, Ontario, Phillips produces the feature alongside Mem Ferda (“K-Shop,” “Bonehill Road”) and executive producers Ern Gerardo and Anubandh Lakhera under the Nox Luna Media Group, 9I Studios, EAG Enterprises, and Dystopian Films labels.

Not only does Phillips write and produce, he stars in the principal role of Father Christmas, the leader of the armed thieves who perhaps is the most even-keeled to bear the competency of a bad guy constitution. The British national adds a morsel of mercenary radiancy to his role but can’t quite be all that he can be because Father Christmas is too busy babysitting a squabbling, bambino-acting crew too hopped up on booze, drugs, insults, and their social awkward hangups to level up to Father Christmas cool, calm, and collected. The randomly selected pool of eclectic elves with codenames for hired robbery include the monolith muscle of the feral Snowman (Michael Swatton, “Snow and Blood”), the rootin-tootin’ hardnose Grinch (Nick Biskupek, “Until Death”), and the technological-savvy and brilliantly awkward Prancer (Luke Avoledo, feature film debut). Phillips, Swatton, and Biskupek have collaborated in more recent projects, such as “What Lurks Beneath” and “The Mouse Trap,” with all three men also having a piece of the two Adrian Langley “Butchers” films pie in their own regard between original and sequel, evoking a comfortability in line and action delivery dynamic when they bicker amongst each other. There’s a fifth member of the crew, Rudolph (Dan Molson, also from “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn”), who is not directly described as the leader but led us to believe the decoy driver hand selected all members of Santa’s purloining party pitted against a stronger, deadlier, and more conniving coven of women vampires with Sayla de Goede (“The Nights Before Christmas”) playing the matriarch. Goede really hams up the performance of a Victorian vampire who’s snobby and seducing by leaving threatening and opposing at the door. Mother rears three women turned vampires turned daughters in Lucia (Louisa Capulet, “Butchers Book Three: Bonesaw”), Selene (Sienne Star, “Fear Street: Prom Queen”), and Victoria (Kelly Schwartz, “The Bermuda Triangle Project”) and, once again, are failed characters to bring the intensity required as hungry seductress for blood and sex, said as much in the exposition between Mother and daughters. The caboose of the “Silent Bite” cast has Camille Blott and Paul Whitney (“Blood and Snow”) play the recent bitten, love interest of Prancer and a graceless Renfield-type hotel clerk, respectively.

What started out as a high energy concept of a comic-book style opening credits, providing audience the background bank robbery and chase epilogue, quickly decelerates to brisk walk of more-or-less the two groups intermingling amongst themselves until what basically becomes the climax of the story. For a tale that plot parallels the Robert Rodriguez-directed, Quentin Tarantino-penned “From Dusk till Dawn,” a severe lack of ceaseless combustible action gives way to just a bunch of roundabout buildup to avoid spending bank on blank cartridges, violent effects, and choreography. Instead, the AR-15s and handguns are rarely fired, gory effects are reduced to CGI spurts and theatrical blood rivulets down the chin, and a bunch of exposition, which in all fairness is written well and has concentrations of amusing tongue-and-cheek wit. Developing the characters to their full potential is wasted because conflict between mortal and immortal arrives too late into the story and all that rev-exciting, rock soundtrack-blasting title card illustration at the beginning pseudo-fed a spoonful of high-octane snake oil. The overall aesthetic of the story indulges in the festivities of the yuletide season of snowy exteriors, garish garlands and other Christmastime decorations, and our five anti-heroes in Santa themed suits but the visual themes and motifs are limited to such and are interrupted by grinchier clunkers of the aforesaid blood spurts and UV light incineration visual effects.

Arriving on an AVC encoded, 1080p, single-layer BD25 on a bloodsucking sleigh is not Santa Clause but Santa Clause with fangs in Cleopatra Entertainment’s “Silent Bite.” Presented in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, the wider lens isn’t put to good use for a story that’s mostly set inside the tight confines of a hotel interior. Even the pool room, where an opportunity to expand across a full-length swimming deck, is an opportunity that’s missed. There are some exterior scenes of the Jolly Roger Resort & Inn as well as Rudolph’s eluding of the law that take the wider aspect ratio for a ride but are limited to these peripheral portions. What really stands out are the colorful Christmas motifs of brilliant red, greens, and blues amongst the scantily cladded seasonal décor and while those areas are limited, the palette is vibrant and saturated to create a warm and cozy atmosphere contrasted against the dark snow. Details are generally pleasing albeit select scenes where speckling occurs, such as Snowman dunking himself underwater that loose quite a sum of the previously clean image. Two English audio options are available, a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 Stereo. Once again, Cleopatra Entertainment, the movie entertainment subsidiary of Cleopatra Records, continues to restrain their releases from full fidelity potential with not only a lossy surround sound format but also, compositionally, with combined tracks that rise and dive in bitrate, suppressing the audio quite a bit and then, randomly at varying intervals, relieves the pressure to provide a full-bodied, atmospheric contingent of diegetic sounds. The notifiable difference is staggering and greatly exampled by Simon Phillips voice that sounds anemically high at a lower decoding rate then, all of the sudden, booms with accented resonation and vitality in it’s true uncompressed state. The uncompressed audio layer may not be as expansive but contains no stark erroneousness. English captions are optional. A scene clip fluid Blu-ray menu, framed by that same dark red, jet-black delimitation has a special features section only to offer little of said special features with a theatrical trailer and pictorial slideshow. The physical release has a nice and simplistic black and red illustrative cover that’s a tell-all of what to expect. The Blu-ray Amaray that holds the disc pressed with the same front cover art has no other supplements. The region free Blu-ray has a runtime of 90 minutes and is unrated.

Last Rites: “Silent Bite” may not be the main present in Santa’s sack of sordid slayers but it’s definitely a stocking stuffer worthy of kicking off the Christmas season.

Santa Clauses vs Vampires in “Silent Bite” Now Available!

Zaki owns a small kebab shop in England’s vern own party central in Bournemouth on the South Coast. Every night, Zaki withstands the late night drunken antics of the local party goers in the hope his son, Salah, would continue his graduate studies and to also, maybe, one day own his own fine dining restaurant, but when he becomes involved in a scuffle with a late night rowdy bunch, he’s killed in a fit of alcoholic whims. Salah takes over his father’s shop, neglecting his studies, and continuing the serve the intoxicated public in his father’s memory, but when he accidentally kills one stubborn customer, he mincings his body parts into kebab meat instead of calling the police and whenever a deplorable enter his shop, he serves them the newest menu item. One sloppy drunk customer after another, Salah wages a vigilante’s war on party world, especially toward a new dance club that masks over a drug trafficking ring.

“K-Shop” is the 2016 horror from writer-director Dan Pringle in his first helmed feature that aims to explore the troublesome nature of the after party, intoxicated human plagued upon sensible people. Pringle strengthens the social commentary by implementing actual footage of drunken debauchery filmed right on England’s South Beach that range between spewing chunks onto the sidewalks to heated back and forth fisticuffs. Pringle’s script tackles that insatiable inner urge everyone has felt at least once in their life when dealing with unreasonable nightlife and that is to raise a fist against them to show how to act like a decent human being. “K-Shop,” which denotes being a double entendre for Kebab Shop and Kill Shop, takes the act one step further, introducing a cannibalistic element to the mix as Salah rids scrum from the earth by slicing and dicing them into his kebab mixture. Salah’s father, Zaki, is a Turkish refugee and him and his son are essentially immigrants that becomes another script undertone brought up the club owning, drug trafficking, all over bad guy Jason Brown.

Salah is brilliantly executed by Ziad Abaza who brings a cache of raw emotions to his character. “K-Shop’s” trailer hinted at a horror-comedy feature, but there’s nothing funny about Abaza’s Salah who seems that life is wholeheartedly against him as a downtrodden college student in a search for basic human decency and compassion. Salah is pitted against an egregious Jason Brown played by Liverpool native Scot Williams and Williams embodies and embraces being a person of high social status and fame, a person of who lavishes in luxury, and epitomizes being a slime ball. Brown’s a stark contrast against Salah who has to slave away and earn his living while Brown takes his life for granted. The supporting cast are also very interesting starting with Reece Noi as Malik who voyeuristically takes an interest in Salah’s vigilantism and who also, perhaps, shares common cultural aspects, but Malik is just a kid acting beyond his age at times and then drastically at his age at the most crucial moments during his dynamics with Salah. Another character is Salah’s potential love interest in Sarah portrayed by Kristin Atherton. Atherton provides a sweet, quiet, and intelligible demeanor to Sarah that projects onto Salah whereas other women in Salah’s life, mostly his patrons, are loud, obnoxious, and corrupt. Lastly, “Doomsday’s” Darren Morfitt instills a catalytic character in fallen from grace Chaplin Steve. There’s a bit of a confessionally staged event between Salah and Steve that offers a realization and a tale-end twist that just puts that unwanted pit into the bottom of stomachs.

Now “K-Shop” isn’t totally perfect, especially in the flow of the film. Pringle doesn’t clearly provide a timeline of progression. Between the holidays Christmas and News Years is perspectively prominent, but Salah’s calling, or mission, seems to extend weeks, if not months, and that isn’t clearly communicated. Plus, there’s slight difficulty understanding turn page moments that dilute the significance of events whether it’s through too much exposition or choppy editing. Where “K-Shop” is weak, Pringle makes up with gore and story. The gore is absolute from scorching an inebriated man’s face sizzling in a vat of hot oil to chopping up limbs with a butcher’s knife in order to make his delicious kebabs. Pringle’s conclusion is absolving, satisfying, and also, at the same time, fruitless because even though Salah makes a stand against immorality, a realization washes over him that nothing will ever change despite cutting the head from the snake.

Breaking Glass Pictures distributes “K-Shop” on to an unrated DVD home video. The DVD is presented in a widescreen 2:35:1 aspect ratio and the overall quality is stunning sporting a dark painted picture and still convey a healthy color palette even if lightly washed in a yellow hue. The’s no attempt to enhance the image as the natural color tone comes right out and off the screen and that dark gritty matter really speaks to Pringle’s capabilities to create shadows. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is surprisingly hanging around par level as, some of those key moments once spoken about, are lost in a muddled heap in the dialogue track, but there’s range and fidelity thats good on the output amongst a balanced five channel track. Bonus material includes a behind-the-scenes segment and deleted scenes plus Breaking Glass trailers. “K-Shop” is dark, gritty, and eye opening backed by a versatile lead in Ziad Abaza and helmed by newcomer filmmaker Dan Pringle, seeking to entertain and unearth our inner and deadly vigilante doppelgänger in the midst of social indecencies.