Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025)



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
When I saw the press release announcement for Silent Night, Deadly Night coming to 4K I just thought that Cineverse had acquired to the rights to the film and re-releasing the 80s original in 4K again (though Shout! Studios did it a couple years back), but it wasn’t until the SECOND press release than I realized this was a brand new remake of the controversial classic, and stood up and took a second glance at it. I wasn’t expecting too much as the original was not exactly high-grade cinema, and a remake this many years down the pipe usually doesn’t end well. But hey, I’m a horror fan, and the trailer looked kinda fun. So I gave it a chance.

The film starts with a similar tone as the first film, with young Billy Chapman witnessing the death of his grandfather, and then the subsequent murder of his family by a man dressed up as Santa Claus. Jumping forward into the future, we see that young Billy (now played by Rohan Campbell) has been working hard at spreading Christmas fear for years. Every year during the month of Christmas, he takes out his Advent calendar and kills a different person each night, ramping up till Christmas time. But this time, Billy is sidelined from wandering the country and hacking and slashing his way through the holiday season by…….you guessed it… a girl.

Smitten with store shop clerk Pamela (Ruby Modine, daughter of Matthew Modine), Billy goes against the inner voices in his head and actually stops running and takes a job at the store from Pamela’s dad, Dean (David Lawrence Brown). And here is where the story diverges quite a bit from the original. Instead of being LITERALLY insane like the original Billy, this one is almost a tortured anti-hero. You see, he’s not just killing because he wants to, or because he’s nuts. Billy is killing because he HAS to. His story is narrated by Charlie (Mark Acheson), the murderer who killed his parents. You see, Charlie wasn’t killing Billy’s parents because he wanted to, but because he also had to. Charlie (and now Billy) are both possessed by the spirit of the person who killed them, giving them the ability to see who has been nice and who has been “naughty” (usually in very violent ways), and is used as an angel of death to take out the bad people in the world. And to make matters worse, if he DOESN’T kill those naughty people who deserve it during Christmas time, someone else who didn’t deserve to die will get killed.

Add a dash of romance, some gory kills, and a couple of double twists regarding Charlie and the “curse,” and you have a modern-day retelling of the original classic. And honestly, I liked this a lot. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, and it delivered. I fully admit that this isn’t the same tale as the 1980s classic, but it takes the general premise and makes something fresh from it. The whole idea of being possessed by a spirit of vengeance is a bit weird, but it works well enough, and Ruby Modine acts as a good counterpart for Billy. I will admit that I like the gonzo “raw” nature of the original film better, as Billy being just insane was a creepier villain. Here, they did the modern Hollywood take of trying to humanize the villain in the story and turn him into an anti-hero. Most of the time, I loathe that, but here it worked well enough. Plus, we get a nice twist near the end that had me grinning from ear to ear. Sadly, you could see the twists coming a mile away (or else I’ve watched too many horror movies), and I was guessing said twists a few minutes before they happened. Otherwise, this is a perfectly fun little horror movie.




Rating:

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, and brief drug use.




4K Video: Video:

And here’s where things get interesting. For a 4K disc, this is going to disappoint, despite it being a perfectly fine-looking image. It’s just that by 4K standards, it’s not nearly as revealing and massive an upgrade from the Blu-ray as I’d like. The image is clean and overall satisfying, with a moderate level of sharpness. Inside elements like the curio shop or the inside of Billy’s room look great. It’s when you notice how overall soft the image is that I had to stop and pull out the Blu-ray to compare. Black levels also fluctuate a good bit, showing great detail and clarity in one scene, only to be a bit noisy and crushed the next. Colors are warm and burnished, with a push towards the orangey edge of the spectrum at times, while still showing decent skin tones. As I said, this is not the greatest 1080p-2160p upgrade, but the image itself is still good enough for the most part without any major issues that would make it stand out.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is perfectly fine, with a strong push towards the front of the room with good dialog and a nice sound stage up there. LFE is mild comparatively, but it also knows when to pop you in the teeth when needed (the Delphine shootout in the barn, or the slamming of the axe as it slices someone to pieces). Surrounds get a moderate workout during the action, and actually provide a decent amount of ambient activity when Billy is in the curio shop with Pamela.












Extras:

• Unwrapping a New Legacy - Featurette
• Redband Trailer

Final Score: ​

I know I’m giving this a higher score than objectively I should be giving it, but just like the original Silent Night, Deadly Night, I like this for a trash horror movie. It’s not trying to be anything special, and does a wonderful job of falling back into that “sleaze horror” genre that the original was known for. Just with a few modern twists and an interesting take on Billy and his “demons”. The 4K disc looks and sounds fine, though it is far from the best 4K disc I’ve ever reviewed. Fans of the original will probably want to get ahold of this, while I’d recommend a rental for those who are more geared towards mainstream horror movies.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Rohan Campbell, Ruby Modine, Mark Acheson, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson
Directed By: Mike P. Nelson
Written By Mike P. Nelson, Michael Hickey, and Paul Caimi
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Cineverse
Rated: R
Runtime: 97 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: February 17th, 2026

Recommendation: Fun Watch