Silent Bloodnight (2006) User Reviews

A really odd slasher film from Austria.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 9 February 2008]

Silent Bloodnight is set in Austria & starts late one night as local TV reporter Sabrina Meyers (Vanessa Vee) is having sex with her boyfriend Matt, a terrified girl named Nina bangs on the window seeking help but due to the level of the radio Sabrina & Matt seem not to hear her & she runs off. Then about five minutes later Sabrina ask's Matt if he heard the girl at their car window (!) to which he says she is imagining things. The next morning & Sabrina is determined to prove what happened the night before & she suspects that the girl has been murdered. However not everyone feels the same way & try to dissuade her from spreading such unsubstantiated rumours. As various dead bodies start to turn up Sabrina's claims of a murderer on the loose suddenly seem rather mare plausible...

This Autrian production was written, produced & directed by Stefan Peczelt & Elmar Weihsmann & has the distinction of being the only Autrian made horror film I have seen, to be brutally honest if you want to know why more horror films aren't made in Austria then Silent Bloodnight will answer most of your questions. The script is horrible, the basic story is predictable & your basic teen slasher film. The narrative is awful, the first fifteen minutes are a mess & I find the way Sabrina suddenly ask's Matt about 'the scared girl at their window' five minutes after she left bizarre! Then there's the discrepancies, the place where this is set is called a town, a village & a city at various points during the film while the name of it changes at random to between Forester, Foresterville & Dry Creek! Now while I cannot describe Silent Bloodnight as a good film in any way shape or form I did find is somewhat entertaining at times for all the wrong reasons. I must admit I did like the main character Sabrina, again though not for the right reasons. I mean not because her character is well written or directed or acted but just the opposite in that the character is poorly written with horrible lines of English dialogue written by someone whose first language definitely isn't English, none direction which leaves the poor actress Vanessa Vee literally looking around & feeling very self conscious & the fact she is obviously Austrian, has a very thick accent, English obviously isn't her first language which means she says some truly unbelievable lines of broken badly written & delivered English which is often unintentionally hilarious. In fact that's where most of the entertainment value in Silent Bloodnight comes from, the script & story is deadly serious but the broken horrible English, the thick Austrian accents & some bizarre direction make it a car crash of a film, you know you shouldn't look but in a ghoulish way you can't help it.

I just can't understand the decision to make Silent Bloodnight in English by a cast & crew who obviously weren't comfortable with the language, it really does lead to some bizarre & hilarious dialogue that has to be heard to be believed. The film looks really cheap as well, during the night scenes there are occasions when you literally can't see a thing, hell I would hate to have to watch this on a fuzzy low resolution VHS! During an early scene when Nina runs down a path at night the light source which was probably a lamp actually follows her illuminating the immediate area & it just looks odd. Also during many scenes you can hear lots of unwanted ambient noise like the camera mans footsteps, things banging against the side of the camera &/or microphone & other various noises & sounds. Then there's the killer, he is revealed within the first five minutes so there's no mystery. I'm not happy about his choice of weaponry either, I mean there are slasher film killers who use weapons like chainsaws, meat cleavers, axes, knives & machetes but here in Silent Bloodnight the killer uses a garden spade! Wow, very threatening I must say & in one scene he uses a jar of wasps to sting someone to death! There's one or two decent gore scenes including a few decapitations to save money, I mean the makers can just dress the headless body prop in different clothes to denote different victims. This is an incredible film, it's just a disaster but it's a fun entertaining disaster that I thought ended up being quite charming in a daft sort of way.

With a supposed budget of about 350,000 Euros this is pretty amateurishly made with low production values, according to the end credits this was shot in Austria during July 2005. The acting is mostly poor but I liked Vanessa Vee as Sabrina who always seems to present the news in a bikini! In fact the wardrobe budget for her character was probably pretty small since she hardly wears any. I also thought she was really cute looking, a real hottie & I loved the scene when she saw a van she recognised & ran back to her little hatchback car where I was expecting her to speed off in pursuit of it but in fact she slowly reverses & slowly pulls away like a little girl!

Silent Bloodnight is a really bizarre oddball film the likes of which I don't think I've seen before. I loved Sabrina/Vanessa Vee, she was so cute, was given lots of broken English dialogue & yet she couldn't even speak English properly & is rather likable but I suspect that wouldn't be enough for most viewers. I'll give the story, the production values & the film a lowly one star & I'll give the odd decent gore scene & the delightful Sabrina/Vanessa Vee an extra three to take my rating to a somewhat generous four stars out of ten. Definitely an acquired taste.

What good use of our tax money

[neil-476 · 3/10 · 11 March 2009]

I have a feeling that this film was made with some European Union dosh. There is something about the EU on the end credits, but I wasn't concentrating too carefully at that point.

But this film is worth catching if only for the truly bizarre experience of a group of native-German speakers declaiming the entire film in heavily-accented English which appears to have been learnt phonetically, so devoid is the delivery of any connection with the meaning of what's being said.

One star because that's the lowest allowed, plus another for sheer unintentional hilarity, and a third for boobage.

Vot A Veally Big Vaste Ov Time

[MartynGryphon · 1/10 · 21 June 2008]

In my lifetime I have seen thousands upon thousands of movies dating back to the pre 1910 biograph days up to the most recent 5.1 cinematic blockbusters. I've seen classic movies that turned out to be stinkers, and stinkers that turned out to be classics. So, with this said, I can say with confidence that I have NEVER EVER seen a film as bad as Silent Bloodnight. In fact, I think I'll go a bit further and go on record by saying that it is probably the worst movie ever made.

Silent Bloodnight tries to be your run of the mill teen slasher flick but manages to fall short on so many levels. It's an Austrian film for starters, with Austrian 'actors', (for want of a better expression), who speak in a kind of pidgin English that makes Manuel from Fawlty Tower's sound like Olivier in comparison. This gives the movie an un-intentional comic feel and we get some hilarious lines about 'A Wicious Killer on ze loose' and 'Vhere voz ze wictim found?'.

The plot is absolutely ridiculous and the whole movie has obviously been filmed on a 'Just got my Giro' kind of budget.

The acting is just arse-clenchingly painful to watch. The main character, Sabrina, is determined to route out the killer when her main objective should be improving her English skills, and dare I say this, she has a seemingly inappropriate relationship with her Police Chief Father who, regardless of the time of day, always wears his uniform with his beret firmly tucked into his epulet straps.

The movies ONLY redeeming quality is that the girls are quite hot and spend most of the movie clad in nothing more than figure hugging Bikini's displaying their ample cleavage, and for those that expect it, there is a little bit of nudity thrown in. However, even this does not save this movie from going down the gurgler as cheap titillation can only carry a movie so far.

At the end of my reviews, I usually end with the word 'enjoy!'. On this occasion I won't bother as I stand by judgement that there has never been, and probably never will be, a film as bad as Silent Bloodnight and that's definitely a good thing.

BEWARE!!!, Avoid this one like bird flu.

Rubbish

[matthew_wyatt2002 · 1/10 · 10 February 2008]

This Film is absolute rubbish!

Worthless acting, worthless script, worthless (zero) plot, worthless direction, worthless lighting.

Utter garbage. I'm a big, big fan of horror but this takes the pi**.

I can now see why nobody has commented on this before. Thought I should add a warning as it has just started showing on Zone Horror in the UK and people may be fooled into watching it! How it has good an average 3.1 is beyond me!

I never watched it all the way to end so unless an ending occurred to rival that of the first Saw Movie then this gets a zero from me (I only wish we could vote zero on here!).

Matt (www.myspace.com/MattWyatt1977)

pointless, superfluous and ridiculous

[johannes2000-1 · 1/10 · 23 December 2008]

This is a totally pointless movie, it's not scary or funny or anything in between, the direction and the script (if any!) are lousy and the acting is SO bad that it curls your toes just watching it. The origin of this movie seems to be Austrian, but everyone drives around in Swiss cars and the scenery is very much Heidi-in-the-Alps. If they didn't use cell-phones you would swear it was shot in the sixties or seventies, it all looks so extremely out-dated. Why on earth they let these local actors talk English, is beyond me, it makes everyone sound like they're playing in Allo, Allo, with heavy German accents but sadly enough without the humor and the fun. In the credits most actors have English sounding names, I can't believe that these are real, but then again, who would want to see his REAL name stated on this sad product.

The plot is chaotic, the goings-on are bizarre and totally improbable and the killings are staged completely over the top, I mean, I like a good graphic kill but it should at least look a BIT realistic! The makers thought that some t*ts & ass were required in a wannabe cheap horror-flick, but apart from the use of several skimpy bikini's they surprisingly enough threw in more male than female nudity, which all the more proves the European origin of this project.

All-in-all this movie maybe can serve for freshmen on a movie-academy as an example of all the faults and traps that any beginning director should avoid. As an attempt for serious entertainment it fails miserably.

Appalling...

[murphmeister75 · 1/10 · 26 May 2008]

I caught the end of this on the Horror Zone, and it has to go down as one of the worst partial films I've ever seen.

Just because Arnold is Governor doesn't give the Austrians to produce garbage like this. As crimes go, it might lag behind genocide and keeping your daughter in a dungeon for years as you ritually abuse her, but it doesn't lag far.

The script is rubbish. The actors can't speak English. The plot is nonsense. It looks like it was filmed by a horse, and edited with a potato masher. You might laugh for a minute or two, but even a cocktail of powerful psychoactive drugs wouldn't allow you to make it to the end. Which is the worst part of the movie.

This movie made me want to kill myself. But not until I had killed the two inbred degenerates who thought it would be a good idea to subject the world to such complete and utter drivel.

coming from another indie filmmaker people bash....

[lonewolf22-1 · 5/10 · 22 December 2009]

to the filmmakers, i enjoyed this film for the most part (it seemed to drag in a few spots) but overall, i like it. lots of nudity, and while i'm not big on male nudity, the girls were ALL attractive in this and the sex scene near the last act of the film was pretty decent for an indie feature. i thought the camera work for the most part was good, the lighting was definitely above average for an indie film as well. the director certainly knows what indie horror fans want ot see and that's gore, hot chicks, and nudity. I think the films gore was decent in spots but there just wasn't enough to excite "gore fans". in terms of comparing this film with other films released by Brain Damage Films (i have 3 films signed with them), i would say that this film is in their "upper tier" of releases during the past few years. nice effort, keep it up.

Len K

Cinema at its purest

[tbnumber1 · 1/10 · 11 April 2008]

This film is a masterpiece. I'm not sure what that other guy who commented was on about...maybe he watched a different film by mistake.

This has got all the classic ingredients of a horror film: sharp scares, great acting, blood and gore, and not to mention a killer twist at the ending.

I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to see how to make a successful picture. It is a benchmark in Austrian film, and evokes Hitchcock at his finest. I can't believe this film never got shown in UK cinemas! Another victory for the processed Hollywood system over the higher quality independent cinema.

This film will change your life: watch it!

A good effort of a European B slasher movie

[TdSmth5 · 6/10 · 2 July 2008]

A group of 3 guys and a girl go skinny dipping in a lake at night. While the couple engages in some passionate activities, the other two guys wonder about the fields and run into a strange girl jumping around the street and offering everyone chocolate. The two guys end up having sex with the girl.

In the meantime another couple parked their car nearby and things are getting heavy inside the car. Suddenly a killer appears a goes after the girl from the first couple. She runs to the car but the couple inside is too busy, she notices her, he doesn't.

It turns out that the girl in the car is a reporter who does weather announcements in a bikini in front of lakes. But she is intrigued by the woman earlier that night seeking help and is sure something happened. Her dad, the town's police chief is not interested chasing after ghosts.

Eventually two more guys and two more girls arrive to prepare a camp for the summer's activities. The guys of course are after the girls, all of whom are rather attractive. Our reporter finds the necklace of the woman she is looking for and eventually a body. She also is intrigued by a local kid who seems to have heated discussions by himself and whose sister is in a mental hospital and whose father disappeared. He is rather mysterious but friendly.

At some point our killer takes another victim, a waitress at a restaurant. And now things start unraveling. The killer has lost control and is ready to kill everyone there. His preferred method: a shovel used to disembowel or to decapitate. Our reporter gets kidnapped at some point by a something dressed like a woman but she manages to escape. Not for long and now the killer is in the house and ready to kill the 4 remaining people in there: a couple having sex, a girl, and our reporter. Furtunately, at the last minute law enforcement comes through and saves at least the two girls. And we do get to hear the answer to all our questions: who is the strange girl at the beginning? Who is the killer and why does he kill? And it all makes sense.

This Austrian horror movie was made on a low budget and it shows. It's also shot on location in the Austrian country, small town, and restaurant. The script is good but the acting is not so good. One has to get used to the thick accent with which the lines are delivered. The acting is either very subdued or overacted as in the case of the reporter. The girls are all very pretty and have great bodies. There's some nudity and sex scenes. For a horror film, there could have been more violence. The gore is good but comes only occasionally. Both lighting and sound could have been improved. I don't have a problem with the story or the script, it is written in proficient English, not MTV-English.

I suspect that the actors involved are not professional actors or don't have a lot of experience, but they gave it a good try, and I don't fault them for sounding like Austrians speaking English, that's what they are. Low budget limits what the director can do so the action scenes are also not very convincing. Still I found this movie enjoyable, entertaining, and I liked seeing a movie filmed somewhere other than on an LA sound stage. A solid effort and worth seeing if you like B horror movies.

Awesome For All The Wrong Reasons

[paul-day-clone · 7/10 · 5 July 2015]

The plot revolves around a wannabe local TV reporter of unknown age who mystically understands that a series of killings has taken place. "Mystically" because she's able to find a necklace (which looks like an earring) in a murky swimming hole. Her father, also of unknown age, is the local cop, annoyed at his daughter (who apparently doesn't source her stories) for reporting on the murders. Daddy is the worst cop in the world since every crime scene he comes across "doesn't show any signs of struggle" including the obvious strangulation marks on a victims neck.

To call this movie inept is an understatement. It *is*, however, the perfect movie to do complex mathematical computations to since missing any of the plot points means absolutely nothing. From the start, it's not even clear what's going on, who's involved or where it takes place geographically. At heart, it shows a basic misunderstanding of the genre and naive America worship. For some reason, people wind up "going to LA" a lot.

Had this movie been acted in its native German, there'd be nothing to say except that the movie sucks and never, ever, ever watch it. HOWEVER - since the filmmakers' pretensions got the best of them, they did the whole thing in German version of Engrish. And that's what you should watch this. The gaffes and poor grasp of English idioms or even basic grammar kick this up to the level of "must watch". Don't get me wrong. It's still a two star movie but the script rockets into the stratosphere of surrealism because of it. Some of my faves:

Sabrina: (reporting on one of the crimes) More evidence has been found about yesterday's evening Sabrina's cop-dad busting into a room to bust a perp: Here is the police! Hands up! Sabrina's cop-dad advising Sabrina to be safe: Lock the door. Don't let anybody into it Sabrina returning a dis: Stop acting like Miss Discounting Universe Sabrina to her dad who, tells her he's too busy to hear about an actually important lead: I will mail you the number via SMS Sabrina who's father has put her under house arrest for being better at his job than him and put a guard on her. She orders out for pitza (pizza): Mushrooms and tuna pitza! My favorite!

Almost every single line contains a poorly pronounced word or some travesty of English and you are a Miss Discounting Universe if you don't watch this.