The Silencing Blu-ray review

Sep 28, 2020- Permalink

Richard Pront’s The Silencing stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as a former hunter running a wildlife sanctuary after the disappearance of his daughter years ago. When he lends his tracking skills to help the local sheriff (Annabelle Wallis) find a vicious killer, he finds he might be getting closer to solving the mystery surrounding his daughter’s fate. This direct-to-video thriller has just been released on Blu-ray by Lionsgate and I had the opportunity to give the disc a spin.

The 1080p AVC-encoded digital transfer is in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. There’s a lot of detail in skin textures, textiles, and environment. The black levels are very good with no loss of detail in shadows and darker scenes. The colour palette is somewhat muted, but the forest greens are quite lush. Though digital noise and compression artifacts are absent, there are some moments where some aliasing is present.

On the audio end, there’s an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack, with subtitles available in English SDH and Spanish. The surround channels do give some ambient placement. Dialogue is clear and centred.

On the extras side, The Silencing Blu-ray also comes with a digital code. There’s a couple of special features: a “making of” featurette and a look at the weapon used by the killer.

The Silencing manages to pack a pretty good thriller with solid performances by Coster-Waldau and Wallis into a tight 94 minute running time. Good video and a workmanlike audio presentation get the job done. If this sort of thriller is in your wheelhouse, The Silencing would make a good addition to your home library.