The traditional holiday romance movie, from the writer of You Light Up My Christmas and the director of The Christmas Bow, gets a little more fun this year with a spin from co-writers Vince Vaughn (Couples Retreat) and Dan Lagana (“American Vandal”). In Christmas with The Campbells, when Jesse gets dumped right before the holidays by her boyfriend Shawn, his parents convince her to still spend Christmas with them, and Shawn’s handsome cousin, while Shawn is away.

For in-depth thoughts on Christmas With The Campbells, please see my colleague Mike Vaughn’s review from its original theatrical release here.

Video Quality

RLJE Films brings Christmas With The Campbells to Blu-Ray with a very pleasing 1080p video presentation. The image is clean with the bright holiday color palette popping off the screen. The black levels are appropriately deep and inky with no discernable digital noise. The warm interior lighting of the family home maintains a stable image filled with nice detail. The flesh tones are natural with a magnificent amount of detail present in close-ups. The presentation provides a significant amount of depth on display, especially in the interior shots. The production design of the decorations along with the fabrics of clothing provide crystal clear textural details. This is as solid of a presentation as any modern movie should provide on Blu-Ray.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray comes with a stellar DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that recreates this world perfectly. Dialogue is the driving force of the film, and it always comes through crisp and clear without being overshadowed by any competing sounds. There is almost nothing in the way of action sequences, but the environmental sounds of the world engage the surround speakers in a really pleasing way. Ambient sounds are precisely placed in the rear channels for a more immersive experience.

The music in the film fills the speakers in a wonderful, well-balanced way. There are a few exaggerated moments in the film that engage the low end well. The audio track is not pushed to the limit with this content, but it nonetheless proves to be an excellent sounding presentation for this feature. There are optional English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles provided.

Special Features

The Making Of Christmas With The Campbells: A nearly six-minute featurette in which the cast introduce themselves and discuss their characters and what drew them to the project. There is a great atmosphere among these performers which comes through in the course of these interviews.

Final Thoughts

Christmas With The Campbells is a truly fun addition to the holiday season viewing slate as you get the heartfelt sentimentality of a Hallmark movie with humor of Wedding Crashers. Admittedly, the film can go a bit overboard on the vulgarity for the sake of shock value, but this can be overlooked given how much you are laughing out loud during most of the film. All of the performers are dialed into a great spot with their characters that brings them to life beautifully. RLJE Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray featuring a terrific A/V presentation and a minor supplemental feature. If you want something a bit more adult the next time you celebrate the holiday season, make this part of your traditions. Recommended

Christmas With The Campbells is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: RLJE Films has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.