Summary
Putting the ho-ho-ho into home invasion, Santa Claus becomes the action star he was always destined to be.
As the memes say, there are two people in the world: those who believe Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and those who are wrong. With VIOLENT NIGHT, we no longer have to choose.
When we meet this version of Santa Claus (David Harbour), he’s drowning his sorrows in a Bristol pub. Having forgotten why he started doing it in the first place, he sets off to drunkenly finish his deliveries for what might be the last time.
Meanwhile in Greenwich, Connecticut, estranged couple Jason (Alex Hassell) and Linda (Alexis Louder) take their daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) back home to see their wealthy and tyrannical matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo). However, a paramilitary group led by “Mr. Scrooge” (John Leguizamo) invades the home in search of a vaulted fortune. Santa, stuck there without his reindeer, has to go full John McClane to save the day.
Santa Claus films come in all sorts of flavours. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a mall Santa, a secret Santa, or a traumatised fellow having a silent and deadly night. They are all real to me. So, David Harbour as a kick-ass Santa plays into so many of my wheelhouses that I will opt out of any façade of objectivity right now. In my heart, all Santa films start at five stars.
As the title would imply, VIOLENT NIGHT sits somewhere on the spectrum of Silent Night, Deadly Night to Rare Exports by way of Bad Santa. From an opening sequence in which Santa vomits from his sleigh, it’s clear that director Tommy Wirkola is aiming for a bloody, chaotic, and glorious mess. An action film with the still-beating heart of slasher gore, this Santa eats through the bad guys like a plateful of cookies.
Yet this level of violence manages to avoid a grinchy vibe. It’s all done with such gleeful irreverence that it can scarcely be taken seriously. Whether it’s Harbour swinging a giant hammer, or the almost obligatory use of a woodchipper, this is so over-the-top it’s practically pulled by reindeer. Yet it’s also a film that seems to genuinely love the Christmas season, and is clearly literate in all of the holiday film tropes.
Harbour is perfectly cast as this version of Santa, who screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller have invested with equal parts modern world weariness and old Norse violence. His downbeat Claus is counterbalanced by Brady’s gee-whizery, Leguizamo having a ball gnawing on the scenery, and D’Angelo’s total lack of fucks given.
VIOLENT NIGHT is one of those presents we get to unwrap before Christmas arrives, and one suspects the gift will keep on giving for years to come. A cult favourite in the making, it’s one of those rare instances where a whole lot of random weirdness comes together successfully. Hey, it’s Christmas magic. We don’t really know how it works either.
2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Tommy Wirkola | WRITERS: Pat Casey, Josh Miller | CAST: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Cam Gigandet, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Edi Patterson, Beverly D’Angelo | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 December 2022 (AUS), 2 December 2022 (USA)
