USA. 2022.
Crew
Director – Tommy Wirkola, Screenplay – Pat Casey & Josh Miller, Producers – Guy Danella, David Leitch & Kelly McCormick, Photography – Matthew Weston, Music – Dominic Lewis, Visual Effects – Crafty Apes (Supervisor – Aleksandra Sienkiewicz), Special Effects Supervisor – Marc Reichel, Production Design – Roger Fires. Production Company – Eighty Seven North Productions.
Cast
David Harbour (Santa Claus), John Leguizamo (Jimmy ‘Scrooge’ Martinez), Beverly D’Angelo (Gertrude Lightstone), Alex Hassell (Jason Lightstone), Leah Brady (Gertrude ‘Trudy’ Lightstone), Alexis Louder (Linda Lightstone), Edi Petterson (Alva Lightstone), Cam Gigandet (Morgan Steel), Alexander Elliot (Bertrude ‘Bert’ Lightstone), Andree Eriksen (Gingerbread/Bjorn), Brendan Fletcher (Krampus), Mike Dopud (Commander Thorp), Mitra Suri (Candy Cane/Kira), Cam Aydin (Frosty), Phong Giang (Tinsel), Finn McGregor Higgins (Peppermint), Marina Stephenson Kerr (UK Barkeep), Ray Strachan (Al), John B. Lowe (UK Mall Santa)
Plot
On Christmas Eve, Jason Lightstone, his estranged wife Linda and their daughter Trudy arrive at the family mansion where his wealthy, tough-as-nails mother Gertrude holds sway. As the rest of the family gathers, the caterers without warning turn and pick up guns and imprison the family. They are a well-organised team of former soldiers led by the self-styled Scrooge who want to rob the money Gertrude has in her vault. At the same time, a cynical Santa Claus is doing the rounds of Christmas deliveries and has stopped over at the Lightstone mansion to indulge in some of the alcohol. Witnessing the home invasion, he decides to become involved and begins taking on the armed intruders in hand-to-hand combat.
There have been a great many Christmas films ranging from classics like It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947) to A Christmas Story (1984) and various versions of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843). Christmas-themed tv movies are so numerous and so banal that I no longer make the effort to cover them. There is another whole body of darker Christmas films from the Gothic magnificence of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) to the twistedness of Bad Santa (2003), the rampaging Santa monsters of Rare Exports (2010) and the Robot Santa Claus episodes of tv’s Futurama (1999-2003).
That’s aside from a whole bunch of Christmas horror films about psychopathic Santas and killers stalking people at Christmas beginning with the All Through the House segment of Tales from the Crypt (1972) through the likes of Black Christmas (1974), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and sequels, All Through the House (2015) to a spate of Krampus films, and a good many others, including the recent Demonic Christmas Tree (2022). (For more detail see Christmas Films).
The work that Violent Night most resembles is the recent Mel Gibson-starring Fatman (2020), which portrayed Santa as a grumpy modern figure trying to maintain his operation in today’s economy and a kid who had hired a hitman to wipe him out. Even more amusing was the Harlan Ellison short story Santa Claus vs S.P.I.D.E.R. (1969), featuring Santa Claus in a James Bond-like caper, which somebody should make into a film someday.
Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola first appeared with Kill Buljo: The Movie (2007), a low-budget splatter-heavy parody of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films and then had a midnight hit with the Nazi zombie film Dead Snow (2009). This led to the Hollywood-backed Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), as well as sequels to both his earlier films with Kill Buljo 2 (2013) and Dead Snow 2 (2014), the horror comedy mockumentary Kurt Josef Wagle and the Legend of the Sea Witch (2010), What Happened to Monday (2017) set in an overpopulated dystopian future and the non-genre The Trip (2021).
From the opening scene with David Harbour’s Santa getting drunk in a bar in England amid cynical comments about his Christmas deliveries and people’s spirit before getting onto the sleigh to take off and vomiting over the side onto the barkeep, it is clear this is no rosily sentimental Christmas movie. We even get scenes with the sleigh flying across Washington D.C. and David Harbour standing up to piss over the side. John Leguizamo introduces himself with a line “Bah humbug, motherfucker,” while in a later scene he has Alex Hassell a prisoner prepared to crush his testicles in a nutcracker doll.
The film does not fail to deliver on the ‘violent’ half of the title. Wirkola serves up assorted scenes with David Harbour’s Santa in hand-to-hand combat, battering people’s heads in with a sledgehammer and using Christmas decorations as weapons. At one point, we even get a scene with Santa having to stitch up his own bullet wound.
The results are rather entertaining for anybody who gets very cynical about the whole Christmas thing. Tommy Wirkola’s films show a penchant for cartoony over-the-top splatter and this is a work perfectly suited to his sensibilities. I would go so far as to say it is his most accomplished film to date. It is also a film perfectly well suited to David Harbour, the breakout star from tv’s Stranger Things (2016- ), who nails the gruff, grumpy Santa to perfection.
Trailer here