While many others have already seen Violent Night, I chose to wait until Christmas night to watch it. There’s just something about watching a Christmas flick on the actual day that makes them hit different(ly). That said, Violent Night is no ordinary holiday movie; it’s incredibly bloody and 100% geared for adults. With that in mind, I expected it to be a visceral slugfest, rather than a tug on the heartstrings kind of experience. In the end, though, I walked away feeling a bit more emotional about Christmas and Santa than I thought I would. But that’s not to say the movie didn’t deliver the violence, because my lord, this Santa can throw down.

Violent Night stars David Harbour as Santa Claus, but he’s no ordinary Saint Nick. Instead, Harbour’s Santa is a jaded, rundown cynic who’s all but ready to be done with the holiday he’s associated with. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he ends up delivering presents to the Lightstone family mansion at the exact same time that a group of murderous thieves breaks in to rob the place. The bad guys, led by the appropriately named Jimmy “Scrooge” Martinez (John Leguizamo), take the Lightstones hostage, including the youngest member of the family, Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady). Trudy is a kind and optimistic young girl who happens to be on Santa’s nice list, and this very fact motivates Father Christmas to remain and John McClane the crap out of the villains. With newfound purpose, and Trudy’s steadfast belief in him, Santa may have finally found a reason to keep going. That is, if he survives the dudes with machine guns.

How do you make a Christmas movie that’s fully intended for adults? Sure, you can always throw in a few jokes and brutal kills and call it a day. But then you just created an action movie with a holiday sheen, à la Die Hard, rather than a proper Christmas movie. No, the best way to do it is to combine the cynicism of adulthood with the joyousness of youth, manifested via nostalgia. If you can tap into that dichotomy, while also giving the audience a big glug of Christmas, then everything else – the violence, humor, and so on – is just gravy. Pulling that off, however, is no easy task, but it seems that director Tommy Wirkola and writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller were more than up to the challenge. Violent Night is a full-bore action comedy, yes, but it’s also a damn fine Christmas movie.

As good as the direction and screenwriting are, the element that makes Violent Night work most is David Harbour. His performance is fully committed and convincing, both in terms of personality and physicality. Personality-wise, his Santa is just the right mix of caring, wearisome, and most importantly, cynical. As I intimated before, adult viewers tend to be somewhat disillusioned, especially compared to children, when it comes to the holidays. Had Harbour’s Santa been even slightly too jolly and well, Santa-y, then it wouldn’t have worked. Adult viewers like myself would’ve rolled their eyes. Impressively, Harbour managed to find the sweet spot, as he’s neither too merry nor too dreary. It also really helps that the writing fully justifies his character’s mindset.*

Physicality-wise, Harbour is similarly faultless, being just chunky enough to match up to Santa’s popular image while also being athletic enough that you buy his ass-kicking capabilities. Speaking of ass-kicking, there’s way more of it than I initially expected, even after seeing the trailer and reading the MPAA rating. Harbour’s Santa is especially lethal when he arms himself with a sledgehammer, and it’s simply a blast to watch him bash in skulls and cave in chests with his weapon of choice. Witnessing Santa dispatch wave after wave of bad guys could have easily become unsettling, but Harbour is so charming that it keeps the film from becoming too dark.

In addition to Harbour’s presence, the action also benefits from the efforts of Wirkola and his crew to make it as entertaining as possible. Before anything else, the set design deserves a special acknowledgment for how creatively festive it is. Every action scene takes place in a different room or outbuilding of the mansion, and each one has different lighting and decorations. There’s also never a shortage of ornaments and other sundry items to be used as improvised weapons. This is especially apparent in a hilarious action scene that’s unabashedly similar to the third act of Home Alone. That scene made me feel positively gleeful, striking my nostalgia chord way more than I expected it to. Sure, Violent Night is thoroughly unoriginal, but by leaning into that fact, its filmmakers won me over.**

Another way this movie tapped into my nostalgia was by highlighting the emerging friendship between Trudy and Santa. At times, Trudy almost feels out of place in this story, as she’s quite bubbly and hopeful, even when there’s a Glock-wielding henchman lurking nearby. And her belief in Santa, not only that he’s real but also that he’s good, perfectly walks the line between cloying and endearing. Her feelings toward Santa, and subsequent communications with him, reminded me of what it felt like to believe in something so pure and selfless. It made me miss being young and stupid, if only for a moment. Leah Brady deserves a ton of credit for her performance here, as she imbued her character with just enough exuberant naivety that she’s likable without being corny.

So yes, Violent Night actually manages to be both a touching Christmas movie as well as an exciting action comedy. However, the action does prove problematic from time to time. You see, this film is insanely violent (it’s in the title), meaning ole Saint Nick kills a lot of bad guys. Strictly speaking, these aren’t boom-bang-done kills either; many are quite graphic, bordering on sadistic.*** For us viewers, it makes the action really amusing to watch, but in terms of the story the movie is trying to tell, it doesn’t quite work. After all, at one point Santa explains to one of the villains that by making her brother eat worms back in the day, it landed her on the naughty list. Well, shouldn’t savoring violence, regardless of it being self-defense, land Santa on the naughty list? No doubt many will disagree, but for me, the bloodletting lessened the effectiveness and impact of the optimistic, redemptive side of the narrative.****

The supporting characters are also an issue in Violent Night. They’re not particularly well-drawn, so they feel more like caricatures than actual people. Alex Hassell and Alexis Louder play Trudy’s separated parents, but their characters are too generic to stand out. Edi Patterson, Cam Gigandet, and Alexander Elliot are better as Linda, Morgan, and Bert respectively, but they’re mainly played for laughs, and I’m tired of the rich, white dolt trope. Of the non-Trudy Lightstones, I only liked Gertrude, but that’s mainly because she’s played by Beverly D’Angelo. As for the baddies, they are slightly more defined, slightly. Leguizamo’s character is actually given a backstory that clarifies his behavior, but still, Hans Gruber he is not.

Even with all of its flaws, I’d rank Violent Night up there as one of the best holiday movies of the last 20 years or so. It feels kind of weird to say that, considering it’s comprehensively not a family movie, which is sort of un-Christmas-like. But hey, we adults need something for ourselves every once in a while, especially during the most wonderful time of year. Figuratively speaking, Violent Night is like a glass of spiked eggnog, or mulled wine. If a kid reaches for it, slap their hand away and proclaim NAY, that’s just for us!*****

If I had to score it, I’d give Violent Night a 7/10.

Notes:

* Early on in Violent Night, Santa makes it clear why he’s nearly done with Christmas: the kids just don’t get it anymore. To put it more bluntly: people suck these days. Parents coddle their children and often gift them cash; children unwrap the newest video game or technology, then almost immediately want the next one. The ravenous selfishness of modern materialism practically renders the concept of Santa obsolete. That’s the viewpoint of the filmmakers, and therefore the viewpoint of their Santa Claus. Do you think they’re right? Personally, I agree with them, but I’m also kind of Scrooge, so…

** Many of these scenes are enhanced by some terrific music from Dominic Lewis. The soundtrack is very merry, and it brought to mind the tunes that I used to hear in holiday movies from my childhood.

*** The violence really reminded me of Wirkola’s Norwegian action comedy, The Trip (2021), but the action in that movie was way more practical and better for it. Violent Night, conversely, uses a lot of VFX to augment the action, making its violence a bit more ambitious but also less visceral.

**** I counted at least three henchmen that could’ve been restrained and spared rather than killed. Two of these slayings really bothered me, since I couldn’t shake the opinion that had mercy been shown, it would’ve reinforced this film’s message about the good nature of Christmas. Talk about a missed opportunity.

***** Truth be told, I don’t really like eggnog or mulled wine, so perhaps that isn’t the best metaphor, but you catch my drift. I mean, am I the only one who thinks eggnog tastes like Juicy Fruit?