Violent Night stars David Harbour playing the big guy, Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve while he is delivering presents, Santa gets entangled into a night of survival, as the house he visits is swarmed with mercenaries targeting the family inside. It was marketed as “Die Hard meets Home Alone” and that is the best way to describe this movie. Let’s sleigh right in.
When I first heard about this movie I was pretty excited. Back in 2009, making movies was something my friends and I would do whenever we were all together. One of the ideas we had was an action movie with Santa Claus. As we put everything together we realized we were not able to get a Santa costume so that movie ended up not happening. But ever since then, I have always wanted to see Santa in an action movie. Well gah damn! It finally happened!
David Harbour plays an amazing Santa Claus. He was funny, quick witted, and brought so much to this character. Part of the reason Santa gets stuck at this house is because his magic isn’t as powerful as it once was, mostly due to lack of Christmas spirit in the world, but also, a lack of inspiration within himself. This isn’t the holly jolly Saint Nicholas, this is a rough and tough, depressed and beaten down Santa. The movie does delve a little bit into who he was before he became Santa, which does go into why he is so strong and a total badass in this, but my only complaint about his character is I wish we got a little bit more on his backstory. I would love to see how he became Santa and why he became Santa. There was a throw away line (or so I thought originally) where Santa says he get everything from Christmas magic, and so I kinda feel that is the implication for how he became Santa – but either way, I would have loved to see more or actually gotten a story with how and why.
The mercenaries play a fun role in this. Definitely no one you’re really connecting with, because they do pretty much play the bad guy roles, but they had some really fun code names; Krampus, Gingerbread, Sugarplum, etc. All led by Mr. Scrooge, played by John Leguizamo, who is always great.
And finally the family inside the house, the Lightstones: a very wealthy family, who doesn’t get along at all. The family is headed by Gertrude Lightstone, played by Beverly D’Angelo, and she is quite awful to her relatives. There was a lot of insults thrown at each other while the family was together, and while some of it was very harsh and pretty funny, it caused the thing that really brought my score down on this movie. The family is very unlikable, and because of that I really didn’t care much for Santa saving this family at all. But the saving grace was the 7 year old daughter, Trudy Lightstone, because I cared for her life over anyone else.
The marketing for this described the movie as “Die Hard meets Home Alone” and it absolutely is that. Santa stuck in a house where he has to save everyone, but not get caught himself. All of that played out in a very Die Hard fashion, which was fun. And at one point in the movie, Trudy gets away from the family and mercenaries in the attack and hides, which then she sets up traps in case someone tries to find her, tapping into the Home Alone aspect. This part both worked and did not really work. What I loved was the Home Alone traps and how they played out were so much fun and felt way more realistic as to what these traps would have actually done to people. But this part didn’t really feel truly organic with the rest of the movie, as in this whole attack filled with traps section felt like “let’s do this total detour on the main event.” But weirdly enough it is one of my favorite sequences in the whole movie so even though it doesn’t flow as well with the rest of the movie, it is still awesome and very happy it is in there.
So, Violent Night, does it live up to it’s name? 100%! This movie is exactly as it was marketed as, a violent action movie staring Santa Claus. I cannot wait to revisit this one and put in my holiday watch list every year, heck I may even put it on at any time of year to watch it. Also, I would love to get a sequel to this because I want to explore more with this Santa. I want to see the North Pole, see the workings there and maybe get a bit more of Santa’s backstory and what is the cause of Christmas Magic and how exactly does it work? I know that is part of the fun and mystery behind it, but I want to know a little more.
I give this an 8 outta 10.
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