Violent Night Review

Santa Claus has seen many media iterations. He has been the wholesome face of Christmas, a slasher villain, and a grump. Violent Night has a new approach by turning Santa into an action hero.

Santa Claus (David Harbour) has spent a thousand years delivering presents and Christmas cheer to children worldwide. But the mythical man has become jaded due to commercialism and selfishness and has taken to drinking vast amounts of alcohol. One Christmas Santa ends up in the middle of a home invasion situation and when he sees one of the hostages is a young girl he sets out to save her.

Violent Night was made by 87North Productions, a company that has quickly become known for making fun action films. They have already made Nobody, and Bullet Train, profitable films that have already garnered a cult following. Those films aimed to be pleasing, adult-oriented actioners, and Violent Night wanted to provide more of the same.

The filmmakers knew they were working with a ridiculous premise and audiences went in because they wanted to see this ridiculous premise. This was a film that had Santa Claus in a Die Hard situation, with a fair amount of Home Alone thrown in. It delivered what it promised.

Violent Night was directed by Tommy Wirkola, best known for making the Dead Snow movies and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Those films were horror comedies and his experience was on display for Violent Night. One of Santa’s first actions was drunkenly puking over a woman on the rooftop. It was grossly detailed.

Wirkola and his team were clearly having fun when making the action scenes. They made use of the Christmas décor and winter apparatus. This was a film where someone gets killed with a Christmas Tree Star. The action highlight was when Santa had to fight off a number of goons in a barn and used all the available items at his disposal. There was also a gory re-enactment of Home Alone during a section of the film which was darkly hilarious. Members of the audience I was with were laughing their heads off at this section.

Violent Night had to walk a tightrope of ensuring there were sufficient stakes and danger, whilst not treating itself too seriously. Santa had an arc where he had to regain his Christmas spirit because he needed to protect Trudy (Leah Brady), a nice girl from an unpleasant family. Brady was a fun performer who played a sweet child. Harbour’s Santa did feel a bit like his character in Black Widow because both were silly, out-of-shape action heroes but had a caring side to them.

The villains were ruthless mercenaries who wanted to steal millions of dollars, just like Hans Gruber in Die Hard. Santa did get hurt and injured during the film which heightened the sense of danger because Santa could die.

There was an attempt to give the film some substance because of the family drama. Some members of the Lightstone family were vying for the matriarch’s approval. The filmmakers realised there needed to be a setup and some emotional connection to help audiences to get invested in. It was something that The Princess, another Die Hard-influenced film from 2022, failed to do.

Santa Claus stated that he didn’t quite understand how his Christmas magic worked. He didn’t know how his sack produced presents or how he went up and down chimneys. This was the filmmakers saying to the audience don’t think too much about the Christmas magic. Even for a schlocky action film, there was a bit of Christmas schmaltz as the film reached its third act.

On a final note, the film opens with Santa Claus drinking in a pub in Bristol. This pleased me as a West Country Lad, but when watching it I thought the scene was clearly not filmed in the UK.

Violent Night did what it wanted to do by being a B-movie actioner. Fans of the action genre will be pleased by the amount of carnage on screen.