VIOLENT NIGHT (2022)

VIOLENT NIGHT (2022)

Tagline: You better watch out.

(Action, Comedy, Mess with The Santa…You Get the Claus) [R]

You have 300 million dollars in your personal vault. That's what I want for Christmas.

The story revolves around a downtrodden Santa who is going out on his rounds on Christmas eve after a stop at the bar. When he arrives at the “Lightstone” compound, the place is getting robbed for 300 million dollars who have all been given “Christmas-related” names by their leader Scrooge. Among the family members being held hostage by Scrooge and his gang is Trudy Lightstone who still believes in Santa. After being attacked and even trying to talk to the robbers, Santa and everyone realizes they are in for a VIOLENT NIGHT.

No matter what review you read, this is the first thing you need to know. This is a highly brutal mixture of DIE HARD 2, HOME ALONE, and some sort of Viking nightmare with some heart. It is not a horror flick, but at times it feels like one because there are a lot of “slasher” type moments. For some people, this might be an every-year watch if there are only adults in your house, but this is rated [R] for a reason and I probably wouldn’t show it to kids below the age of 13. Not necessarily because of the sheer amount of violence and gore, but because of the fact that this actually has Santa in it. 

From a secular viewpoint, this stuff doesn’t bug me. If you think these types of movies ruin Santa, whatever. You have to take these things with a grain of salt. I do like that in the movie Santa actually shows respect to a symbol of the real reason for the season. In a nutshell, this is NOT a movie for the easily offended. 

Acting wise everyone does a really good job but the two biggest standouts are David Harbour who plays Santa Claus to perfection if you were going for a grumpy slightly drunk Santa. Harbour is best known for STRANGER THINGS. The other big stand-out was Leah Brady who plays Trudy. This is another young star that I can see going placed. John Leguizamo is solid as a cantankerous Christmas hater Scrooge. Given some of his real-life comments, it seems this role might actually be the closest to his personality in real life that we’ve seen? He seems pissed about everything. Alexis Louder also does a solid job, Linda. She was also in the sci-fi film THE TOMORROW WAR. I was not a fan of Alex Hassell or Beverly D'Angelo in this, but not due to their acting, just the characters. Beverly played a character with a similar attitude in BOUNTY KILLER, so this isn’t the first time I have seen her playing someone that wasn’t Ellen Griswold. 

The pacing is pretty good. I liked the fact that we had a few breaks in the bloodshed to get some heart and backstory into this thing. The friendship that Santa and Trudy strike up is worth watching this movie all by itself. If the movie fails on any level, it’s probably just the premise. An ultra-violent Santa that is actually Santa is always going to be a hard sell. The other issue was the fact I couldn’t help the feeling that Trudy and her mom Linda, should just get in a car and drive as far away from the Lightstone family as they can. All of the Lightstone's suck. 

My rating for this one is a 4 out of 7. There were slightly too many borrowed ideas in here and I saw an opportunity to have some reindeer kicking people’s teeth in, and that just never happens. If you are going to do this, do it 100%. What we got though was pretty solid. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF 87NORTH AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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