Santa Claus, that personification of Christmas beloved of children everywhere, comes with his own group of accessories and symbols: the red cap and coat, white beard, round spectacles, flying sleigh pulled by magic reindeer, and Skullcrusher, his hammer.
Not familiar with Skullcrusher? That’s because you haven’t seen Violent Night yet. Skullcrusher isn’t likely to join the Santa pantheon alongside his bag of toys for good little girls and boys, but, in the right hands, it is capable of meting out more punishment for the naughty than a simple lump of coal.
Those hands belong to David Harbour, most recognizable as Stranger Things’ Sheriff Jim Hopper, the reluctant stepdad of human weapon Eleven. He also whipped his dad bod into shape to play the Red Guardian in Black Widow, so playing an ass-kicking Santa is in his wheelhouse. When we first see him as the Bearded One, he’s knocking back beers at an English pub, commiserating with the other Santa tribute artists about the kids these days. Santa’s over the greed that has taken over his season, but he’s kept going only out of duty to the kids on the nice list. When he leaves through the roof access, it dawns on the staff that he’s the real thing.
Meanwhile, little Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady) is on her way to Christmas at grandma’s house. It’s the first time her estranged parents Jason (Alex Hassell) and Linda (Alexis Louder) have been together in a while. The situation is even more fraught because the wealthy Lightstone family is more toxic than Presidents Island. Grandma Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) is a predatory capitalist with a foul mouth and no time for sentiment. Alva (Edi Patterson) can’t hold her liquor as well as her mother, and her boyfriend Morgan Steele (Cam Gigandet) is only there to try to convince Gertrude to fund his movie idea.
When Santa slips into this expensive snake pit, he is distracted from his gift delivery duties by expensive sherry and a massage chair. He is awakened by gunfire. A criminal mastermind who goes by the name of Scrooge (John Leguizamo) has arrived to steal all the well-stuffed stockings hung from the chimney with care, not knowing that crunk Santa was already there.
Director Tommy Wirkola has made action hay out of fairy tales in the past, with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and a two-fisted Santa Claus is not that far-fetched: The real St. Nicholas was a fourth-century Christian bishop famous for punching out the heretic Arius during the Council of Nicaea. In Harbour, Wirkola has found a twisted kind of muse. Together, they riff on that classic holiday film Die Hard, with Santa crawling through the air ducts instead of John McClane. As Harbour mugs his way through some half-assed, John Wick-style fight choreography, he imbues burnt-out Saint Nick with his signature gruff charm. It’s a real movie star performance, and without it, the whole film would collapse into nonsense.
Conan O’Brien said that the key to great comedy is mixing smart and stupid in just the right ratio. Violent Night’s gross-out slapstick juxtaposed against the trappings of Christmas (Scrooge’s henchmen are named Sugarplum and Gingerbread) achieves a kind of action comedy alchemy. It’s not a holiday classic like Die Hard, but it is a decent temporary remedy for the mandatory holiday cheer.
Violent Night
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