A die hard, badass… Santa Claus
Kicking off my Christmas horror tradition, today I’m going to talk about a more recent movie: Violent Night.
The film has many references to “Home Alone”, only that it is much more explicit. That is the reason why I include it in the horror category: At first glance it looks like an action movie, but the scenes of violence are so explicit that only a horror movie would dare so much.
Some fun facts
The director was Tommy Wirkola. In the script we find Pat Casey and Josh Miller. Filming was between January and March 2022 in Winnipeg.
On October 7, 2022, at New York Comic Con, they made the world premiere. Later, on December 2, 2022, Universal Pictures released it in theatres in the United States and Canada.
In an interview after the premiere, David Harbour pitched a sequel (actually a cinematic universe) where Santa counts with the aid of the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy. At the moment of writing theese lines, we still don’t know if the idea will prosper or not.
Reception
The movie received mixed reviews, but met with general approval from the audience. This is my personal appreciation: I knew David Harbor for his role as the sheriff in “Stranger Things” (I had already seen him in “Hellboy” but he was unrecognizable). I loved the character and, as soon as I realized that the Santa Claus in this film was him, it generated a lot of expectations in me.
The actor did not disappoint me: He plays a mundane and rather rude Santa Claus, who has ironically lost his Christmas spirit. Something very convenient for the story, since he is trapped in a mansion, which is being robbed by a gang.
It’s a typical heist plot, only this time, the thugs will have to face Santa Claus. What they don’t know is that Santa Claus was once some kind of Viking warrior, expert in wielding the war hammer.
The plot
As I said before, our Santa Claus is heading to a mansion to drop off his presents. Just then, a gang takes the entire family hostage and demands a certain amount of money, that the family supposedly has in a vault. The band uses Christmas names like Krampus, Scrooge, Gingerbread, Candy cane, Frosty…
When Santa Claus tries to leave the scene, the reindeer flee on their own, leaving him stranded at the mansion. Our hero is initially hesitant to intervene, but the little girl in the family, who still believes in him, gives him a new motivation.
In the midst of the tension due to the presence of the band, family dramas also unfold: an authoritarian and emotionally unavailable grandmother, an aunt with an actor boyfriend who thinks he is a martial arts expert and an influencer-wanna-be teenage cousin.
Betrayal
On top of that, the girl’s father plans to run away from her authoritarian mother, taking all her money with him. Casually, that’s the same money the gang is demanding. So when the gang gains access to the vault, they find it empty. This infuriates them even more.
But our hero isn’t just a badass who knows how to wield a Viking war hammer: He has superpowers that include teleportation through chimneys and pulling all sorts of things out of his magical bag of presents.
The girl does not sit idly by either: she prepares all kinds of traps for the bad boys, in the style of “Home Alone”, but with results a lot more explicit.
Will all of this be enough to defeat evil? You’ll have to watch it to find out.
Here the trailer:
Bibliography
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Night
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