If you're working retail right now, there's a strong chance your Christmas cheer has plummeted harder than Hans Gruber, and it can be hard to muster excitement for the latest round of diabetes-inducing seasonal romcoms and earnest calls to live, laugh, love when surrounded by rabid shoppers and tooth rotting carols all day.
Enter 'Violent Night', a movie bringing you all the cheesy seasonal earnestness you can stand with a heaping side of gore. It’s messy, it’s messed up, and it’s weirdly cathartic. Seriously, it’s the first time I’ve enjoyed hearing carols in years. And yet, despite the gore, this is a movie asking some important questions, including my personal favourite: ‘what would happen if Santa used to be a Viking with a Harley Quinn level of devotion to mallets?’
This is, clearly, not a movie that takes itself seriously.
While 'Violent Night' would have been perfectly enjoyable as a random ‘Santa is a serial killer’ scenario, the decision to include some of the more popular seasonal tropes is utterly masterful, if somewhat surreal. I did not go into this movie thinking it would echo back those lovey-dovey tropes I’m notorious for mocking, and maybe it’s the blood spatter and explosions, but I found myself actually enjoying them within the more chaotic context.
I’d gone into this assuming 'Violent Night' was an anti-Christmas movie, but the inclusion of those tropes means it’s actual Christmas fare, just a little more realistic about the existence of end of year burnout and the existential impossibility of a positive Christmas experience. Santa isn’t some perfect action hero leaping into the fray with righteousness in his heart, and there’s something oddly comforting in seeing the hero (anti-hero? Unimpressed and busy guy trying to outrun destiny and failing?) so done with everything but trying to stab his problems away anyway.
There’s a lot to love here, from the way Christmas Magic is less a ‘get out of jail free’ card than a ‘make Santa’s life a teensy bit harder every time’ curse, to the genuine relatability of being trapped in the hell of an awkward yearly reunion. While the storyline itself can be summed up as ‘'Die Hard' if John was Santa and had slightly better self-preservation instincts’, and may not feel particularly innovative in parts, there’s enough quirky madness here to provide a fun, ridiculous escape from reality.
it should go without saying that this is not child friendly fare, and those who dislike an abundance of blood spatter or characters acting outside their typical roles are in for a rough time. But if you’re tired of the same cookie-cutter Christmas movies, or just want to see a bunch of people get murked in increasingly hilarious ways, you’re probably going to love 'Violent Night'.
