The Quill #7: Movie Recs #2

It was Christmas Eve, 2023. My husband Jose, my brother Troy, and I were up late, while everyone else in the house had either gone to bed or was in hiding because they’d had enough of our shenanigans. We decided to put on the Christmas movie that would soon become legend in my household: Violent Night (2022).

David Harbour stars as a hard-drinking, blue-streak-cursing Santa who is fed up with Christmas, his monstrously long naughty list, and milk. He stumbles out of his sleigh and onto the roof of the Lightstone mansion, ready to upend the inevitable plate of cookies someone probably left for him in favor of raiding the family’s fridge for beer. But just as he‘s about to dismiss every Lightstone who ever lived as prime naughty-list material, he hears the buzz of a nearby walkie-talkie. It’s Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady), a dear little girl with a heart of gold, hoping to talk to Santa. Her parents are getting a divorce, and the only gift she wants is his help in putting her family back together.

Not-so-saintly Nick’s icy and over-it heart is warmed by her sweetness, but that warmth soon turns to worry, as a band of mercenaries led by “Mr. Scrooge” (John Leguizamo) barges in, weapons at hand, to relieve the Lightstone matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) of the giant pile of cash she hoards on the estate. Trudy buzzes Santa on her walkie-talkie again, asking him for help before the mercenaries follow through on their threats to stuff them all down the chimney.

Fortunately for Trudy, Santa has a dark, secret past as Nicomund the Red, an ancient Viking with a disturbing proficiency for racking up kills in battle via his trusty war hammer “Skullcrusher.” But he long ago traded Skullcrusher in for a herd of flying reindeer and a sleigh, and he’s gotten a little softer around the middle since his battle-ready days. Can he really save Trudy and her mostly awful family without getting himself killed and ending Christmas as we know it?

What follows is a bloody, R-rated version of Home Alone, where the kills are inventive and the weapons are Christmas-themed. (Jolly old Saint Nicomund sucks a candy cane into a sharp, stabby point, for example, which quickly becomes a sharp, stabby murder weapon.) And when he finally discovers Skullcrusher 2.0 in the Lightstone garage, Christmas Eve gets gloriously gory, but only in a campy, horror-comedy kind of way.

Between some fine acting by the three adult leads, a child actress who is endearing rather than cloying, and a script that’s a lot better than a movie with this ridiculous premise should have, Violent Night delivers plenty of entertaining action and mayhem — and yet, it somehow manages to deliver holiday warm fuzzies, too. Keep your Little Drummer Boy (no one wants a kid going ruh-pa-pum-pum near their head minutes after giving birth, son) and your Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (all of the other reindeer should have been sent to HR immediately for discrimination and creating a hostile work environment. Jerks.). It’s Violent Night that has become an annual staple in my house. It just might need to be a semi-annual staple for Christmas in July, too.

Available to rent on your favorite streaming sites.