Violent Night Movierulz: Santa Claus is better not to make him angry. A violent and silent night is an incorrect and entertaining Christmas cinema, with David Harbor in theaters from 1 December 2022. There’s an aspect of our relationship with Santa that we’ve always taken for granted and maybe it’s time to make amends. 

Violent Night will take care of it to remind us, as well as fill in the blanks and do justice to certain dark pages in the life of a character we thought we knew everything about. Instead, it turns out that we didn’t know a damn thing, but after all, that’s what a good story is for. Alcohol, laughter, and smashed bodies. If that’s the formula, long live the new Christmas spirit.

To be released in Italian theaters on December 1, 2022, for Universal Pictures Italia, directed by Tommy Wirkola and starring, among others, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo, Alex Hassell, Leah Brady, and above all, in the part of the iconic, bearded and drunk (just a little) protagonist, by the universally loved David Harbor (Stranger Things).

Violent Night: Santa Claus is coming to town, but first make sure you’re on the good list

David Harbour, dressed as Santa Claus, between sips, defends a family of dysfunctional crackpots from the onslaught of a team of mercenaries led by John Leguizamo, the number one member of the Charles Dickens fan club, who don’t just steal the spirit of Christmas but are, shall we say, a little more prosaic. 

If it is true that the strength of a film can also be glimpsed in the fact of being able to isolate its spirit in a few eloquent lines, Violent Night, stretched the Italian title but it was difficult to do better considering the bloody perfection of the original (Violent Night ), has won its match with the synopsis. 

The premise, the atmosphere, the type of humor, the aesthetics, and the philosophy of violence, all combine to express an elemental and recognizable force. The film plays its game on the crest of a paradoxical balance: it attacks one convention after another (on Christmas, on the right way to tell it), relying on what has already been seen and already heard.

At the bottom of the story told in Violent Night there is a procession of broken hearts. The first is that of Santa Claus (David Harbour). It exists, even if much of the world has stopped believing in it. He is tired, slightly overweight, has several reindeer problems (professional standards under the rug), is depressed, and an alcoholic. 

He seems to be the last person in the world to be able to deal with the Lightstone family Christmas problem, the disconnected matriarchy led by the very evil and very cynical Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo) and completed by the knife relatives Jason (Alex Hassell) and Alva (Edi Patterson), 

blood brothers but it ends there, the daughter-in-law Linda (Alexis Louder), the very stupid action star son-in-law Morgan (Cam Gigandet) and the grandchildren, above all the very sweet Trudy (Leah Brady). Trudy is a spectacular Christmas lifeline for the Lightstone’s. Another is the murderous rampage of Santa Claus.

There is one more reason to end up on the good list. Violent Night builds its house of cards by crossing three curious coincidences. Coincidence number one: Santa delivers the presents to the Lightstone’s around the time Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo) and his mercenaries storm the mansion, aiming for the money hidden in the safe and not too keen on leaving witnesses. 

Coincidence number two: there is no cynicism that holds in the face of little Trudy’s innate goodness and propensity for festive / party-loving warmth, who by the way is smart enough to be able to get in touch with Santa Claus and drive his mission of blood, in the name of love and family harmony, it is clear. 

Coincidence number three, decisive and in its own way providential: Santa Claus, on the verge of psychic consumption and half a whiskey away from oblivion, dusts off for the occasion a degree of homicidal perfection that not even an internship in the Russian mafia. Holy by name, not always, fortunately, in fact.

There are many ways to shoot a Christmas story, Violent Night knows this and is built by reworking numerous influences

We’ve always taken Santa Claus for granted. Assuming, we don’t know why, he would have been there for us regardless, to help us pick up the pieces of our tattered ego, covering up emotional flaws with a consumerist sprinkle and see you next time. We’ve always asked, never given and that’s the problem. 

Santa Claus is tired because the world rightfully belongs to spoiled and conformist children because no one bothers to ask him how things are going. Violent Night tries to recover the authentic spirit of Christmas by looking for it in the most unexpected places and adopting the most reckless tone: bloodbath and incorrect humor, always within the limits of the package. 

Aim at the heart of the characters to discover them all, from first to last, regardless of age-census-sex-psychology, bad, sad, abandoned children. And looking for a breath of human warmth. The magic of Christmas is a mystery born from the combination of two elements, the most important of which is the readiness of a young heart to believe, to believe in spite of everything.

The other is Santa’s credibility and charisma. Here is David Harbor testing his paternal but not patriarchal charisma; flawed, gruff, aggressive, and damn adorable. Much of the laughter in the film comes from the cumbersome physicality and fake alcoholic cynicism of the actor, the Santa Claus we deserve despite everything. 

The film cleverly uses every variant of the Christmas iconography, the reindeer, the dress, the exclamations, the music, the gift card, everything, as long as it serves the (dramatic) purpose of a very violent and exaggerated action, so over the top that it be harmless. 

Violent Night starts quickly, gets lost halfway, fills the dead time with a backstory about Santa Claus that is frankly superfluous even if extremely short, constantly pursues a pop irreverence and returns at the end with its welcoming and warm message. Reassuring, because his is an original facade, everything is already done and already seen.

Despite everything, despite the substantial paralysis of ideas of an entertainment industry modeled on the alienating rhythms of the assembly line, serial production, and the cult of replication, Tommy Wirkola directs a film proud of having nothing to add to the originals, cinematographic and beyond, looted to build the story and emotion. 

Everything already has a home elsewhere: the irreverence, the humor, the action, the references slammed into the viewer’s face without too much taste for subtleties. And so Santa Claus seems to be shooting his personal remake of Crystal Trap (Die Hard), Trudy reworks a cinephile and extremely voracious passion for Home Alone, while everyone dances to the notes of a clearly Dickensian Christmas carol in the interval between shooting and another. 

A reworking of ideas and cues from the past, Violent Night participates in a certain creative laziness typical of recent American cinema, but it does so without hiding and, above all, having fun. Will it be enough for a full critical redemption? Who knows, for now, it’s worth entrusting yourself to the mystery of the magic of Christmas.