Violent Night (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

Box Office: 76.6 million USD

My Rating: 2.5/10

Description: Jason (Alex Hassell) and his estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder) take their daughter Trudy (Edi Patterson) to a Christmas family gathering at Jason's mother Gertrude's (Beverly D'Angelo) mansion. Things aren't going well, but then things take a turn for the worse when a group of mercenaries led by a man who calls himself Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo) kill the house staff and take the family hostage. With no one left who can save them, Trudy ends up turning to, and getting a little help from, Santa Claus.

My Thoughts: It's Die Hard meets The Christmas Chronicles... meets a dumpster fire... meets a train wreck. Obviously they were trying to do Die Hard with Santa Claus but weren't entirely sure how to go about that. There some parts that are so bizarre that it's impossible to figure out if the filmmakers were trying to be ironic or if they actually thought it would make for a great Christmas action movie. The gratuitous swearing and weirdest death scenes you've ever seen will leave you thinking, "What the actual hell did I just watch?" I really liked John Leguizamo in other movies, but he was a terrible casting choice for this one because he's far too gentle to play a villain. Possibly the worst part is when his character angrily explains why he hates Christmas so much (I think he accidently killed his grandpa? I was barely paying attention). Note to all aspiring writers: villain monologues can be great, but never, ever give them a monologue explaining the sympathetic reasons for their evilness (e.g. "My cat died when I was a child so now I want to steal Christmas."). Also, there's a flashback at one point where Santa (David Harbour) remembers being an ancient warrior, and even has the tattoos to prove it, but it's never brought up again. We don't get a backstory or even any explanation. Getting back to the gratuitous swearing mentioned earlier, you've probably heard that when people cuss excessively, it makes them sound less intelligent. The same is true here; if there's too much cussing in a movie, it makes it seem like the writers had no idea what to do so they just added one million fucks as if they were trying to reach the word count in an essay. We've all seen stupid Christmas movies, but this is a whole new kind of stupid Christmas movie. But if you want to dedicate two hours of your life to watching a film drowning in gore, four-letter words and gross-out jokes, by all means go for it.

Best Line: "Santa, I'm going to rip your fucking balls off."