Violent Night successfully mixes mayhem and mythology

Of all the Christmas releases this year — and there are at least 23 of them, I counted—Norwegian blood-spilling gore specialist director Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night is the most delectably subversive. It breaks all the rules of the Christmas spirit and gets blissfully low down and dirty.

So if you are looking for a Silent Night then stay away from Violent Night. And if you found Home Alone cute then, not this, please. But if you are in the mood to get a rush of something more heady than mush this Christmas, stop right here.

Violent Night is a very violent film. Blood and gore spill out liberally. It’s a terror invasion film set in the mansion of a crotchety heiress (the still-voluptuous Beverly D’Angelo) who swears nonstop on the phone while barking orders to her minions and can barely conceal her disdain for her family which has come down for Christmas.

And what a Christmas this is going to be! Think Die Hard. Think Bruce Willis. Imagine if he was a psychotic Santa. As played by David Harbour in his first major lead role, Santa is a drinking, swearing, irreverent son of a witch with nothing but contempt for the Christmas spirit. He delivers gifts to kids as that’s his job. Nothing sentimental about it….

…. Until Santa gets a distress call from a little girl Trudy (the wonderful Lea Brady). She and her family are held captive by a bunch of mercenaries. A very non-Christmassy thing to do, I know.

This is not your regular ‘tis-the-season-to-be-jolly-so-let’s-make-some-lolly kind of film. Violent Night serves up a very curious mix of mayhem and mythology. The swearing combative Santa is a REAL Santa with a sledge…and sledgehammer. He is a mythological figure under normal seasonal circumstances. But he is also a trained combatant who knocks hard against John Leguizamo’s snarky meanness.

This dual life course through the virile veins of this ultra-violent film. It wants to celebrate the family spirit during Christmas. But it also spills buckets of blood on the Christmas tree. It is a fable. But it is also a hostage actioner. The characters are corny in their caustic contempt for the yuletide spirit. The heiress’ son Jason (Alex Hassel) and her daughter Alva (Edi Patterson) are there for Christmas with their wealthy mom only to milk her dry.

No one really likes anyone in this family. They keep hurling nasty barbs at one another. And they use the “F” word liberally, arguing that it’s okay to do since Santa isn’t really listening, ha ha.

But there is also little magical Trudy who is a part of this ‘diss’ functional family. She believes Santa really exists. While energetically demolishing the yuletide myth, Violent Night also reconstructs that same myth. Even as the myth is gunned down mercilessly there are sighing nods to the seasonal fervour. This combination of faith and cynicism through carols and guns is not easy to achieve.

Tommy Wirkola has done it. Violent Night is not a great film. Far from it. And if you are one of those conservative Christmas types, this one is not for you. But if you want to watch the director turn the yuletide spirit on its head and have some grisly fun with the traditional seasonal genre, then this is just the film Santa should drop down your chimney.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.