Review of Violent Night (2022) by Dobian — 22 Jan 2023

A total mess of a movie. Nothing but a hatchet job by hack Hollywood writers stealing from older films. I lost count of the number of movies Violent Night rips off... Bad Santa, Home Alone, Die Hard, Silent Night Deadly Night, The Ref, Christmas Vacation.

The writing and direction is so lazy, they don't even try to disguise the plagiarism, from stepping on nails stuck in glue to stomping on ornaments in bare feet, to mishaps on a ladder. This movie doesn't know what it's trying to be - family comedy, cute caper, schlock horror, feel good movie.

It switches from one to the other in the same scene sometimes. The story's gimmick is that this is indeed the real Santa Claus, except there is nothing "Santa" about him other than the beard and the suit.

He's heavily tattooed and was formerly some kind of Viking warrior. Huh? He doesn't even know how the whole Santa thing works, which implies he sort of fell into the role by accident. But there is never any explanation about this.

The only lore you get is St. Nick on some medieval battlefield with his beloved hammer. The main couple isn't believable at all and the writers give them some manufactured relationship drama that is simply mentioned in a single line so that their daughter has a reason to Christmas wish them back together.

Except they're already together. Who wrote this, high school students? And Beverly D'Angelo is completely wasted. I guess she got a good paycheck. I'm glad I didn't go to the theaters for this train wreck and watched it on Peacock.