The trailer for this one was excellent. Santa versus the robbers in a kind of ultra-Christmas variant on DIE HARD, itself a perennial Christmas favourite. David Harbour riding high from the success of STRANGER THINGS, and John Leguizamo a reliably entertaining villain. What could go wrong, right? Well, the presence of the writers behind the SONIC THE HEDGEHOG films (!) is the sticking point here, because VIOLENT NIGHT struggles with a puerile script and a tone that bounces back and forth between gory black humour and saccharine schmaltz presented unironically. Seriously, who thought the kid would be a good addition here? It should have been much harder and darker, more like the MOTHER'S DAY remake with Rebecca De Mornay. A shame, as the DEAD SNOW director works his socks off and the action's fun.
Review of Violent Night
