'Wirkola's 'Violent Night' stars David Harbour from 'Stranger Things' as a puking, sledgehammer-swinging Santa on a righteous killing spree,' writes Tribune critic Michael Phillips.
Santa runs afoul of a murderous hostage and heist scenario masterminded by"Mr. Scrooge" in"Violent Night."
Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola’s 2009 festivus of gore imagines the story of medical students on a skiing holiday sharing the slopes with a horde of Nazi zombies. Lively, insanely gory stuff, it’s very much “in the wild-eyed spirit of Peter Jackson’s ‘Dead Alive’ and Sam Raimi’s ‘Evil Dead 2,’” Box office predictions are pretty silly these days since so many good movies tank in theaters except for the top guns and black panthers and the occasional Elvis biopic. Branding! People are brand-loyal. “Violent Night” isn’t part of a franchise — yet — but Santa is a primo brand. “Die Hard” meets ”Home Alone” meets ”Bad Santa”-but-badder. I don’t see how it can lose, especially given its low-ish production budget coupled with a high-ish Universal Pictures marketing budget. It’s not very good.
The hostage situation leads to a huge body count even before Santa shows up to save 7-year-old Trudy , reunite her estranged parents and revive his mojo. Some of the violence is amusingly excessive: Stabbing one assailant in the eye with a pointy Christmas tree star, Santa then takes the trouble to plug in the attached electrical cord which causes the man’s head to burst into flames.
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