'Violent Night' was the Christmas movie I needed this year

The holidays are an accurate indicator of how the rest of my year has been. There are forced smiles in the photos from my first Christmas as a married woman. The year my dog Roscoe died, everyone got socks and liquor because that was all I had the capacity for buying (and it turned out to be a pretty popular set for my loved ones). I made eggnog and bought my dogs matching pajamas for Christmas 2020 because we were going to be, in the words of Clark W. Griswold, “the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse” because that year wrecked everyone.

This year, there have been days in which I felt all holly and jolly and full of good cheer. Once I dragged myself out of the comfort of my fleece blanket cocoon, I’ve had good times at friends’ holiday parties. My heart has fluttered when I find the perfect gift for someone. And I giggled with glee when I saw the good times my dogs had at their doggie daycare’s Christmas celebration. 

These moments haven’t been enough to sustain almost two months of holiday spirit. First of all, the Christmas season has become too long. For the love of Kris Kringle, can we PLEASE wait until after Thanksgiving to start being pressured into preparing for Christmas? The way my ADHD is set up, I can only handle fretting about one holiday at a time. And all the good decor and whatnot is picked over by Dec. 1, which means my house is one of the dark ones on the block and I look like a certified Grinch. Companies assault my inbox daily with deals that aren’t even dealing enough for my budget. Many of the new holiday movies on streaming services aren’t giving me the warm fuzzies like their analog predecessors. And it’s not like world news and events stop just because there’s a golden retriever in a Santa hat on the calendar this month. My spirit is WEARY.

But a few days ago, a burly Santa with a man bun shook some Christmas spirit into my soul.

A couple of days ago, I watched Violent Night, an absolute cinematic thrill ride that serves up camp on a cookie platter. The stakes are high, and so is the body count. 

A brief summary: On a Christmas Eve, a beleaguered Santa (David Harbour) stops by the compound of a super-rich family (Beverly D’Angelo plays the matriarch) who are in the middle of a high-stakes robbery run by a guy using the codename Scrooge (John Leguizamo). Santa has seen some things, and he calls upon his violent past to save the family and in the process, find his Christmas spirit.

Bodies start dropping in the first act. Christmastime favorites become deadly weapons: nutcrackers become bone crushers; a lighted star from the top of a tree impales and then electrocutes a bad guy; a big candy cane that’s been sucked to a point serves as an efficient shiv. Imagine Home Alone and Die Hard had a rated R baby (there’s even a Home Alone-inspired montage that takes out the bad guys with bloody gusto).

Beneath the blood and automatic weapons, there is a heart that keeps the movie together. The movie opens with Santa in a British pub, trying to get lit before his Christmas Eve run. He laments that kids don’t really appreciate Christmas anymore – all they want is video games and money. As he makes his deliveries, he opts for alcohol instead of milk and becomes increasingly haphazard as he drops off presents next to piles of Amazon boxes. David Harbour’s Santa has lost faith in the power of Christmas magic to bring out the good in folks, and he’s dimmed his own light in response. He’s depressed, angry and frustrated with what the world has become.

Hard same, Santa.

It takes Trudy (Leah Brady), the youngest child in the family, to reignite compassion in Santa. He’s on his way out of what appears to be an increasingly dire home invasion when he hears Trudy on a radio. She still believes in him, and she needs his help. Santa (along with unexplainable Christmas magic, his previous life as a Viking warrior, and a sledgehammer) is the only person that can save this family.

I don’t want to give away the ending, because Y’ALL NEED TO WATCH THIS IMMEDIATELY. But as the film progresses, Santa transforms. He starts to empathize with the bad guys, even though they’re on the naughty list (unfortunately for them, Santa still has to take them out). Trudy’s continued faith in him is the kindling that finally lights a fire under Santa’s behind. He begins to believe in himself again, and his magic returns. And maybe Santa begins to believe in us a little more, too.

The real world, like Violent Night, is a violent place where hurt people hurt people. A lot of us are so deep in the muck that there’s no room to grow. And for those of us with the privilege of being able to embark on a healing journey, there is a feeling of helplessness when we think about all the people who can’t or won’t come with us.

But Violent Night also showed me how important it is to find instances of human kindness that still exist in the world. Santa could’ve kept flying around the world being surly and flinging gifts under the tree, but a little girl’s plea for help (along with her tasty homemade cookies) was enough to make him do the right thing and save this mostly awful family. Santa might not be able to change capitalism’s impact on modern childhood, but he can save this one family. And that’s enough.

I can acknowledge, like Fiona Apple at the 1997 VMAs, that this world is bullshit. But I can also find and give little joys. I can appreciate the folks on my block who had the foresight to decorate their houses and light my way home on dark winter evenings. I can be thankful that I have enough money to buy some of these so-called “deals” in my inbox. And these new Christmas movies might not be classics, but they provide 90 minutes of needed levity.

So I’m going to be grateful and spread some joy this holiday season. And maybe watch Violent Night again. David Harbour in a rugged Santa suit twirling a sledgehammer in the light of an abandoned shed? For that, I am thankful.

Merry, merry, y’all.