It’s barely October, and yet it’s already that time of year. You know the one: the holiday season.
By which I mean the season of the violent holiday movie, obviously.
The latest in this storied line of cinematic masterpieces is Violent Night, which stars Stranger Things’ David Harbour as a Santa who brings a different sort of festivity to the home of a family being held captive by mercenaries.
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Even Though I Knew the End
Personally, I feel that the very last scene of a trailer–the one the editors save for after the title, the (ideally) punchy little kicker—often says a lot about the movie the trailer is advertising. This one is about reindeer shit.
Take that as you will.
Harbour introduced the movie in April at the industry showcase CinemaCon, and the folks at ComicBook.com were kind enough to transcribe his remarks. (Note: I’ve restored the word “fucking” to its full and relevant glory here; it appears as “f-cking” in the original transcription.)
“Escape is great. I’m a big fan. But what about movies that make you sweat? Don’t you love action movies? Who doesn’t love a great action movie, right? How about Christmas movies? So, what about a movie that’s a great action movie, and the greatest Christmas movie in one? Die Hard. Fucking Die Hard. Now what if…wait a minute, wait a minute. What if kick ass director Tommy Wirkola and the badass producers at 87North, you know, the maniacs who did Atomic Blonde and John Wick and Nobody and Hobbs and Shaw, were behind it all? And, wait a minute, what if I started in it as fucking Santa Claus? Oh, do I swing a mother fucking hammer? Yes. What you’re about to see is not an actual trailer, I don’t think, but you better not cry to somebody. You better not pout. I’m telling you why. Because Santa Claus is coming to town. Let’s fucking go “
Violent Night comes from writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller, who are largely responsible for the scripts for the two recent Sonic the Hedgehog movies, and director Tommy Wirkola (who brought us zombie Nazis in Dead Snow). The cast includes John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo, and Cam Gigandet.
You can go hang out with this bad Santa in theaters on December 2nd.
