Home Alone meets John Wick in new film Violent Night, a gory home-invasion action movie from director Tommy Wirkola in which jolly old Saint Nick spreads some Christmas carnage by way of seasonal slaying and more festive puns than you can shake a sharpened candy cane at. David Harbour suits up as Santa Claus, a drunk and disillusioned deliverer of presents and, as it turns out, some pretty grisly lessons in morality.

Inebriated on Christmas Eve, happenstance sees him tumble down the chimney of the filthy rich Gertrude Lightstone (Beverly D’Angelo) and her family – including son Jason (Alex Hassell), his estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder), and their daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) – just as they come under siege from a ruthless criminal and self-appointed Scrooge (John Leguizamo) and a team of elite mercenaries.

But while Mr Scrooge and his gaggle of Father Christmas fodder hope to have a very merry time of it by running off with the Lightstone’s $300m fortune, they swiftly discover what it really means to be on Santa’s naughty list once the sledgehammer-wielding sleigh-rider gets into the festive spirit. 

It’s a gruesomely nifty spin on the concept of Xmas excess, where the halls are decked not with boughs of holly but blood and bodies and the sound of bullets and yelps, rather than that of carol singers, fills the night air. And what Wirkola’s film might lack in narrative nuance – the central family drama quickly becomes the least interesting element – it more than makes up for in grisly action set pieces. One Kevin McCallister-inspired sequence involving a ladder, a protruding nail and a bowling ball a particularly gnarly highlight. 

The disgruntled, foul-mouthed Santa is nothing novel, of course, but Harbour, with his gruff charm and natural comedic timing, elevates what might otherwise have been just another lukewarm continuation of that trope into an entertaining riff on peak 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact, Violent Night itself feels like a relic of a bygone era: an enjoyably over-the-top film with very little meaningful to say other than that Santa can kick some serious anus. 

Dir. Tommy Wirkola (15, 101 mins)

Violent Night is out in cinemas from Fri 2 Dec

words GEORGE NASH