Violent Night

For this year’s cinematic holiday cocktail, blend three parts Die Hard with two parts Bad Santa, one part Home Alone, and a dash of The Northman.

The result? The hilarious and action-packed Violent Night — an “as advertised” romp from director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) that mixes genre tropes to refreshingly comedic and grisly ends.

The set-up is a simple yet effective one. The obscenely wealthy Lightstone clan gathers at the family compound on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, functioning alcoholic Santa Claus (David Harbour, the ideal man for the job) goes about his rounds as altered as possible, dropping zingers left and right until he lands at the highly-protected mansion.

There, he just so happens to be helping himself to homemade cookies and the well-curated bar when a team of seasonally-nicknamed criminals led by John Leguizamo’s Scrooge infiltrate the estate’s elite security and St. Nick’s team of reindeer flee the scene, leaving him stranded.

Santa’s ensuing escapades largely resemble those of John McClane at Nakatomi Plaza, albeit rooted in the man’s prior life as a blood-thirsty viking and enhanced by young Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady, The Umbrella Academy) and her recent viewing of a certain Macaulay Culkin classic.

Enchanting as their audience-winking, carnage-rich scenes are, extended sequences with Scrooge and his cronies holding the other Lightstones captive drag by comparison and make viewers wonder when the focus will return to this charming tag-team.

Such wonkiness is to be expected from the cursed Sonic the Hedgehog writing duo of Pat Casey and Josh Miller, but the sluggish detours don’t completely kill the winning vibe, and Violent Night soon returns to its winning ways.

In turn, the final stretch puts a bow on a nearly ideal “B” movie, and solidifies it as a new modern holiday staple — at least for those who still believe.

Grade: B. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Universal Pictures)