Violent Night - Movie Reviews (2024)

What elevates “Violent Night” from a mindless, holiday-themed action film was its ability to balance the violence and the heartwarming emotions.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2024

A mean-spirited film with nothing to redeem.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

It’s brimming with both warmth and cynicism, cementing a Santa perfectly attuned to the times and emblematic of the joy and anguish that pervades this time of year... a new Christmas classic.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2023

Violent Night is one of the biggest surprises of the year, instantly becoming a contemporary Christmas classic! David Harbour expertly embodies a shockingly brutal, savage version of Santa Claus that somehow still delivers lovely messages.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 25, 2023

Violent Night is an instant CHRISTMAS CLASSIC. A bloody, gnarly, & goofy time that brings the laughs, the action, & Especially the Christmas magic! David Harbour is the definitive most realistic Santa Claus you could put into a movie

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

No sane person will consider Violent Night a perennial classic, but Harbour inspires enough ho-ho-hos and cheeky holiday mayhem to warrant a watch.

Full Review | May 26, 2023

If there’s one thing about Harbour that has always sung, it’s the charisma he can generate with just about material and any actor on screen. He’s also a very big man, standing tall and making a dad bod seem more desirable than Zac Efron ever could.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 8, 2023

If I want a bad Santa, I’ll watch Bad Santa. That’s not to say there isn’t some measure of worthy seasonal jeer in Violent Night.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 5, 2023

It’s not a holiday classic like Die Hard, but it is a decent temporary remedy for the mandatory holiday cheer.

Full Review | Jan 27, 2023

"Violent Night" is as-advertised. It’s more vicious than one might expect from this action comedy, but it starts at a high-level of foulness when Santa upchucks on someone and just continues on from there.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 26, 2023

Fun take on Santa Claus but we have to hold Harbour up to Billy Bob standards.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 16, 2023

Excessively violent, laced with a thick vein of jet-black humor, bolstered by a formidable turn from Harbour, and packed to the rafters with hard-hitting scraps, Violent Night knows exactly what it wants to be, but doesn’t really try to be anything else.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 11, 2023

David Harbour owns the screen as the at-first grumpy but still very caring and ultimately badass Mr. Claus.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 6, 2023

“Die Hard,” and Michael Dougherty’s “Krampus,” meets “Bad Santa,” with full shot of Christmas adrenaline.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2023

An excellent Harbour leads the cast, and a terrific Legui-zamo makes for a perfect antagonist.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 28, 2022

It’s heartwarming violence, a very merry massacre, and holly jolly hammer time but it also put me in the Christmas spirit.

Full Review | Dec 28, 2022

Many movies have attempted to replicate the festive insouciant brutality of <i>Die Hard</i>. No movie has come closer to this lofty goal than this dementedly delicious nightmare before Christmas.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 24, 2022

Bad Santa as John McClane may believe it is being a kind of subversive anti-Christmas movie alternative but its best moments involve not violence but our hero rediscovering the joy that the season once provided as its own relief from the world's evils.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 22, 2022

It's a Santa flick where old Saint Nick is a rough and tumble action hero. Imagine Die Hard meets John Wick meets Home Alone. It's a lot of fun and quite over the top and bloody, but in a strange way, a little endearing at times, too.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Dec 21, 2022

Violent Night is an unforgettable new Christmas action classic, perfect for those who want to hate on Die Hard being a holiday classic—now you have one that is undeniable.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Dec 20, 2022