| Finn Odum |
Violent Night plays at the Trylon Cinema from Wednesday, December 25th through Thursday, December 26th. Visit trylon.org for tickets and more information.
Eons ago (in 2019), when I was but a spritely, youthful child (20 and in college), I wrote about the 1984 controversial Claus classic Silent Night, Deadly Night. Back in the days of zinger conclusions and quippy comments on Santa Claus’s sanctity, I had dreams. Aspirations. I wanted to be somebody—a horror movie essayist, specifically. You know, what every little “girl” dreamed of being. I wanted to tackle the complexity of Satanizing Santa, the taut and confusing history of the scariest holiday folktale this side of the Easter Bunny.
Looking back, I’ve never wanted to revise an essay more. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. There’s no meat there. No real substance. Oh, what, Santa’s scary? Man who breaks into your home is EVIL? It’s not original.
What’s the deal with originality, anyway?
Take Santa, for example; we’ve reinvented him so often that his origins are either “vaguely European” or “Coca-Cola.” There are so many iterations of Jolly Ole’ Saint Nick that these days, the many evil Clauses lose their shock value.
Before I wax poetic further, what do we know about the real Santa? St. Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in what is now Turkey. According to legend,1 he saved three young women from being sold into slavery by providing them with dowry funds. His death date, December 6th, later became a commemoration of his saintly duties.2 His death was celebrated for centuries and returned to cultural prominence in 1773 New York, where Dutch families celebrated a figure they called Sinter Klaas. As his prominence grew he was often shown wearing a blue hat and yellow stockings, two colors that are notably absent from his modern depictions.
Image sourced from CampaignLive
Like a Pokémon, Santa evolved. A political cartoon in 1881 introduced the iconic red and white suit (as well as his wife). The Claus cultural revolution of the 1900s included an appearance in Miracle on 34th Street, several iconic carols, and of course, Coca-Cola. He first appeared in a 1931 Coke ad, where according to the Coca-Cola FAQ, “Those paintings established Santa as a warm, happy character with human features, including rosy cheeks, a white beard, twinkling eyes and laughter lines.”
Built on folklore, family tradition, and fizzy beverages, Santa became a symbol of sanctity and snow. And as with many things we consider “pure,” the iconic character lent itself to perversion. With nice there must be naughty, and with Saint Nick’s, well, saintliness, we must have an evil counterpart.
As far as I can tell, the first evil Clauses arrived in 1980’s Christmas Evil and To All a Good Night, which are both, like, not good. Nor are they as iconic as the killer Chapman Clauses of Silent Night, Deadly Night parts one and two; the first film was censored upon release and the second is so utterly terrible that I forced about 25 of my closest friends to watch it for my birthday. Then there’s one of my favorite Trylon first watches, the (gasp!) French Dial Code Santa Claus.4 Some may describe it as an unhinged Home Alone; I call it one of the best bonkers horror movies I’ve forced my mother to watch with me. We can’t forget the many modern maniacs, either. The twenty-first century brought on WWEvil Santa (Santa’s Slay, 2005), unholy Finnish hell beast Santa (Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, 2010), and Jared Leto’s Joker Santa (Once Upon a Time at Christmas, 2017).
As Hugh Grant’s character in the 2024 film Heretic might argue, it’s all iterations. Iterations of an iteration of an iteration.
Two years ago, my pastor father texted me about a movie he called “Berzerker Santa.” I assumed this was one of those iterations—another killer “Santa” who wasn’t really Santa, another guy in a bad outfit, another 90 minutes of uninspired Christmas puns. What else could I expect from the guys who wrote Sonic the Hedgehog?4
I, as it happens, am eating my words.
Violent Night is neither a horror movie nor an evil Santa feature. The action comedy follows Santa (David Harbour, of Stranger Things) as he fights holiday-themed thieves to protect a young girl named Trudy (Leah Brady, of no Wikipedia page). It iterates a version of Santa that is both jolly and ready to go for the jugular. In a past life, Habour’s hero was Nikamund the Red, a violent Viking warrior. Not particularly nice, just a guy who did a lotta’ killin’. He utilizes these skills to sleigh (get it?) his opponents and save Trudy’s family.
Before the bloodshed, Harbour’s Sinter Klaas is a spitting image of the Coca-Cola variant, down to the circular spectacles. Arguably not an innovation—most violent Santas don’t deviate from the uniform. Harbour, however, brings a physicality to his portrayal that the killer Clauses don’t; the horror predecessors are often younger men in obvious costumes, or cartoonish and over the top. It’s a more convincing iteration than the 2024 release Red One, which features J.K Simmons as a jacked Santa. Harbour’s presence and costuming, no matter how worn out, are easily distinguishable as “Santa Claus.” Lost the glasses? Sure. Covered in blood? Of course. He’s still Santa.
This is critical—as the one thing my 2019 essay about Silent Night, Deadly Night did right is establish that Santa can only be evil if he isn’t Santa. When you iterate in an attempt to pervert, there will always be something missing. In most, if not the majority of killer Santa movies, the villain is a man taking on the mantle Claus. He dons the garb to ruin the holiday for others. In the one case where there’s a true killer Sinter, the aforementioned Santa’s Slay, his origins are changed drastically. Played by professional wrestler Bill Goldberg, Santa is a demon who was tricked into do-gooding for a millennium. Like Violent Night, Santa’s Slay must modify its origin story to pull off Christmas violence, but it chooses to put a pro-wrestler in the tackiest Santa outfit you’ve ever seen.
Bill Goldberg as Santa in Santa’s Slay (2005)
I think this is all a missed opportunity. When you try to reinvent the original you miss the magic of what made it special; the Santa I’ve established in this essay began as a Saint. Where’s the movie where that Santa becomes a cynic? A Violent Nihilist? Alternatively, there’s an opportunity to write Santa as a jaded but still saintly character. One would assume that after all those years of serving the naughty, Santa would get tired. Perhaps that’s why Harbour’s performance is so enticing; his origin is rooted in bloodshed, but in his next life, he brings happiness to the world. It’s the duality of the Santa folklore. A folk hero who, according to all legends, can see you when you’re sleeping and knows all the awful things you’ve done.
At the end of the day, I have two things I want you to come away with: one, the scariest Santa is the capitalist Santa; and two, sometimes it’s okay to stop reinventing the wheel. I set out to write a better piece than my 2019 essay. Instead, I spent too much time at my local brewery deep-diving on History.com, and not enough thinking about the point of the iteration. Is it to be a better writer with a stronger conclusion? Or is it to be smarter, wordier, and significantly Santa punnier?
Violent Night is an iteration—but it works by tweaking some of its origins and owning others. It accomplishes the violence that the horror Santas wanted but keeps the image of its main character intact. Which, perhaps, is a scarier idea. Good people can do violent things. Origins and iterations be damned; at the end of the day, we’re all a little naughty and a little nice.
You can guess which one I’m more of. Wishing all the merry mayhem from mine to yours,
Santa Finn
Footnotes
1 It’s really according to History.com.
2 If you’re in the know you’ve celebrated the death of Santa. In many parts of the world, it’s known as Saint Nick’s Day.
3 I quite publicly hate the French (which is a joke, mostly, as one of my favorite thriller directors is Henri-Georges Clouzot).
4 If you’re writers Pat Casey or Josh Miller, I stand by that. It’s not a bad thing! You have a brand!
Edited by Olga Tchepikova-Treon