[Source: CBR]

Violent Night is definitely one of the kookiest yet most enjoyable films of the year, detailing a sordid Christmas Eve for a weary, disenchanted Santa Claus.

Played by David Harbour, Santa is just going through the motions, delivering gifts and berating mankind for how selfish they’ve gotten.

After being abandoned by his reindeer, Santa is left to fend for himself when thugs take over a mansion. They’re holding the Lightstones hostage, intent on cracking the wealthy family’s safe and taking their $300 million stolen from illegal government war contracts. Luckily, Santa is buoyed by young Trudy, whom he can tell is a good soul, reigniting his hope in humanity. This leads to a bloody finale where the numbers game gets to Santa, pushing him beyond his limit.

Using Trudy’s help via a walkie-talkie, Santa lays a trap a la Home Alone, luring most of the soldiers to a cabin. There, he finds a hammer and continues his assault, remembering his past as a Viking warrior who got imbued with a mysterious power to spread cheer around the world and atone. He maims, crushes and slices up most of the goons, but he’s running out of time.

The twisted leader, Scrooge, takes the family to the giant manger outside, where it’s revealed Trudy’s dad, Jason, hid the money, intending to steal it himself and escape with his child and estranged wife, Linda. Thankfully, they’re able to overpower some of the villains, killing them to show how the gory night has brought the killers out in them.

Scrooge eventually makes off with the family matriarch, Gertrude, on a jet ski, as well as some bags of cash. Little does Santa know when he pursues them, he’s being baited. Scrooge ends up battering him, hating how his own childhood was ruined when he killed his father on Christmas night and turned to a life of crime.

Scrooge wants the Yuletide spirit dead, so he wounds Santa mercilessly. However, as they scrap outside in the snowy woods, Santa uses his teleportation power to drag him and Scrooge up a chimney. This roasts and skewers Scrooge’s body, leaving Santa with a very graphic scene: holding Scrooge’s remains, akin to a Mortal Kombat Fatality.

The final moments unravel a couple of key twists as Thorpe — the military head who betrayed Gertrude and partnered with Scrooge — shoots Santa a couple of times. Luckily, Gertrude is able to secure a gun and shoot Thorpe in the head, but Santa is left bleeding out. His magic has run out, and despite the family burning cash to keep him warm — a mark of how they’re not selfish anymore — he dies.

Fortunately for Santa, Trudy reminds him how much she loves and believes in him. The rest of the family profess how they believe in Santa as well, causing his magic to power back up. Santa is resurrected, bids everyone goodbye, and when his reindeer return with a love note from Mrs. Claus, he resumes his mission of sharing gifts to brighten the world again.

To see how Trudy and Santa save each other, Violent Night is in theaters now.