David Harbour stars as a vicious Santa in the trailer for Violent Night. Harbour rose to fame with his role as Sheriff Hopper in Netflix sci-fi hit Stranger Things, before going on to star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Russian super-soldier Red Guardian. Harbour will star as Red Guardian once again in the upcoming MCU release Thunderbolts, which will perhaps set the stage for a larger role for the character within the franchise. Outside the MCU, Harbour has a modest slate of upcoming projects, including Neill Blomkamp's Gran Turismo and dark holiday thriller Violent Night.
Produced by John Wick director David Leitch and helmed by Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters director Tommy Wirkola, Violent Night will feature John Leguizamo, Beverly D'Angelo, Edi Patterson, Cam Gigandet, André Eriksen, Alex Haskell, and Alexis Louder alongside Harbour. The film follows Santa on a violent quest for revenge against a group of mercenaries who threaten Christmas by invading a wealthy family's home and taking them hostage. The marketing and poster released for Violent Night have promised a bloody take on the holiday hero as well as being packed with seasonal puns, promising a wicked jingle bell romp.
Universal Pictures has released a trailer for the upcoming film showing a better look at Harbour's iteration of the twisted holiday character. The trailer leans even more fully into the amusing holiday references that surround the actor's action hero iteration of Santa, as well as promising the impressive action viewers have come to expect from production company 87North. See the full video above.
Harbour Won't Be The First Killer Santa
Violent Night continues a tradition of twisted holiday movies in the vein of 2015's Krampus and 2019's Black Christmas. In terms of killer Santa movies specifically, the infamous cult classic Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise, which started in 1984 and spawned five sequels, follows a serial killer who dresses as the holiday staple, as does 1980's To All A Good Night and 2012's Silent Night. 2005 film Santa's Slay makes the mythical Santa himself the killer, and Violent Night works in a similar vein. However, while Santa's Slay makes Santa a demonic entity, Harbour's version of a killer Santa seen in the trailer takes the form of an anti-hero, enacting revenge in his own twisted way. Following Harbour's comparison of the upcoming holiday thriller to Die Hard, it's now clear that his new take on Santa will see Saint Nick as a more sadistic John McClane.
With Harbour's turn as the MCU's Red Guardian, the actor has proven his prowess as an action hero. Since the Russian super-soldier he portrays walks the line between badass and wacky, it makes sense that his Violent Night 'hero' would follow that lead, combining impressive action sequences with dark holiday humor. As one of the few end-of-year releases not attached to a major franchise, Violent Night could be facing an uphill battle upon its release but Harbour's involvement, the high-quality action production, and the film's bizarre premise are likely to fill seats on December 2.
Source: Universal Pictures