Film / Violent Night

To hell with "all is calm."

"Time for some season's beatings."

— Santa Claus

Violent Night is a 2022 Christmas Black Comedy action fantasy film directed by Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters), written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller (the Sonic the Hedgehog movies), and produced by David Leitch. It stars David Harbour, John Leguizamo, and Beverly D'Angelo.

The film follows Santa Claus who, after thousands of years delivering toys on Christmas, has become cynical towards the materialistic culture of the modern world and begins to consider retirement. However, while on what would be his last Christmas Eve run, he finds himself delivering to the estate of the wealthy Lightstone family, just as they are besieged by violent mercenaries intent on breaking into a basement vault containing millions of dollars. Now, with the life of Trudy, the youngest of the family and a child on the nice list, at risk, Santa must show these villains that he's definitely real and that he isn't exactly the jolly old soul everyone thinks he is… and in the process, he might just rediscover his own Christmas spirit.

The film released on December 2, 2022. A sequel is in early development.

Previews: Trailer, Clip 1, Clip 2

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Violent Night includes the following examples:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Being a Rich Bitch, it's made plain to see that Gertrude can be a rather aloof and domineering presence in her family's lives. Her daughter, grandson and son-in-law will bend over backwards to try (and fail) to win her favor, while her favorite son Jason openly resents her for lording her wealth and power over the rest of them. It's stated that his part in the family business strained his marriage with his wife and he orchestrates the theft of her vault of blood-money as part of his resignation from her business and the family. Ironically, all this does is make her respect him more, as it's exactly what she would have done.
  • Gertrude mentions that her own father was a misogynist, forcing her to seize control of the family fortune by force. In one deleted scene, she admits to Jason that her parents were shitty as well.
• Accidental Murder: Mr. Scrooge recounts how in his childhood he broke into a neighbor's house in order to steal their Christmas presents only to accidentally scare the neighbor's grandfather, who fell down the stairs and broke his neck. Possibly averted though as only moments later he makes the comment that maybe he did push the old man (he honestly can't remember), showing he's an Unreliable Expositor.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Instead of being an overweight and old man, Santa is a tall and muscular senior citizen played by David Harbour.
• An Aesop: Anybody, no matter how seemingly horrible, can change and be a better person, even a Big, Screwed-Up Family of materialistic gold diggers who would normally all die at the end of the typical Hollywood film, and even somebody like the bloodthirsty Viking warrior Nicomund became the kind and loving Santa Claus. However, redemption is possible only if you are willing to act on your inner humanity and goodness. A tragic backstory alone is not enough to save you if you take no shame in your mistakes, and take no efforts to make amends for them as the Big Bad Scrooge finds out the hard way.
• The Ageless: Santa has been around for a millennium. It's shown that he has visibly aged, but he's still far older than any natural human lifespan.
• Agent Scully: Mr. Scrooge constantly scoffs at the idea he could be fighting the one and only Santa Claus. While he has a point that simply knowing their first names isn't a big deal nor is knowing Bjørn/Gingerbread wanted a bike as a kid, citing that just about every kid wants a bike for Christmas at some point in their life, he also insists Santa's Bag of Holding is just some kind of "trick bag" even after Bjorn pulls out several times as many presents as could fit inside it.
• Agony of the Feet: Done in a very direct Shout-Out to Home Alone with broken ornaments scattered on the floor.
• The Alcoholic: Santa is introduced downing beer at a pub in Bristol, enough to make him puke over the side of his sleigh moments later. He swipes a six-pack off a sleeping dad during his Christmas Eve stops (though said dad is clearly neglectful of his young daughter so he deserves it), and helps himself to some very rare liquor in the Lightstone house. Much of this comes from his bitter disillusionment with the holiday.
• Anachronism Stew: Santa as a Viking warrior wields a clearly modern sledgehammer as if it were a warhammer. Even ignoring that the design wouldn't exist for centuries and that, even had it existed, it would make for a terrible weapon, warhammers in general weren't a thing until the Late Medieval era with the advent of common plate armor.
• And This Is for...: Done in a Punctuated Pounding on Krampus. The fatal one is Alva saying "This is for Morgan. He was dumb, but he was hot!"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Scrooge gets a look at his name on the naughty list. Among the things listed are "greedy," "killed best friend," "hates Christmas," "broke his mother's heart," and "income tax fraud." Several of his henchmen also have this as their naughty deeds range from murder and war crimes to some kind of fraud mixed in with "rude to waitress" and "microwaved fish in the break room".
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Gertrude asks Scrooge if he has any idea who he's dealing with, and he sarcastically replies that he spent months planning this heist without knowing who he was robbing.
• Asshole Victim: Morgan Steele is gunned down by the traitorous extraction team after escaping the manor, but seeing how he shamelessly abandoned his own wife and stepson to save himself, you won't be feeling sorry for him.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: The story is set on Christmas Eve, with Santa doing the ass-kicking.
• Bad Santa: Played With, as Santa drinks a lot and can be very violent in dealing with the "naughty" mercenaries, even turning around to enjoy the sight of one blowing up. It's also revealed that he used to be a bloodthirsty viking berserker in the distant past. However, he isn't the villain and is doing it all to aid one little girl on his Nice List.
• Badass Family: The Lightstones develop into one over the course of the night, with pretty much everyone (even Trudy) scoring kills on the mercenaries.
• Badass Longcoat: Mr Scrooge wears a quite nice-looking shearling one.
• Badass Santa: The premise of the film: Santa is the John McClane in a Die Hard-esque hostage situation.
• Bag of Holding: Santa uses his sack in self defense — one of the mercenaries attempts to stab him, he holds up the open sack, the mercenary's arm disappears into the bag in a cloud of golden dust, and it comes out with the knife having stabbed a present. At other points, Santa is able to use the bag to pull out "weapons" in the form of certain toys, such as a golf club, although since he can only pull out requested toys he can't use it to provide himself with more appropriate weapons (at one point he laments that nobody seems to want baseball bats anymore).
• Bait-and-Switch: After capturing Santa, Scrooge, Gingerbread, and Candy Cane are shocked when it starts snowing indoors and wonder if Santa's doing it. Then it's revealed that Trudy is pouring ground up styrofoam into the vents from the attic.
• Berserk Button: Trying to harm an innocent child in Santa's presence will drastically lower your life expectancy.
• Big Bad: Mr. Scrooge, the leader of the thieves. He even has a backstory that has led him to despise Christmas, leading to more animosity between him and Santa.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Trudy is about to be shot by Candy Cane when Santa shows up to save her.
  • Later, Gertrude shoots Commander Thorp just as he's about to kill Santa.
• Big Fancy House: The Lightstone compound is stated to be one of the most secure private residences in the country, with spacious grounds and multiple chimneys.
• Big Sister Bully: According to Santa, Candy Cane force fed her younger brother worms at least once.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The central conflict is between Mr. Scrooge's utterly ruthless, murderous mercenaries, and a combination of the selfish, greedy Lightstone family and a boorish, disillusioned Santa Claus. Trudy acts as the White Sheep.
• Black Box: Despite using it for centuries, Santa doesn't really understand how "Christmas magic" works.
• Bloody Hilarious: Gingerbread's death is downright slapstick. He seemingly dodges some of Trudy's obvious traps (a mat studded with nails and another nail on a stepladder), only to run afoul of the real trap (a partially sawed step out of sight), falling and impaling his chin on the nail. As he moans, Candy Cane roughly clambers over him to reach Trudy. He manages to pull himself off the nail, only to fall backwards onto the mat. When he gets off of that, he holds up one of the nails to examine it, at which point a bowling ball from another trap falls and drives the nail into his head, killing him. He even falls onto the mat again for good measure.
• Boom, Headshot!: As Commander Thorp is about to shoot the already-wounded Santa, Gertrude shows up and shoots him in the head at close range.
• Brainless Beauty: Morgan is handsome but very, very dim. Alva flat out describes him this way while lamenting his death at the hands of Commander Thorp.
• Brought Down to Badass: Santa starts the movie as something of a bumbling curmudgeon but it's later revealed that he was once a formidable Viking warrior and can still hand out a beating when required.
• But Now I Must Go: When everything is over, Santa notes that there are still a lot of kids on the Nice List who haven't gotten their presents yet, so he has to get back to work.
• Call-Back: Once Santa is finally able to make his "teleport up chimney" magic work again to escape being held captive by Scrooge, Candy Cane and Gingerbread, Scrooge hypothesizes some kind of prearranged pulley setup. Gingerbread points out that the dimensions of a typical chimney would not allow a human being to fit inside. Scrooge later gets a direct demonstration of this fact at the climax when he has Santa pinned to another chimney.
• Casting Gag:
  • David Harbour as an aging, unlikely action hero clad in red again.
  • Jason is played by Alex Hassell, best known as Translucent from The Boys. Both are corrupt (secretly in Jason's case) but actually good fathers (secretly in Translucent's case).
• Catch Phrase Interruptus: After Santa kills Scrooge, he begins is to belt out out a triumphant "ho-ho-ho!" but is pumped full of bullets by the sole remaining mercenary.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: Santa's reindeer don't return with his old hammer until after the mercenaries have already been routed.
• Cavalry Betrayal: The extraction team that was supposed to save the Lightstones? They were working with Mr. Scrooge the whole time.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Santa briefly considers fleeing out the window, then changes his mind upon seeing a huge, nasty-looking icicle pointed directly at it. Then Santa's first fight with a Mook ends with Santa hurling him out of that window...
  • Trudy gets a last-minute present of her dad's old walkie-talkie, which still works. Later on, Santa kills his second mook and gets the idea to use the guy's walkie-talkie to call for help - and fiddling with it gets him Trudy's frequency.
  • Santa stuffs some of Trudy's homemade cookies into a pocket before he takes a break. As he's about to chase off after his sleigh, he digs one out and looks at it, which guilts him into sticking around to save her.
  • The candy cane that Trudy had left behind for Santa alongside the plate of cookies, which he had tucked away into a pocket. He sucks on it long enough to shape it into a shiv, and then uses it against most of the kill team when fighting inside the shed.
  • Subverted with Skullcrusher which arrives after the plot is all wrapped up and the antagonists have been dealt with.
• Chekhov's Skill: Morgan is a B-movie action star who is constantly bragging about his martial arts prowess. He uses them to knock out a kidnapper and escape the house.
• Children Are Innocent: Subverted. While Trudy is a very sweet Nice Girl who genuinely believes in Santa Claus and simply wishes for her parents to reconcile for Christmas, it's clear that the Lightstone family Jerkassery is rubbing off on her a little, though directed at more those who deserve it than her own family. She has no problem saying "ass" until Santa expresses disapproval and has no qualms about causing violent and even lethal harm to the mercenaries with her Home Alone traps.
• Children Forced to Kill: The situation is played for black comedy, but Trudy (a child young enough to believe in Santa) kills one of the mercenaries with jury-rigged booby traps.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Santa explains to Trudy that most of his powers come from "Christmas magic", which even he doesn't fully understand, although it seems to depend on the level of belief others have in him. He is initially unable to escape up a chimney, but later one of Trudy's traps gets Gingerbread and Candy Cane credulous enough that he's able to escape. After Santa is killed in the final battle, Trudy is able to rally the rest of her family to declare their belief in Santa and bring him back to life.
• Closed Circle: The Lightstone mansion is on a private residence miles away from anywhere else, and Scrooge's men took out the phone and network so there isn't any calling for help, and there's no practical way to get far enough away from the mansion to matter. Even Santa's reindeer flew off after they heard gunfire.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Trudy's belief in Santa is highlighted through her clothing, with her wearing a lot of red. She even wears a red coat and white scarf combination near the end of the movie invoking Santa's outfit and beard.
• Contrived Coincidence: Jason stole over $300 million dollars from his mother so he could use it for his own family, but he had no idea about the upcoming theft.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Gertrude Lightstone. Apart from being abrasive to colleagues and family alike, she was given $300 million by the American government to distribute among disreputable figures in the Middle East to keep oil coming to the US. She kept it for herself.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: At one point, Santa asks Trudy to turn around, cover her eyes, and sing "Jingle Bells" so he can take out Candy Cane without traumatizing her.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In the final confrontation, Santa deliberately takes himself up an old chimney while in contact with Scrooge: the magic that allows Santa to do so doesn't affect Scrooge in any way, so his body is compressed and twisted as it's forced up the chimney, and Santa subsequently tosses it to the ground as a mangled, bloody mess.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Santa used to be a violent Viking warrior over a thousand years ago before becoming… well, Santa. He admits that he would have been top of the Naughty List in those days.
• Deadpan Snarker: Santa occasionally, such as when Jason thanks him at the end of the movie.
  Jason: I can't thank you enough for saving my family.
  Santa: You brought me back to life, so we'll call it even.
• Death by Pragmatism: Morgan takes the opportunity to flee and make it to the extraction team, only to get gunned down by them when they reveal they've turned traitor. This makes him the only one of the hostages to die by the end of the movie.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Santa Claus, twice over.
  • Of the Bad Santa. After a thousand years of being beaten down by watching the world grow into a largely nihilistic, hypercapitalist environment with almost no belief or appreciation to be found, he's grown into an alcoholic cynic who does the job more out of obligation than because he really cares. Despite this, he still proves himself as being willing to do what's right when the chips are down, and it's not like he's exactly wrong in his criticisms of the world in the first place.
  • Of the Badass Santa. It's shown that the reason he became such a skilled fighter is because of a Dark and Troubled Past as a bloodthirsty Viking marauder. As a result, Santa occasionally struggles to come to terms with his past.
• "Die Hard" on an X: It's Die Hard... On Christmas Eve! No, wait... In a big fancy house! Either way, the point is that the film has a very Die Hard plot with a hero having to fight off mercenary forces to rescue a group of hostages, and two characters even communicate over walkie-talkies. It even has a fighting chase on snowmobiles and the rescue team secretly being with the bad guys like in Die Hard 2. The biggest twist is that the hero is Santa and he has actual magical powers.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that one of Thorp's men is on the naughty list because he pirated a movie.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Morgan Steele, Alva's second husband, is an aspiring action movie star, but when he has a chance to strike back, he kicks one of the mercenaries aside and then runs through a window to escape by himself, leaving the rest of the family behind. However, he is subsequently killed by the approaching security team.
  • The reindeer get spooked and fly off after one of the mercs shoots the roof, abandoning Santa in the process. This ends up getting Subverted at the end of the film, where they return after the battle with not only Santa's spare sack but Skullcrusher as well, indicating that they didn't leave him for dead as he thought, they just arrived too late for their Big Damn Heroes moment.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Less that Santa refuses to and more he doesn't know how. He attempts to use a gun exactly once in the movie but the safety was still on. Afterwards, he sticks to melee weapons and a remark to Linda shows he barely knows how to use a gun at all. Being a Norse-Era Viking warrior with a magically-preserved lifespan, he's much more comfortable with melee weapons, even if he has to get a bit creative with several of them down the line.
• The Dog Bites Back: After being held hostage for several hours, Alva, Bertrude and Linda manage to catch one of the mercenaries, Krampus, by surprise when Alva throws alcohol into the fire behind him, allowing them to beat him to death with fireplace implements. Later, Linda reveals that she used to go hunting with her father, allowing her to take up a gun and help Santa deal with some of the remaining soldiers.
• Dragon Their Feet: In true Die Hard fashion, Commander Thorp outlives Scrooge and is the final villain dispatched in the movie.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap:
  • The reindeer fly off when one of the mercenaries shoots the rooftop they were standing on, preventing Santa from just fleeing the fight or having them as backup. Later, Scrooge destroys Santa's sack in a fire, preventing Santa from retrieving any additional improvised weapons from it.
  • While fighting Scrooge, Santa is clearly the better fighter, but they move onto a large patch of ice where Scrooge's spiked boots give him far better traction and leverage than Santa, letting him gain the upper hand.
• Dumbass Has a Point: When Scrooge threatens to randomly shoot people after he is unable to find the money in the safe, Bert points out that if Scrooge starts shooting people at random he risks killing the person who knows what he's after.
• Dumbass Teenage Son: Bert, who behaves like a massive brat in line with his entitled upbringing, in stark contrast to Trudy.
• Embarrassing First Name: Bert's full name is Bertrude, because his parents wanted to flatter the family matriarch, but there wasn't a male name that was a counterpart to Gertrude.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Before Santa became the classic gift-giver, he was a battle-hardened Viking warrior. Whatever made him become Santa also gave him resistance to aging, low-grade teleportation, and the ability to resurrect. Santa himself, however, is not entirely sure how it works.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • They very first scene is Santa getting drunk in a bar and griping about how commercialized the holiday has become, but he still has a present for the bartender's grandson and is genuinely thankful when a Mall Santa pays for his drinks, showing he's embittered but not completely a terrible person.
  • Gertrude the elder is introduced very loudly cursing out a senator on the phone before saying her granddaughter's nickname (Trudy) sounds like a whore's name, establishing her as a comedic variant of the Evil Matriarch.
• Every Man Has His Price: Jason tells Linda that his nephew Bertrude has just received "the first of what will likely be many sexual harassment complaints over his lifetime." His parents paid the school off and now there's a new stadium named after the Lightstones.
• Evil Is Petty: When Scrooge looks at the Naughty List, it reveals that, besides being a murderous criminal, he's guilty of income tax fraud as well.
• Eye Scream:
  • In a second fight, Santa stabs one of the mercenaries in the eye with a Christmas tree star, then electrocutes him with the attached Christmas lights.
  • Subverted with Gingerbread's death. It certainly looks like it's about to happen, with the party in question holding a nail up to their face to examine it at the exact angle that a bowling ball (which earlier knocked them backwards onto the nail pile) can fall down from the attic to hammer it home, but when the ball lands, it winds up driving the nail into their forehead instead.
• Failure Montage: Santa's second scene is a montage of his deliveries showing how far Christmas has fallen and just why he's lost the spirit. Highlights include a Christmas tree with nothing but unwrapped Amazon boxes under it, stockings getting filled with money, and a man who drank himself to sleep right next to his child's crib (Santa gave a present to the kid, and then stole the dad's beer and left some coal in exchange).
• Fingore: Trudy's father Jason has one of his fingers jammed into a nutcracker. He is then threatened with the nutcracker's more literal purpose.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Thorp comments on how his mother indulged his love of unwrapping presents so much that she would wrap empty boxes without him caring that nothing was inside just as the vault opens up to reveal that the money inside is already gone.
• Fold-Spindle Mutilation: How Santa kills Scrooge: he turns to dust to go up a chimney and drags the very-much-solid Scrooge up with him, sideways. When they reach the top, there isn't much of Scrooge left.
• Flashy Teleportation: Santa is able to turn his body into a cloud of golden particles that can travel up and down chimneys by tapping his nose.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Morgan complains about the catering, stating they must be the worst catering company ever. While his exact complaint (the arrangement of a table) is nonsense, it does hint that they're not actually a catering company, but a bunch of mercenaries.
  • While reading Jason's Christmas card, Gertrude looks increasingly upset but then decides to "let that stay between us" when his sister asks about it. It's later revealed he stole her fortune, something she actually approves of.
  • In a deleted scene, Jason promises Linda that they'll never have to deal with his family again after this Christmas and that he fully intends to focus entirely on her and their daughter after that night. He meant for them to leave before the presents were opened and his mother learned he stole her fortune.
  • Santa's foul language, alcoholism, and ease with violence all seem like stock comedic Bad Santa traits (particularly in how he barely reacts to his first kill in the film), but are actually foreshadowing that he was a Viking warrior who naturally finds all of the above familiar.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The Naughty List showing the various bad guys is onscreen for a very short time, but pausing and looking it over can reveal some humorous entries amongst the actual serious crimes.
• Freudian Excuse: Scrooge's hatred of Christmas stems from being denied Christmas as a child due to his father being laid off. He then inadvertently caused the death of his neighbor's grandfather while trying to steal his Christmas presents, and was deemed a murderer for it.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Even if Scrooge's hate for Christmas was because of his poor lifestyle and even if he did kill his neighbor's grandfather by accident, it doesn't make up for the fact that he created an army of killer mercenaries to kill others, killed his best friend, and that he spreads misery. The Freudian Excuse becomes even less of an excuse when he straight-up tries to kill Santa Claus when he realizes that he’s the real deal.
• Friend to All Children: While the crass consumerism of modern kids has jaded him, Santa makes a point of doing his annual run for the kids who need him. He even decides to stay and help the Lightstones when he sees a terrified Trudy through the window.
• From Bad to Worse: Santa already had his work cut out for him trying to get out of the house with a few armed thieves around, but it gets a million times worse once the corrupt extraction team arrives. They have way more weapons and are far more trained than the thieves. It's bad enough that Santa actually loses hope at one point, but Trudy encourages him and he finds the resolve to get rid of them too.
• From the Mouths of Babes: Despite her overall innocence, Trudy finishes Santa's one-liner about an Ass Shove, much to Santa's disapproval.
• The Ghost: Mrs. Claus. At one point in the film, Santa discusses his relationship with her with Trudy. At the end, it's revealed she sent his old warhammer back with the reindeer.
• Gold Digger:
  • In the middle of their shouting match, Alva accuses Linda of being one, but it's not clear if this is Alva's actual opinion, or just an easy dig at Linda for not coming from their kind of wealth.
  • Alva's husband Morgan shows more interest in the family money (and the possibility of it funding a movie for him to star in) than he shows in his wife or step-son.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Santa's Nice List uses gold font, while his Naughty List is colored red.
• Good Feels Good: The mall Santa in the opening scene admits that he does the job for the paycheck, but also confesses that bringing joy to the kids that come to see him is itself a great reward. As the film demonstrates, the real Santa feels the same way, having a huge soft-spot for children, and understands the Powers That Be entrusted him with their dreams
• Good Is Not Soft: Santa can be downright vicious to people on the Naughty List if he has to be.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Rather hypocritically, the rather casually foul-mouthed Santa calls out Trudy for saying "ass" and risking ending up on his naughty list. The two eventually compromise on simply using the anatomically-correct but not necessarily a swear "anus".
• The Grinch: True to his namesake, Mr. Scrooge despises Christmas. Why? When he was eleven, his father was laid off and his family couldn't afford to celebrate. In a fit of jealousy, he attempted to break into a neighbor's house to steal their gifts but wound up frightening their grandfather, causing him to fall and break his neck. Everyone became convinced he did it on purpose. Once he finally realizes that Santa is the real deal in the climax, he resolves to kill him and put an end to Christmas once and for all.
• Groin Attack:
  • After the Fingore incident, Scrooge decides to stick Jason's crotch in a larger nutcracker, but ends up not going through with it.
  • Candy Cane is hit in the crotch with a bowling ball twice by Trudy's traps. She takes it as a man. That is to say, it obviously hurts like hell.
  • Linda manages to shoot one of the last mercenaries in the crotch.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Late in the movie, when Santa and Linda team up against the remaining members of the kill squad, Linda uses an assault rifle appropriated from one of the dead mercenaries while Santa goes into melee with a sledgehammer.
• Hand Wave: The specific details of how Santa's supernatural abilities work is explained as just "Christmas magic" that even Santa does not really understand, to the point of becoming a Running Gag.
• Handmade Is Better: Santa can tell homemade cookies from store bought with a single taste and prefers the former.
• Happily Married: Santa occasionally speaks fondly of Mrs. Claus, and it's clear that the two are a very happy couple, still together for the past 1,100 years.
• Heel–Face Turn: Centuries ago, Saint Nick was a brutal viking raider known as Nicomund the Red. It's unknown what caused him to change.
• Heroic Second Wind: At one point, a battered and wounded Santa retreats to a storage shed after the alleged cavalry are revealed to be working with Scrooge's mercenaries, meaning Santa is up against more enemies by himself when he's already suffered serious wounds. Trudy inspires him to keep fighting by reminding him of what he did for her in the past, and Santa retrieves a workman's hammer as a new weapon and delivers new kinds of pain to his enemies.
• "Home Alone" Antics: Inspired by the trope's namesake, Trudy creates homemade traps to use against the mercenaries. The results are considerably more lethal than those usually seen in film.
• Hope Spot: A rare darkly humorous one. When Morgan uses his movie star martial arts to escape the mercenaries, Alva truly believes he's going to get help, though Gertrude sees Morgan's true intentions right away. It doesn't end well for him.
  Gertrude: Jean-Claude Van Dipshit just ditched us, sweetie.
• Hypocritical Humor: Alva makes a few barbs at Linda over the fact that Jason named their daughter after Gertrude to get in her good graces, even though she saddled her son with the name "Bertrude" in an attempt to do the same thing.
• I Call It "Vera": Skullcrusher, Santa's favorite war hammer from his days as a Viking berserker.
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Inverted. After Santa stuffs an unpinned grenade down the pants of one of Scrooge's goons and runs off to a safe distance, he says "I have to watch" and turns just in time to see the goon explode.
• Ignored Epiphany: Scrooge, after getting his hands on Santa's naughty list, then seeing his real name and his long list of crimes on it, finally accepts that Santa is real, and that he himself is bad. Rather than take this as a sign that he must change for the better, he decides to kill Santa and stop Christmas forever to ensure everyone will have an unhappy one like he did.
• I Have Many Names: When Scrooge demands his name, Santa rattles off over half a dozen names in various languages — many of them variations of the figure "Santa Claus" — before stating this trope almost verbatim.
• I Know Your True Name: Santa often reveals himself to be the real deal this way. At the pub in Bristol, he gives the bartender a gift for her grandson, leaving her to wonder how he knew that her grandson's name was Mickey. Later, he addresses Gingerbread and Candy Cane by their real names, Bjørn and Kira, which is enough to shake them. He does the same with Mr. Scrooge, whose real name is Jimmy Martinez, but he doesn't buy it at first.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: Santa states as much as he lays dying, something that confuses him because he's not felt cold in centuries.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The first mercenary Santa kills is impaled on a fake icicle positioned outside a window. Later, one of Trudy's traps sees Gingerbread impaled through the mouth with a loose nail and then fall on a board of nails and other sharp objects she had previously set up below. Even later, Linda is being choked by one of the goons, but manages to save herself by breaking another fake icicle off of the nativity display and stabbing him in the jugular.
• Improvised Weapon User: Throughout the film, Santa use Christmas decorations as weapons: stabbing a mook in the eye with a star topper, using a stocking with billiard balls as a flail, attempting to strangle another mook with some tinsel, using figure skates as slashing and stabbing weapons (even decapitating another one with the blade), and sucking a candy cane into a sharp point to use as a shiv. Linda also kills a man trying to strangle her by grabbing a nearby icicle and stabbing his jugular.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Alva's response to having to make up a name for her son so as to suck up for grandma, Bertrude, is that some people are not lucky enough to have a daughter. Being belittled, Bert replies with the trope name.
• Inciting Incident: The only reason Santa is there to save the Lightstones is that that Trudy left him homemade cookies, which are so good that he takes a break to enjoy them (and some scotch and a massage chair), which is why he's still around when the shooting starts. The cookies also guilt Santa into remaining at the house so he can save her rather than go chasing after his sleigh.
• I Never Told You My Name: The moment both Gingerbread and Candy Cane begin realizing that they might be fighting the actual Santa Claus is when he refers to "Scrooge" as "Jimmy", and then them as "Bjørn" and "Kira" respectively.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Santa. It's never fully explained how he went from a bloodthirsty Viking raider to the iconic jolly old Saint Nick. Even he repeatedly notes that he doesn't understand how his abilities work.
• Inspiration Nod:
  • Santa attempts to look through his sack for something he can use as a weapon, but keeps pulling out useless gifts. One of the gifts is a Blu-Ray of Die Hard.
  • The leader of Gertrude's hired team of mercs is named Thorp. Roderick Thorp wrote the novel upon which the above movie was based.
• Insurrectionist Inheritor: Implied. Jason stole millions of dollars from his mother because he was sick of being mistreated by her. She shows him genuine respect when she finds out, suggesting that he may end up becoming her heir.
• Irony: Jason deciding that he's fed up with sucking up to his mother for access to the family fortune and the hopes of inheriting it and stealing a chunk of it for himself is what finally earns him some genuine approval from his mother, and possibly improved his chances of being her heir.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This Santa is a boorish, constantly drunk, rude lout who has long since lost his cheery spirit and views both his job and even at times the kids he gifts presents to with contempt. But he is still Santa, and when there's a kid in danger he'll stop at nothing to keep them safe.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Some of Trudy's traps are set up to draw attention to the wrong thing. For example, the mercenaries notice the nail sticking up out of a rung on a ladder but don't notice that another rung has been sawed in half, or Candy Cane steps over a tripwire only to find herself standing in sticky stuff.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Santa still continues to deliver presents to children despite being disgusted at how commercialized the holiday had become, to the point of alcoholism.
• Leaving Food for Santa: No matter if his first scene is him Drowning His Sorrows, Santa still appreciates the usual offerings, with a scene in particular having him praise the homemade cookies but yuck at receiving skimmed milk.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: The Lightstones, with the exception of Trudy and her parents to a lesser extent, are a bunch of corrupt, greedy assholes who'd likely be the villains of a typical Christmas story. However, compared to Scrooge and his gang of mercenaries, they're downright harmless.
• Logo Joke: The Universal logo in the trailer takes on a bright and cheery Christmas motif, with a red ornament taking the place of Earth.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Scrooge's ultimate fate is getting pulled up through a chimney, which crushes his body and shoots chunks of him out the top.
• Made of Iron: Unlike Gingerbread, Candy Cane is mostly able to shrug off Trudy's "Home Alone" Antics with only minor injuries. It takes Santa sledgehammering her to death to finally do her in.
• Mall Santa: Santa strikes up a conversation with one in a British pub at the start of the film:
  Mall Santa: This is my fourth year as Santa. How 'bout you?
  Real Santa: I've lost count.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: As Santa is about to be cornered by the villains, Trudy suggests that he, just for once, make a Christmas wish for himself. Santa, while looking at his wedding ring, wishes that he can make it back to his wife. He then drops his ring, which rolls across the floor and stops in front of a hammer, which he uses to fight against the villains. Coincidence, or Christmas magic giving him the means to grant his own wish?
• Meaningful Name: 'Martinez' is derived from 'Mars', the Roman god of war. Mr. Scrooge is a violent raider much like Santa used to be.
• Miles Gloriosus: Morgan claims in his first scene that he's such a badass that if he'd been on board one of the planes, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. When the time comes for him to step up and prove his mettle, he fights just enough to clear an escape route for himself and then promptly jumps out the window.
• Money to Burn: A more tragic example than most; as Santa lies bleeding to death in the snow after his victorious Final Battle with Scrooge, Jason desperately burns half a million dollars of the blood-money he stole from Gertrude to keep him warm and alive. The normally greedy matriarch does not object, likely out of gratitude for Santa having saved her entire family's life.
• Mood Whiplash: After Santa leaves the bartender with a gift for her grandson, she follows him up to the roof in time to see him depart on his sleigh... and then she gets covered in vomit when he throws up over the side.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: You have Scrooge and his goons down near the black end, being vicious unfettered criminals willing to murder a family on Christmas purely for monetary gain. Then you have the Lightstone family who are some flavor of out-of-touch or contemptible. Santa himself, though mostly heroic, has his vices and a bloodthirsty streak. About the only truly good character is Trudy.
• Mundane Utility: Santa can use his Naughty List to see how many mercenaries he needs to fight.
• Mysterious Past: It's unknown how exactly Santa went from being the brutal, feared Norse pillager/raider Nicomund the Red to his current self. Given his own confusion with the nature of Christmas magic, it's possible even he doesn't know how he got saddled with his powers.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: 1,100 years ago, the kindly Santa Claus was infamous as the Viking warrior "Nicomund The Red", who butchered entire battlefields with his mighty double-handed warhammer "Skullcrusher."
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The trailers imply some level of Achievements in Ignorance on Jason's part when gifting Trudy the "magical" walkie-talkie she can talk to Santa with, with it conveniently magically reaching Santa for real as the mercenaries invade the Lightstone manor. The trailer was just simply edited in a way that glossed over the fact that Santa grabbed one of the mercenaries' radios and accidentally tuned into Trudy's frequency.
  • They also imply Santa being an increasing Knight Templar as he discovers more and more mercenaries on his Naughty list, screaming about it in a way that could give Billy Chapman a run for his money. While he does take some pleasure in killing these guys, he never necessarily has some kind of murderous desire to punish those on his Naughty list, and the moments where he does scream about someone's Naughtiness is relegated to him verbally berating them or simply as a Pre-Mortem One-Liner. He's even actually sympathetic to the mercenaries on his Naughty list, sincerely apologizing to Scrooge (or Jimmy) for being unable to directly interfere in his home life and prevent him from growing up into a murderous, hateful man.
• Nice Girl: Trudy is a kind-hearted girl who listens to her parents, treats people with respect, and is firmly on Santa's nice list.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Because Christmas Magic is powered by belief, if Scrooge hadn't realized that Santa was real by seeing his name and crimes on the Naughty List, Santa might not have been able to send them both up the chimney in the final fight.
• No Peripheral Vision: The final bad guy somehow doesn't see Gertrude standing less than three feet away as she puts a gun to his head. Downplayed in that he was focused on Santa in front of him, but she was clearly well within his field of view.
• Noodle Incident:
  • According to the Nice List, Trudy's charitable acts include things like inviting "the weird kid" to a party.
  • No explanation is given as to how Nicomund the Viking berserker became Saint Nick.
  • When Scrooge looks at the Naughty List, one of the reasons his name is on it is that he killed his best friend.
• Not With the Safety On, You Won't: While fighting Frosty, Santa gets his hands on the mercenary's rifle and tries to shoot him, only to fail because he didn't turn the safety off.
• One Last Job: At the start of the story, Santa contemplates retiring for good after this year. By the end of the movie, he's got his Christmas spirit back and seems content to continue being Santa.
• One-Man Army: Once Santa gets his mojo back, he single-handedly annihilates the extraction team despite them being armed with guns and outnumbering him at least a dozen to one.
• Outside-Context Problem: Santa is this to the mercenaries. Although well-armed and prepared to handle the Lightstones' security personnel (whom they easily dispatch), none of them anticipated having to deal with a drunken, not very jolly St. Nick with magical powers and a surprising inclination to violence.
• Pet the Dog: Santa is introduced drunkenly ranting about how most kids today are greedy monsters. Then we see him spot a young child in a crib sleeping beside her alcoholic father. He puts her present in her crib, out of sight of the father, then steals the father's beer and leaves him a lump of coal, showing that Santa still does care about innocent kids.
• Photographic Memory: In what is likely a part of Christmas magic, Santa can look at a person and immediately know their name and remember what present he'd given them and/or why they eventually moved to the Naughty List.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: An attempt followed by one that works.
  Scrooge: This is the last Christmas.
  Santa: Not if you still believe.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Mr. Scrooge may be a fiendish mastermind that is able to predict every eventuality in robbing one of the richest families in the world (not including the real Santa Claus showing up out of pure happenstance), but deep down he's just a bitter child who ruined his own life because he killed someone on Christmas after his father couldn't afford to celebrate it like he always did. He makes various Christmas puns and euphemisms throughout the operation, he makes everyone's codenames Christmas-themed and decides to kill Santa when he realizes that he's the actual Santa Claus, wanting to destroy Christmas when the opportunity presents itself because of his own bad life-choices.
• Pun-Based Title: The title is a play on "Silent Night".
• Quality over Quantity: During the montage at the beginning, Santa is visibly repulsed by some of the store-bought cookies left for him and leaves them untouched. However, when he tries Trudy's homemade cookies, he sits down to enjoy them in Gertrude's massage chair, and even pockets a few of them for later.
• Rasputinian Death: Frosty's death is very drawn-out, on account of him being Made of Iron and Santa not having any conventional weapons to attack him with (his unfamiliarity with modern-day guns stymieing his attempt to use Frosty's against him with a surprise attack). He gets bludgeoned in the face and hands with billiard balls stuffed in a stocking, gets lifted up in a grapple and dropped head-first into a pinball machine, gets peppered with several darts from a dartboard (that Santa additionally punches in deeper during their further struggling to gain an advantage) and gets several christmas tree ornaments smashed on his head before Santa resorts to stabbing him in the eye with the electronic star-shaped decoration on top. Even after all that, he still doesn't die, freaking Santa out as he advances on him even with a mortal wound, and forcing him to plug the cable into the wall, turning it on and electrocuting Frosty's head from the inside-out, with additionally combusts after he finally collapses.
• Reckless Gun Usage: Zigzagged. Frosty makes a point of keeping the safety engaged on his rifle while searching the mansion but others fire recklessly or point their guns at people they aren't (currently) intending to kill.
• Red Is Violent: Played with. Santa wears his iconic red jacket and he can viciously and gleefully kill the equally vicious mercenaries who took the family hostage. He also used to be a fierce Viking warrior named N Icomund the Red, who was responsible for various mass murderers. But he's a genuine good guy (he's Santa after all) and he wants to rescue the innocents.
• Retired Badass: For reasons unknown, the Viking marauder known as Nicomund the Red, who butchered entire battlefields with his warhammer Skullcrusher was chosen 11 centuries ago to become a symbol of kindness and hope for good children across the world.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Morgan takes the first opportunity to escape and abandons the rest of the family, only to end up running into Gertrude's extraction team - who are secretly in league with Scrooge - on his way out. If Morgan had stayed put he'd have ultimately had a better chance of surviving, as the rest of the hostages eventually do, but his impulsive escape attempt instead results in him being gunned down without a second thought.
• Riddled and Rattled: The extraction team reveal themselves to be allied with the Big Bad by opening fire on Morgan with machine guns when he rushes out to meet them. He doesn't fall down until after the shooting stops.
• Road Apples: Well, roof apples. While doing his rounds, Santa steps in reindeer droppings on his way to a chimney, and starts angrily accusing Prancer (only in the trailer).
• Running Gag: Santa doesn't understand how Christmas magic works, and he'll say as much every time he uses it around someone else.
• Safecracking: Scrooge's goal is to break into the vault in Gertrude's basement, which has hundreds of millions in embezzled government money in it. He opens the door by subverting the security team, which has access to a copy of the key.
• Santa Clausmas: Zig-Zagged. When he finally accepts that Santa is who he says, Scrooge seems to think that killing Santa will end Christmas as a holiday forever, even though it existed long before Santa and Santa himself believing he was having so little impact that he was on the verge of retiring due to (among other things) so many parents supplanting his role by giving their kids presents "From Santa".
• Screw the Money, This Is Personal!: Scrooge's hatred for Christmas is so strong that once he acknowledges that Santa is real, he forgoes all thoughts of the money (or escape, for that matter) in favor of killing Santa personally and ending Christmas for good.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Santa tries this on multiple occasions until he realizes that a kid on the Nice List who left him homemade cookies is in danger.
  • Jason, being tired of his Big, Screwed-Up Family, decided to steal his cut of the inheritance and take his immediate family away after this Christmas, leaving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech letter in his mother's present saying so.
• Shadow Archetype: Scrooge is what Santa would have become if he did not take shame in his past as a bloodthirsty Viking warrior, changed his ways to bring joy and hope to the lives of others, but instead continued the life of a Sociopathic Soldier and used his skills for his own materialistic gain and sadistic amusement.
• Shout-Out:
  • To Home Alone:
    • Early on, Trudy quotes after watching it for the first time. Later, she is inspired to make traps like Kevin to use against Gingerbread and Candy Cane, with Gingerbread taking the brunt of the injuries and eventually getting killed by them.
    • Trudy, like Kevin, ends up cornered at gunpoint by one of the villains and is saved by the sudden intervention of an adult friend – in her case, Santa Claus himself.
  • To Die Hard as a whole:
    • Linda killing terrorist strangling her by breaking off an nearby icicle then driving it like a dagger into his neck is a nod to how John Maclane kills the terrorist strangling him in Die Hard 2
    • Candy Cane gets a whole sequence knifing down several guards, much like Miss "I think he's dead" from the third movie.
    • Santa getting a mook's walkie-talkie and taunting the Big Bad with Casual Danger Dialogue is from the first movie.
    • The betrayal of the rescue forces and a snowmobile chase in the finale is from the second movie.
  • Santa's dispatching of a mook with a sledgehammer while shouting "NAUGHTY!" brings Silent Night, Deadly Night to mind, with the hammer replacing Billy's axe.
  • Josh Miller confirmed that Mr. Scrooge saying "Christmas dies tonight!" was a deliberate shout-out to Halloween Kills.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Santa's vocabulary is very colourful.
• Skeptic No Longer: Mr. Scrooge is the most openly disbelieving of Santa throughout the film, but he comes around once he gets his hands on Santa's naughty list. Unfortunately, this just makes him decide to murder Santa to kill Christmas forever.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Surprisingly idealistic and hopeful in spite of being a Bloodier and Gorier parody of Christmas family film tropes. On the one hand, all the villains (and the gold digging son in law) end up dead and unredeemed, including the Big Bad Scrooge who delivers the genre-expected tragic backstory that normally would have the audience sympathize with him. On the other hand however the rest of the Big, Screwed-Up Family of Rich Bitch Gold Diggers live to learn the Spirit of Christmas, with Trudy's parents reconciling and Gertrude herself finally starting to love her son. Most notably the bloodthirsty Viking warrior and Retired Monster who was Nicomund the Red regains his faith in the Spirit of Christmas thanks to Trudy's love and faith in him, and continues to be Santa Claus. In a macabre way, this film is saying that Rousseau Was Right and that anybody has a chance to change and be a better person, but only when they are still alive and only if they are willing to act on this truth.
• Sociopathic Hero: Downplayed; Santa can be extremely brutal and sadistic when battling his enemies, but he's fighting very "naughty" people who have a young nice girl and her family held hostage. When dealing with Trudy, he's downright tender.
• Sociopathic Soldier:
  • Scrooge and his subordinates are this, with their combat prowess, tactical expertise and the sadistic amusement they takes in the pain of others. Krampus in particular is referred to by Scrooge as one, with his constant laughter while enthusiasm in bullying, torturing and and scaring the hostages.
  • Santa wearily admits to Trudy that he was once a brutal raider called Nicomund the Red.
• So Proud of You: Jason stole Gertrude's money before the home invasion and was planning to use it to get his wife and daughter away from the rest of his Big, Screwed-Up Family. This actually earns Gertrude's respect since she stole the family business from her father who refused to let her be a part of it since she was a woman.
• Something Only They Would Say: When Jason's words cause Trudy to doubt Santa, Santa tells her about how he gave Trudy her favorite toy bunny and a kite on her last two Christmases to confirm his identity.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The trailer plays Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" over footage of Santa kicking mercenary ass. In the film proper, several fight scenes employ Christmas songs.
• Sticky Situation: Trudy traps Candy Cane by getting her to step in some kind of glue and then knocks her over so that her head is also stuck to the floor. Candy Cane is flexible enough to pull herself back up and then remove her boots, but she loses a chunk of her hair in the process.
• The Stinger: Mid-credits, Bert records one last video over the body of a dead mercenary, telling the world that Santa is real and to stay off his Naughty List.
• Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: Santa does this when he's about to leave the Lightstone Estate on foot after his reindeer abandon him, but upon noticing Trudy is among the hostages, he stops and looks at the Santa cookie she made him before affirming himself to stay and help.
• Stout Strength: Santa, while thinner than most of his depictions, still has a noticeable gut. Doesn't stop him from wrecking shop in melee.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • A lot of Santa's job these days is indeed done by the parents, buying the gifts and telling their kids that Santa brought them. That being said, he does make a point of showing up for the kids who need them.
  • During his fight with the first of Scrooge's armed men, Santa grabs the nozzle of the gun in an attempt to disarm him. Because the gun had been fired mere seconds before, the barrel is scalding hot, and it burns his hand as he yells out in agony.
  • After his second fight, Santa is forced to perform Self-Surgery to patch himself up. After a lengthy scene of sewing his stab wound up, it seems like he'll be just fine, only for him to immediately fall over and pass out the moment he stands up.
  • Trudy's Home Alone traps, while still slapstick-y, do cause some bloody, realistic injuries to the thieves. Candy Cane, when having a clear line of sight on Trudy and being absolutely pissed off after her painful and humiliating ordeal, simply draws a gun on the little girl to put an end to it, rather than subject herself to any further torment.
  • When Santa is battling Scrooge at the end, his centuries of combat experience, particularly in hand-to-hand as opposed to modern firearms, initially give him an advantage over the smaller and younger man until the exploding snowmobile forces them both outside onto an icy terrain. As Scrooge is equipped with ice spikes on his shoes and Santa is not, the lack of friction leaves him severely imbalanced when attacking, particularly because his sledgehammer is such a weighty weapon, allowing Scrooge to dodge his swings and eventually overpower him despite the height and weight difference between them.
• Still Believes in Santa: Morgan expresses shock when Jason says that Santa does not exist. He dies before he can find out that Jason is wrong.
• Take That!:
  • Morgan claiming he could've stopped the September 11 attacks is a pretty direct (and scathing) reference to when fellow actor Mark Wahlberg claimed the same. Him being a has-been action film actor brings several interpreters who had the same fate to mind, including Steven Seagal.
  • Santa comes across one Christmas tree that's already surrounded by boxes — from Amazon. It pisses him off. This can also cross into Biting-the-Hand Humor, given the movie later released on Amazon Prime.
• Tattoo as Character Type: When Santa removes his shirt early in the film, he is shown to have tattoos all over his chest. This hints at his past as a Viking warrior.
• Technologically Blind Elders: Santa Claus is over 1,100 years old and has no idea how to operate firearms.
• Theme Naming: All of the mercenaries use Christmas terms as codenames, including Krampus, Gingerbread, Candy Cane, and Sugarplum. The Big Bad, who gets even more eager to kill Santa once he discovers it's the real deal out of childhood hatred for Christmas, uses the name "Mr. Scrooge". One of them asks if they're going to have to use the codenames all night.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Accidentally causing an old man to fall down a flight of stairs to steal Christmas presents his unemployed father can no longer buy him branded Scrooge as a murderer at he age of ten, the stigma barring him from opportunities outside a life of criminality or professional violence. Though clearly bitter he was robbed of a normal life due to one unhappy Christmas, Scrooge ultimately decides that maybe he should take pride in being a formidable killer, even going as far as telling himself through gritted teeth that maybe he did push the old man down the stairs, the better to show that he is "strong" and not a victim of tragic circumstance.
• Threaten All to Find One: When Mr. Scrooge and his men discover that the vault containing the Lightstones’ fortune is empty, he threatens to kill the hostages at random until they tell him where the money is. He’s only stopped from making good on his threat when it’s pointed out that he could end up killing the one person who knows.
• Title Drop: Mr. Scrooge sings "Violent Night, Gory Night" as his men gather the family in the living room.
• Tongue Trauma: Gingerbread gets his chin impaled by a nail, causing this.
• Too Dumb to Live: When Jason tries to lie and say his gift was in the car, Bert said he saw it under the tree and helpfully retrieved it, despite repeated encouragements to drop the subject.
• Took a Level in Badass: While already a menace to contend with, Santa starts the movie very much not wanting to get involved and struggles greatly in his first one-on-one fights against some of the robbers, to the point where his first kill is more accidental than anything. Come the halfway point of the movie, some encouragement from Trudy and getting his hands on a workman's hammer similar to his old weapon allows Santa to slaughter a dozen well-armed and trained mercenaries by himself in a barn, making short work of all but the movie's Big Bad.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Santa spends half of the movie jaded about Christmas, saying that kids have gotten ungrateful and just into toys like video games, but helping save Trudy and her family puts Christmas in perspective for him once again.
• Tragic Villain: Scrooge zig-zags this. While clearly bitter that his desperation for a happy Christmas led to the accident that branded a murderer for life at ten years old, instead of trying to fight against a destiny of endless violence and make the world a better place as Santa did 1,100 years ago, Scrooge instead embraces the "success" that a life of hate has given him, rather than admit that it's okay to make mistakes and have moments of weakness as a child. Scrooge reasons in resignation that it's already too late for someone as old as he is to turn a new leaf, so if he cannot be happy, it's only fair that nobody else can either. He takes malicious glee in making everyone around him as angry, terrified, cynical and miserable as he is, just like his literary namesake.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Unfortunately, some of the trailers do show Santa fighting the extraction team, so everyone who wasn't already assuming they were evil from just knowing how a three act story works would be spoiled for that when the dumb hot guy escapes and the reveal comes when he approaches them, thinking he's safe, and they instead gun him down.
• Trip Trap: Trudy tries this by stretching a cord across the room at a low level but Candy Cane spots the trap before walking into it.
• Two Girls to a Team: Two of the terrorists, Candy Cane and Sugarplum, are women, the latter serving as the safe cracker breaking into the vault.
• Unflinching Walk: Subverted. Santa shoves a grenade down one of the mercenary's pants and runs to be clear of blast, but stops and admits that he has to turn back to watch him explode.
• Urine Trouble: Whilst soaring over the Washington Monument, Santa micturates from his sleigh.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Gingerbread was once just an ordinary kid who wanted nothing more than a particular bike for Christmas, and while Santa sounds very contemptuous when he describes the excessive amount of letters he wrote begging for the bike, he was apparently good enough to be on the nice list, since Santa did give it to him.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: The shot right before the opening title is Santa blowing chunks on a bartender after she looks up and realizes he's the real Santa.
• A Wizard Did It: How Christmas magic works or what exactly it can do is never explained as even Santa himself doesn't understand it, something he mentions several times.
• Wood Chipper of Doom: Santa uses a snowblower for this purpose: tying up two mercenaries with rope before throwing the other end in the snowblower's active blades.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Santa doesn't discriminate between male and female when handing out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Additionally, Scrooge has no problem punching the elderly Gertrude in the face to show he means business.
• Would Hurt a Child: After braving Trudy's traps, Candy Cane tries to shoot her before Santa intervenes. Later, Scrooge plans to shoot every hostage in the living room, including Bert.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Jason is repeatedly referred to as Gertrude's favorite, and his sister and brother-in-law will bend over backwards to match, but it's plain to see that Jason hates her for her domineering personality. Even when he steals a massive chunk of her fortune, all she can say is how proud she is that he did it, comparing it to when she forcibly wrestled control of her father's company from him because he refused to let a woman, even his own daughter, inherit his legacy.

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"Don't end up on the Naughty List. Do better. Bert Lightstone out."