Violent Night (2022) Movie Ending, Explained: Growing up, we all believed Santa was for real until, one day, we realized he wasn’t. Violent Night offers us a surprising turn on the legendary Christmas father, Santa Claus. In this holiday season, the Christmas film tells a story through the eyes of a mean, disgruntled man who is angry at today’s youth for being unappreciative of receiving love and how the world has become materialistic.
Directed by Tommy Wirkola and written by Pat Casey and Worm Miller, Violent Night also shows how believing in someone can push them to do great things. The film uses classic Santa Mythology and twists it with a Viking backdrop that leaves room for numerous speculative theories that can warrant a sequel.
The film is loosely entertaining but, at the same time, has its lows with pretty basic, by-the-number proceedings. However, David Harbour, who plays the role of Santa Claus, is hilarious and holds the film together.
In this article, I explain in detail what takes place in the movie’s runtime, with an added explanation of the movie’s ending. Spoiler Alert, please read at your discretion.
Violent Night (2022) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
It is the night of Christmas, and Santa Claus is getting drunk at a Bristol pub. When asked why he became a Santa, he shares that it was the innocent face of the little children. He, however, says that the kids have become greedy and materialistic and are not humble and grateful for their life.
Before leaving, Santa takes a present out from his bag and gives it to the bar lady, telling her it is for her grandson. When she follows him to the roof to find out who he really is, she is shocked to see the real Santa riding away in the sky with his reindeer on his sleigh.
The following day, Jason Lightstone and his estranged wife, along with their seven-year-old daughter, Trudy, visit his mother Gertrude’s big mansion to celebrate Christmas. The villa has tight security and is decked for the holiday season. Jason’s alcoholic sister Ava is also present with her social media addict son, Bertrude, and her new boyfriend, Morgan Steel – a wannabe movie star.
Alva is fiercely jealous of her brother Jason, the apple of her mother’s eye. She pesters him to tell her if he knows anything other than their mother’s empire and fortune. Dismissing his sister’s erratic behavior, Jason distracts himself by talking about the latest gossip of the house with his ex-wife. When Trudy gets sad about not being able to share time alone with her father over the holidays, Jason brings his old walkie-talkie and gives it to his daughter as an early Christmas present.
Trudy randomly dials in and talks to Santa, requesting him to fulfill her wish of reuniting her family. At the same time, Santa delivers presents to all the good kids per his list. While completing his job, the drunken Santa lands at the Lightstone mansion.
Simultaneously we see the caterers who have been up on their toes doing their errands are actually mercenaries with Christmas-themed codenames. The troop is led by a mean man who likes to call himself Mr. Scrooge. Soon the mansion has a change of environment as Mr. Scrooge takes the family hostage and kills all the loyal staff.
Why does Mr. Scrooge wish to kill the Lightstone family?
While the mercenaries have taken over the entire estate, Santa had been sleeping on a relaxing couch after getting drunk. However, he wakes up due to a gunshot. When he tries to escape the scene, the gunfire at the mansion scares the reindeer, and they flee, leaving him behind.
While clearing the entire villa, one of the accomplices discovers Santa hiding behind a Christmas tree. Santa is left with no option but to fight the evil guy when his magic doesn’t work, which enables him to disappear through the chimneys. While fighting, he throws the man out of the window, instantly killing him as he lands on fake icebergs made of glass.
When Mr. Scrooge notices a few of his partners are not answering him, he orders his men to check the perimeter. In the meantime, we discover that Scrooge is here to take $300 million in cash from the mansion’s vault. The matriarch of the Lightstone clan got this money from the government as compensation for dealing in illegal arms to Middle East countries. Scrooge intends to get the money at any cost, even if it means killing anyone in the family. While his team is decoding the vault’s high-security code, Santa has been killing his men to find a way to escape.
Trudy had her walkie-talkie all this time with her and decided to patch into Santa, asking for help. On the other hand, Santa kills yet another henchman and takes the radio from him. He somehow gets connected to Trudy, who tells him about the ongoing situation on her side.
Santa looks at the magical list that shows the people in the good and naughty list as per their deeds throughout the year. He then decides to save Trudy and her family from the evil mercenaries as he gets a flashback from his old days as a warrior.
Scrooge, in the meantime, gets impatient as he learns someone else in the mansion has been killing all his men. He tortures the Lightstone family one at a time, beginning with Jason. However, when Scrooge’s men discover Trudy’s walkie-talkie, Jason tries to cover her from them. Trudy is a brave little girl who speaks her mind. She tells everyone that Santa has been taking out the evil people. Jason tells his daughter not to lie and that Santa is not real; Trudy gets upset and runs away.
She then hides in the attic, where she calls Santa when he is about to give up on himself. She tells him that she believes in him, and the two talk about his past life, where Santa tells her that he used to be a mighty bloodthirsty Viking warrior known as Nikamund – The Red. Santa shares that he would soon like to be with Mrs. Claus, to whom he has been married for 1100 years. The little girl empathizes with Santa motivating him to stand up for himself and use his powers to kill the bad guys.
While the girl sets traps after getting inspired by Home Alone, Santa finds a sledgehammer and brutally kills the squad that was after him. In the meantime, the naughtiest henchman of Scrooge’s troop, Krampus, forces the Lightstone’s to open their presents from each other.
Therein, Gertrude is surprised to see the card given by Jason.
Violent Night (2022) Movie Ending, Explained:
Does Santa die in the end?
Scrooge is super annoyed by the disappearance of his gang members one after the other. Gertrude has already alerted her private kill squad team that Commander Thorp leads. However, it turns out that Thorp has joined hands with Scrooge. He asks the commander to send all his men to find the person creating chaos in his perfectly planned Christmas robbery.
On the one hand, Santa has been shedding blood with the help of a sledgehammer, slaughtering all the men after him. On the other hand, Scrooge and Thorp discover that there is no money in the vault.
Scrooge threatens to kill Linda to find out who hid the money. Seeing his ex-wife in danger, Jason reveals that he is the one who stole the money so he can leave the family legacy behind and start a new life afresh with his family. After probing further, he takes Scrooge outside to show him where he hid the money.
While fighting the armed men, Santa gets wounded by a gunshot and is captured by Scrooge’s men. Despite Santa revealing his identity, nobody wants to believe what he has to say. We also learn that Scrooge’s troubled childhood made him resent the Christmas season because he could never have a happy holiday with his family, and he has always blamed Santa for his misfortunes.
Trudy overhears the conversation and helps Santa escape. She uses artificial snow made of polyacrylate polymer to create an illusion of snowing inside the house, depicting it as if Santa’s presence has made it snow. At this point, Santa magically disappears from the chimney vent, completely bamboozling Gingerbread and Candy (two loyal henchmen of Scrooge).
Scrooge orders them to search for him in the mansion. While doing so, they find Trudy hiding in the attic. However, the little girl’s trap wounds them badly, killing Gingerbread instantly. When Candy approaches to kill Trudy, Santa stops her and gets mad at her for attempting to kill an innocent child. He hits her head hard with his hammer, eventually killing her.
Scrooge orders Krampus to kill the hostage, and along with Thorp, he takes Gertrude as his captive and runs away to the woods with the money to pursue Santa. However, Alva, Linda, and Bert somehow manage to kill Krampus instead.
Santa brings Trudy to her mother and leaves to finish the business. They then quickly go outside to find their family members, and the little girl watches her parents kiss one another, making her Christmas wish come true.
The ending of Violent Night finds Santa going after the evil guys and crashing into an abandoned fireplace. He gets into a bloodied duel with Scrooge, who tries his best to kill Santa. While fighting, Santa’s magic list slips from his robe, and Scrooge opens it only to see his name under the naughty list with all his bad karma mentioned in it. Even though he finally acknowledges Santa as being real, he gets furious and attacks Santa, nailing him on the fireplace wall.
When Santa thinks he has no magic dust left, he touches his nose, and the last burst of energy turns him into magic dust. Santa uses his magic to drag him to the chimney’s top, crushing and disemboweling him completely.
However, Thorp shoots Santa thereafter to avenge his failed mission; subsequently getting killed himself Gertrude, who is angry at him for betraying her. This puts an end to the violent Christmas night.
Santa losses a lot of blood, and Jason and Linda try to help him by keeping him warm as they burn the cash they have. However, it is too late.
Santa takes his last breath and thanks Trudy for changing his life, and bids farewell as he lies cold on the ground. The little girl tells him that she has always believed in Santa and makes everyone in the family feel grateful to him for saving their life. Finally, the Lightstone claim they have immense faith in Father Christmas. With everyone’s belief in his existence, Santa gets magically revived with full zest and zeal and hugs little Trudy for bringing him back to life.
Santa’s reindeer returns with spare gift bags and his hammer with a note written by Mrs. Cluas that he might need it. The film ends with him getting on the sleigh after saying goodbye to the Lightstones and riding into the sky to finish his job of gifting presents to the kids who have been ‘nice’ all year long.
Is there a post-credit scene in Violent Night (2022)?
No. There are no post-credit scenes in Violent Night. However, there’s a mid-credit sequence that features the character of Bert (Alexander Elliot). The scene involves the bratty kid talking once again to his social media following by showing them the body of one of the dead Henchmen that Mr. Scrooge hired.
The scene might be a direct hint to a sequel, Violent Night 2, since Bert tells his follower that Santa Claus is real and he will punish them if they are bad all year long. Since the sequence hints that more people will eventually believe in Santa Claus, making him more powerful.
Read More: High Heat (2022) Movie Ending, Explained
Trailer
Violent Night (2022) Movie Links – IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Violent Night (2022) Movie Cast – David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo, Alexis Louder, Edi Patterson, Cam Gigandet, Leah Brady
Where to watch Violent Night
