This New Christmas Cult-Classic Needs to Make One Big Change For the Sequel

2022’s Violent Night has become a Yuletide cult classic, and the forthcoming Violent Night 2 can create an even bigger challenge for Santa Claus to face. Violent Night centers on a grizzled and jaded St. Nick (David Harbour), who is forced to battle a gang of professional thieves who invade a wealthy family’s home on Christmas Eve.

The Die Hard-esque Violent Night is one of the most unique Santa Claus movies ever made, elevated both by Harbour’s performance as Kris Kringle and John Leguizamo’s phenomenal portrayal of the villainous Mr. Scrooge. In fact, Leguizamo’s Scrooge is such a great villain in Violent Night that Violent Night 2 must step up to the plate with an equally compelling antagonist of its own. The best way to accomplish that would be for Violent Night 2 to pit Harbour’s Santa against a supernatural villain.

Why David Harbour’s Santa Claus Should Fight A Supernatural Villain

Violent Night‘s unique concept of Santa Claus as a John McClane-esque action hero placed Jolly Ole St. Nick’s powers into a completely fresh scenario. Santa has faced villains and antagonists of sorts in other movies, but rarely, if ever, did that amount to any kind of life or death scenarios. Violent Night changed that by having Santa as a seasoned warrior who was once a Viking known as Nicumond the Red, establishing that he’s seen plenty of battles like the one in Violent Night, albeit not usually on Christmas Eve.

Santa’s own semi-immortal, supernatural abilities, flying reindeer, elves, and presumed marriage to Mrs. Claus also makes clear that he is hardly the only supernatural being in the Violent Night universe. With that said, David Harbour‘s Santa is also somewhat in the dark on the full extent of supernatural powers and beings in his world, openly admitting, “I don’t really understand how it works, either” when explaining his magic sack of toys to the villains. A big challenge for Santa would be to call upon him to face a villain with supernatural powers commensurate with his own, and doing so could build upon the first Violent Night in a big way.

[Related: Violent Night Star John Leguizamo Addresses Sequel Appearance]

Violent Night Has Great Villains, Which Is Why Violent Night 2 Should Up The Stakes

Santa Claus is the only supernatural character in Violent Night, but his fully human adversaries nonetheless give him a real challenge. Despite being centuries old and having plenty of warrior training and magical tools on his side, Santa still has human vulnerabilities like pain and fatigue, and as Violent Night‘s fight scenes show, he can experience injury and even death. Indeed, Santa does briefly die at the end of Violent Night before being revived by the young Trudy (Leah Brady) and her family, establishing him as a powerful but not invincible protagonist.

Violent Night‘s chief villain, Jimmy Martinez, aka Mr. Scrooge, is also a perfect foil for Santa with his own human qualities. Wrongly accused of killing a neighbor on Christmas Eve when he was a child, Jimmy comes to despise Christmas and proudly adopts the moniker of Mr. Scrooge to signify his hatred of the holiday season. He is a fully humanized villain because his motivations are grounded in human circumstances and misfortune, while he is also fully capable of giving Santa a real fight in Violent Night‘s final showdown. With Violent Night so grounded in the dark side of man and Santa bringing out the light with humanity, Violent Night 2 can perfectly complement that with a villain cut from Santa’s own supernatural cloth.

[Related: 10 Best R-Rated Christmas Movies]

Who Could Be The Villain Of Violent Night 2?

With Santa Claus not being a traditional action hero or superhero, he doesn’t exactly have a rogues gallery to draw upon for Violent Night 2, but that also gives the sequel a lot of freedom to work with. Arguably, the most obvious choice for Violent Night 2‘s supernatural villain would be the mythical demon Krampus, known for punishing misbehaving children. The creature would be very capable of providing a serious challenge for David Harbour’s Santa to overcome. Beyond that, Violent Night 2 could introduce a completely original supernatural villain.

One possibility could be for one or more of the elves, overcome with the same cynicism Santa grapples with at the beginning of Violent Night, to go rogue and become a villain whom St. Nick must stop. Additionally, Harbour’s Santa being a former Viking turned supernatural being could also be extrapolated upon. Theoretically, there could be more Vikings who have discovered the secret of Santa’s semi-immortality and lived into the 21st century like he has. Violent Night 2 could then call upon Santa to trade his sledgehammer for a broadsword in order for him to face some of his old battlefield enemies or even Viking allies in modern times.

As with any Christmas classic, the human element of Violent Night and its characters is just as essential as its magical elements and Santa Claus himself. For Violent Night 2, sharing Santa’s magic with a supernatural being on the naughty list could be the perfect tool of holiday season world-building in a growing Christmas movie franchise unlike any other.