Violent Night (2022)

Owing equal parts to Die Hard and Home Alone, this action-comedy sounds a lot better in theory than the sum of its parts. David Harbour plays Jolly Old Saint Nick as a straight-up murderer of bad guys who threaten to ruin one family's holiday. I feel like it wanted to be much more subversive and anti-Christmas, like Bad Santa, but it kind of wimps out on itself. It certainly delivers on the violence, similar to Fatman, and I definitely wasn't expecting Santa to go all Kratos from God of War on everyone. The reason this movie works at all is because it doesn't take its ridiculous premise seriously and has fun with the depraved concept. Christmas sure looks a lot different now than it did as a kid.

2½ deadly Home Alone booby traps out of 5

DEAD SNOW 2: RED VS. DEAD [2014]

aka Død Snø 2

Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola returns to his Nazi zombie world in Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead, the follow-up to his 2009 cult-hit splatter-fest.
This time the story is bigger & badder, as it takes our sole surviving hero and turns him into a Norwegian version of Evil Dead's Ash going against a Nazi zombie invasion of several countryside villages.  While the original film was bland and predictable, this one steps it up several notches and goes all out with the outrageous humor and keeps you guessing as what the fuck is about to happen next.  It's in bad taste (get it?) and Wirkola knows that, so he makes the best of it with a loony sense of absurdity and hilariously graphic violence, all while breaking all the rules of your usual zombie flick.  It's everything I expected from the first film times a hundred.
...and never before have I felt so sorry for a zombie.  You'll know what I mean.  

3½ little man-pussies out of 5

DEAD SNOW [2009]

aka Død snø

Director Tommy Wirkola's Norwegian splatterfest Dead Snow deserves points for coming up with the outrageously memorable idea of Nazi zombies.
It follows the story of a group of students who go for a drunken vacation in the snowy Norway mountains where they're hunted down by a pack of the SS undead.  Instead of going right into the entertaining absurd, the film sadly spends too much time running over the same ol' horror movie staples and really doesn't amount to much until the final act.  The characters are all so boring you can't wait for the carnage to start happening but when it does it doesn't disappoint.  The gore effects are wonderful, the humor is off-the-wall hilarious and the photography is great but all that doesn't save it from being pretty bland.  It's a great campy concept that doesn't use what it has to it's full advantage.  

2 sexy outhouse moments out of 5

HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS [2013]

Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola's Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is a tongue-in-cheek continuation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.
The whole concept of H&G all grown up to become witch bounty hunters is sure to roll many eyes and with good reason but the film is fully aware of that and runs with the ridiculousness of the whole idea.  It looks, feels and is as bloody violent as Sam Raimi's earlier films, only lacks in the humour department which it tried hard to pull off but failed.  With a bit more wit and snappier dialogue the whole thing might actually be an entertaining movie but falls just a bit short of that.
It's not as bad as I thought it would be but still not that good.

2 cases of diabetes and eating disorders out of 5