Violent Night 2 director reveals a disturbing scene inspired by horror master Sam Raimi

Published Aug 4, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT

That’s the hilarious premise for Violent Night 2, the sequel to the 2022 action comedy Violent Night, in which David Harbour stars as a very different kind of Santa. In the first film, a disillusioned, hard-drinking Santa Claus rescues a wealthy family by ruthlessly killing a team of mercenaries that have taken over their home. In the first trailer for the sequel, we learn Santa has been slaughtering the naughty ever since, which places Saint Nick on his very own naughty list.

Image: Universal Pictures

Like the first movie, the trailer makes clear that there are plenty of gruesome kills in Violent Night 2, but this sequel isn’t just more of the same.

“Honestly, it took a while to figure out the story for this one,” director Tommy Wirkola, who also directed the first film, tells Polygon. “The writers tried a few different approaches and treatments, [but] we didn't want to make a sequel where we felt like we were just repeating the same recipe. Then we landed on this idea where he's taken the wrong lessons from the first movie, which is that Santa's now become obsessed with punishing the naughty. It's gone so far that eventually he ends up on the naughty list and he is stripped of all his powers. He's basically not Santa anymore. The story is about him getting stuck inside this mall, where Jared Harris is a mob boss, ruling it all with an iron fist. [Santa's] getting entangled into all that while, at the same time, trying to figure out what Christmas means for him.”

Image: Universal Pictures

One of the most surprising parts of the first Violent Night is that, despite the bloodshed and the crude humor, it manages to include a dose of the heartfelt Christmas sweetness you find in traditional Christmas movies. By the look of the trailer — which features Harbour in a brightly lit shopping mall, wearing an ugly Christmas sweater — there seems to be even more heart in the sequel.

“The appealing thing on the first one was to combine a very gory action movie with the beating heart of a Christmas movie," Wirkola says. "With this one, we lean even harder into that. The goal with the second one, like the first one, is, when you leave the theater you should feel filled with Christmas spirit and joy. On this one, we will do it in a bigger way.”

But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of violence and gore. Producer Kelly McCormick (Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde) tells Polygon she’s especially proud of a sequence from the trailer where Santa makes violent use of a cookie cutter.

“The cookie cutter into the brains was a stroke of genius by Tommy Wirkola and our stunt department,” says McCormick. Wirkola adds that the entire extended fight is a tribute to Sam Raimi.

Image: Universal Pictures

The Violent Night 2 trailer also introduces Mrs. Claus, played by Kristen Bell.

“She's a very important part of the movie, and she did a phenomenal job. I'm obsessed with her,” says McCormick.

In addition to meeting Santa's wife, McCormick says we’ll also find out a bit more about Kris Kringle himself. In the first film, there’s a brief glimpse of Santa’s past life as a Viking warrior. Since then, fans have been asking David Harbour for more details about the character's backstory. Violent Night 2 will deliver more of that lore.

“We've tried to add more [of] what was happening with Santa before he was Santa,” says McCormick, though she adds that not all the questions about Santa’s backstory get answered.

“There's still more to tell after this movie,” she says, which might mean, if this one is as successful as the first, a third installment of Violent Night may be coming in the future.

Violent Night 2 releases in theaters on December 4, 2026.