I was in the perfect mood for an action-comedy called Violent Night. Amazing that nobody thought of that title before! Even if the whole bad Santa or hellish holiday idea is a familiar one by now, it’s still as evergreen as Christmas itself. As long as we have to work like dogs so we can afford to go out in bad weather and heinous traffic and crowded stores and buy presents for each other under maximum holiday duress, we’ll need the pressure valve of slapstick comedy with bloody mayhem.

So you can imagine how bitterly disappointed I am to report that Violent Night is an absolute waste of time. It provides practically no relief for your Yuletide rage. It’s a dud bomb that never goes off.

It’s still doing well at the box office, which just shows how intense the public need is for a counteractive entertainment to all those Hallmark Christmas movies. The joke’s on all of us, though, because there’s a huge, heavy dose of Hallmark sentimentality smuggled into this movie too, causing it to drop with a thud midway through, like stale fruitcake.