Tommy Wirkola
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While Tommy Wirkola’s Violent Night draws inspiration from Christmas films like Die Hard and Home Alone , both of which are referenced throughout, it bears more resemblance to that recent comedy sketch, only without any of the self-awareness about how the cynicism of films like Joker has become played out.
“Christmas Vacation” is echoed in the casting of Beverly D’Angelo as the matriarch; the kid in question is a “Home Alone” fan, so there’s a lengthy (and gorier, and death-ier) riff on its slapstick home invasion sequence; Leguizamo gets a “Gremlins”-style monologue about why he hates Christmas; and the central family drama, with worthless adult kids angling for their mother’s money even while they’re being held hostage, recalls “The Ref.”
This is a movie in the same spirit as Die Hard and Home Alone (with direct references to the latter), pitting the good guys vs. the bad guys on Christmas Eve.
Indeed, “Violent Night” is a bloody and downright ludicrous romp that has no business being this fun with the obvious (and appropriate) comparison belonging to “Die Hard” and “Home Alone,” but this heavily R-rated Christmas themed actioner knows exactly what it is and isn’t afraid to be extra naughty.
His approach makes for a hyper-self-aware, modern redux of the character in a film that pays as much homage to films like Deadpool as it does to Die Hard and Home Alone.
One particularly inspired sequence delivers what Home Alone could, were it to be given a more adult rating.
Van Helsing (2004)
Directed by Stephen Sommers
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Themes Plot
With its anachronistic weaponry, horror themes, and references to well-known stories, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is most reminiscent of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing.
Stephen Sommers's Van Helsing was almost universally panned upon its release in mid-2004, but looking back now, the rhetoric surrounding its critical impalement reads as oddly dated: Rex Reed, in a review typical of its broader reception, called it "a noisy, nasty and repulsive video game-slash-theme park haunted-house ride," all but heralding its arrival as the death of a more sensible cinema.
Last year's movie version of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter didn't exactly blow the roof of the multiplex, nobody really remembers The Brothers Grimm, and the less that's said about Stephen Sommers' insufferable Van Helsing experiment, the better.
Think Army of Darkness rather than Van Helsing , an R-rated version of the famous Brothers Grimm tale that’s a bit of ridiculous fun.
They were shooting for sort of a witch hunting “Zombieland,” an f-bomb riddled “Van Helsing” packed with comical anachronisms – a Bavarian forest past with witch trials, pump shotguns and primitive tasers, where bottles of milk have woodcut pictures of “Missing Children” on the labels.
For one, it's not outrageously dumber than its revisionist folklore-themed predecessors "Van Helsing," "Red Riding Hood" or TV's "Once Upon a Time," and it's far more goofily violent.
For young gore-hungry audiences who haven't seen "The Evil Dead" (one and two), "Dead Snow" could work as a stomach-churning thrill ride, but for more experienced viewers, you're much better off sticking with a master of the genre like Sam Raimi, whose "Drag Me to Hell" achieves everything the "Dead Snow" filmmakers attempted to do, and more.
I suspect director Tommy Wirkola has been feeding on Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead for years now.
Instead, Wirkola draws on the films he grew up with in the 80s, films like “The Evil Dead” and “Braindead.”
Cheery, silly, splattery, and respectful of its elders (and betters, particularly Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead), this bloody/cheesy subtitled Scandinavian lark is written and directed by Tommy Wirkola, who has a nice touch with severed limbs.
Under director/co-writer Tommy Wirkola, "Dead Snow" recalls countless other splatterfests, especially Sam Rami's 1983 "The Evil Dead."
A cryo-freeze commercial seen early in the film calls to mind the nod-and-wink of Paul Verhoeven social satires like RoboCop , while the persistent chatter of outside advertising inevitably recalls Blade Runner .
Army of Darkness (1992)
Directed by Sam Raimi
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Characters Themes
I don't know if the end result qualifies as "horror," but whether your tastes run to gratuitous head stompings, f-bombs, naked redheads (well hello there, Pihla Viitala), or overt Army of Darkness references (the first witch encountered is a dead -- pun intended -- ringer for the "You shall die!" Deadite in Lord Arthur's castle, while the pair's Augsburg entrance heavily apes Ash's "primitive screwhead" speech), you'll probably find something that agrees with you.
And like Ash from Army of Darkness, Hansel and Gretel have a penchant for modern phrases and profanity.
Think Army of Darkness rather than Van Helsing , an R-rated version of the famous Brothers Grimm tale that’s a bit of ridiculous fun.
A cryo-freeze commercial seen early in the film calls to mind the nod-and-wink of Paul Verhoeven social satires like RoboCop , while the persistent chatter of outside advertising inevitably recalls Blade Runner .
Stop if you’ve seen or heard of the following lately: blue-and-red digital displays, glass touchscreens, Blade Runner -esque alleys, identification bands, “Together We Survive” propaganda signs, retinal scans, recorded memories, cryo-banks, desaturated environments.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced What Happened to Monday (2017)
Themes
The set-up is familiar from countless dystopian sci-fi fables, from Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), based on Brian Aldiss’s 1969 short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” in which parents who are not allowed to have children instead adopt lifelike child robots, to Kurt Vonnegut’s 1962 short story “2 B R 0 2 B,” where the world has set a population limit and therefore each birth must be matched with a death.
(He clearly hasn’t seen Paint Your Wagon).
The Matrix (1999)
Directed by Lana Wachowski
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Characters
There are elements of the fairy tale; action punctuated by liberal amounts of blood and gore, and one effect borrowed from "The Matrix"; witches transplanted from a horror movie; a forbidden love; a King Kong-esque subplot; and two lead characters who sound like they were beamed in from 21st-century America.
Hansel and Gretel arrive as if two characters from “The Matrix” were dropped into 17th-century Heidelberg; they are leather-clad and carry massive guns and sassy attitudes that don’t win them points with the wicked sheriff (Peter Stormare, who is off to a bad start in 2013, also starring in the abominable “ The Last Stand ”).
He's undoubtedly right; the audience that goes for Nazi-themed horror, like Dead Snow, tends to enjoy gore, too.
The production design is great too, helping the fare escape the bargain bin imprisonment forced upon not-too-dissimilar efforts, such as Dead Snow .
After being blown out of the sky, the group is flung into the middle of a village that’s been taken over by a small but virulent group of Nazis who have a suspicious obsession with the local church on which the comm tower has been placed.When I first came across Overlord I was pretty sure it had all been done before, with films like Dead Snow and Frankenstein’s Army already covering the whole “Nazi experiments gone even wronger than you’d expect Nazi experiments to go” angle.
And the decades since have produced enough questionable efforts (Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge, Dead Snow, Bloodrayne: The Third Reich) to constitute a healthy subgenre, which I’m going to dub, hmm, let’s say, "the Nazombie movie.”
If you’ve played Wolfenstein or seen horror films like Blood Creek or Dead Snow, then you’ve seen the only thing Overlord has going for it in terms of a hook.
The result plays like a mashup of “Dead Snow” (a comparatively straightforward zombie-Nazi movie), “Universal Soldier,” and the video game series “Wolfenstein.”
Minority Report (2002)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced What Happened to Monday (2017)
Visuals
Instead, there’s little more than the transparent screen concept, apparently required since Minority Report came out, and clunky, metal wristbands that are used to track locations and ensure nobody is violating the Child Allocation Act.
I'm not exactly sure who decided that action, horror, fantasy, and light comedy were a good mixture for box office success, but it seems like Tim Burton's 1999 rendition of Sleepy Hollow was just a bit more influential than one might think.
It Came from Outer Space (1953)
Directed by Jack Arnold
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Visuals
Wirkola makes the most of the 3D technology; there haven’t been as many deadly weapons flying at the audience since the era of It Came From Outer Space.
Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
Directed by John Cherry
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Arterton in particular steals the film as a strong, thoughtful, formidable action heroine who, yes, is eventually victimized, but at the very least kicks her own fair share of ass and only gives the time of day to a guy who, by all rights, could have been one of the trolls in Ernest Scared Stupid.
The Princess Bride (1987)
Directed by Rob Reiner
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Characters Themes
On the other hand, if you want random cornball lines about porridge that’s “not too hot and not too cold, but just right” — more appropriate for a direct-to-video Shrek sequel — and a CGI troll who comes off as the love child of Fezzik from The Princess Bride and the Rockbiter from The Neverending Story, then there are ways to make an entertaining yet still darkly toned fantasy film for all ages (and for the ages).
The blend of fairy-tale sentiment and knowing irony worked exactly once, in The Princess Bride, and fails here.
Death of a Unicorn was a delightful, if slightly gory surprise, reminding me a little of Ready or Not (2019) and Violent Night (2022) with its treatment of the 0.01% without going fully swinging the other way with a proletariat “for the people” message.
Do parents get to Sophie’s Choice their families?
Harking back to 1970s thrillers like Soylent Green and Zero Population Growth, What Happened to Monday?
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Directed by Brian De Palma
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Renner, meanwhile, making a run at holding the most franchises at one time (“Mission: Impossible,” “Bourne,” “Avengers”), keeps up his credible mix of physicality and presence.
Best guess: Befuddled by weapons-heavy acting roles in Mission Impossible, The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy, Renner thought he was doing pickup shots for an earlier movie.
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (2000)
Directed by Matthew Bright
influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Themes
If you’re going to make an edgy, violent, twisted and categorically adult version of Hansel and Gretel, you should go all the way — well, maybe not as exploitative as the fairy tale-inspired Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby, but something with balls.