It’s a very Messy Christmas at the Lightstones this year.

In Violent Night, opening Friday in theaters, David Harbour plays a hard-drinking, hard-hitting, hard-living Santa, albeit one with a heart of gold, not coal. Although he’s disillusioned about his job delivering toys to deserving girls and boys one night each year (a job he has held for more than a millennium), he keeps at it, if only for the cookies that were left out for him and the liquor that definitely isn’t for him.

All that changes when Santa has the bad luck of visiting a house just as it’s being invaded by a gang of thugs hoping to score a big payday. The Lightstone family, headed by matriarch Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo), is dysfunctional yet filthy rich, and a group of mercenaries headed by John Leguizamo want to steal their ill-gotten fortune.

Leguizamo, who goes by the handle Mr. Scrooge, infiltrates the Lightstone compound with the help of his gang, who have been posing as the Christmas Eve catering crew. Once inside, they round up their hostages. Gertrude and her two adult children, snarky drunk Alva (Edi Patterson) and wimpy Jason (Alex Hassell) along with their significant others and children: Edi’s actor-wannabe boyfriend Morgan (Cam Gigandet) and irritating Gen-Z son Bert (Alexander Elliott), and Jason’s estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder) and their daughter Trudy (Leah Brady) are all at the mercy of the murderous crew.

But Trudy has two secret weapons: she recently saw Home Alone, and she has a walkie talkie that allows her to talk to Santa. Once she breaks free from her captors to hide in the attic, she and Santa are free to thwart the kidnappers in the most inventive – and lethal – ways. Most of the movie’s 1:52 run time involves Santa clearing off his naughty list by murdering the mercs one by one.

Violent Night is exactly what it says on the label, with a substantial kill count and a lot of gore, and some gross-out humor of the puking, pooping and peeing variety. There’s also a lot of swearing and other nasty talk. (If you’re wondering if the movie is a good fit for your little ones, it probably isn’t, despite the presence of the adorable Trudy.)

Violent Night is good fun, even if it isn’t as madcap as the trailer suggested. There is a lot of family drama, and the incessant bickering slows down the action. Harbour plays Saint Nick with charm and even a hint of sadness, though the tiny bit of backstory the film gives him isn’t really fleshed out and is only slightly relevant to the plot. Unlike other bloody holiday fare like Black Christmas or Silent Night, Deadly Night, this killer Santa is on the side of good, and there’s even a heart-warming ending of sorts.

Violent Night was directed by Tommy Wirkola and written by Josh Miller and Pat Casey. It’s rated R and only available in theaters now.