New Trailers! Violent Night 2, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, and Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo
🎥 David Harbour returns for another round of Christmas carnage, Mahershala Ali becomes a blade-wielding protector, and Takashi Miike sends Bad Lieutenant spiraling through Tokyo.
There are two kinds of moviegoers who love Christmas movies. Some prefer the sugar-filled comedies packed with holiday cheer and candy-coated sentiment. Then there are those of us who want something darker, stranger, and a little more twisted than the typical Christmas fare.
Violent Night, the David Harbour–starring vehicle, rightfully fits into the latter category, as it’s definitely not something you would show the whole family... unless they’re all hopped up on eggnog and looking for some blood-soaked holiday entertainment. Released back in 2022, the film became an unexpected seasonal hit by turning Santa Claus into a hard-drinking, hammer-swinging action hero with a serious grudge against anyone on the naughty list.
For anyone who cringes whenever a relative flips on the Hallmark Channel or queues up another predictable Christmas rom-com, Violent Night became the perfect antidote to all that holiday fluff. It’s dark, bloody, twisted, and absolutely hilarious—provided you can check your brain at the door, preferably right next to the stockings and any remaining sense of holiday decency. But as much fun as we had with the first Violent Night, we’re still a little surprised it’s getting a sequel, since it felt more like a perfectly contained burst of holiday mayhem than the start of a full-blown franchise.
But after watching the sequel’s first official trailer, we can confidently say this return trip to Santa’s naughty list looks every bit as deranged, brutal, and ridiculously entertaining as the original. Anyone who wasn’t a fan of the first film will likely find little here to change their mind. Consider it another lump of coal in their stocking. But for those who fully embraced its bone-crunching action and pitch-black holiday humor—yes, count us among those who loved watching David Harbour chew up the scenery as a burly, murderous Santa Claus—this sequel looks ready to leave another blood-red gift under the tree this Christmas season.
And while the first film felt like a cross between Die Hard and Silent Night, Deadly Night, this upcoming sequel seems more interested in cranking the action up to Troma-like levels of cartoonish carnage. Which, once again, is very much to our liking... and to anyone who prefers their holiday movies to come with a little blood, bad taste, and absolutely no concern for delicate sensibilities.
This time around, Harbour’s Santa finds himself on the naughty list after apparently “forgetting the meaning of Christmas.” Until he rediscovers it, he’s stripped of his magical powers, putting the entire holiday in jeopardy. But if you think old Saint Nick is going to sit idly by while a local strip mall is taken over by heavily armed bad guys, you’d better think again. Magic powers or not, this Santa is still ready to exact the kind of carnage usually reserved for the very top of the naughty list. Out come the axe, bruised knuckles, and anything sharp enough to do some real damage.
Kristen Bell joins the cast as Mrs. Claus. And if you thought Harbour’s Mr. Claus was outrageously dangerous, Bell looks ready to prove the better half may be even more unhinged.
Jared Harris, Joe Pantoliano, Daniela Melchior, and Andrew Bachelor round out the cast of this wildly over-the-top, action-crammed sequel, which aims to turn the Christmas season into one long, blood-splattered beatdown where the naughty don’t make it to see New Year’s Day.
Once again directed by Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola, who helmed the first film as well as this year’s ridiculously silly yet entertaining Netflix shark thriller Thrash, Violent Night 2 is slated to open in theaters on December 4th.
Guess Christmas is coming early for anyone who prefers their holiday cheer served with broken bones and severed body parts. Ho, ho, ho!
🎥 “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” Trailer: Mahershala Ali Wields a Blade and Fights to Protect His Children in Bassam Tariq’s Houston-Set Action Thriller — In Select Theaters September 25th, Nationwide in October
Picture this: a man with a large blade emerges from the dust and smoke, looking every bit like a warrior ready for battle. Then comes the surprise... he’s carrying a small child at his side.
Yes, the image of a lone samurai traveling with a child has crossed cultures, genres, and generations—from the classic Japanese manga and film saga Lone Wolf and Cub to more recent sci-fi fare like The Mandalorian. There’s just something irresistible about watching a hardened assassin, trained to survive almost anything, suddenly saddled with the one responsibility no weapon can prepare him for: taking care of a child.
Mahershala Ali is the latest actor to step into that tradition, playing a professional hitman suddenly charged with raising and protecting his newborn baby and teenage children in the thriller Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.
For years, the two-time Oscar winner remained at the center of public discussion over his planned role as Blade in the MCU. It was a project that endured years of delays, director departures, script changes, and enough production turmoil to finally push Ali to move on. And while Ali’s departure is understandable, it did leave many wondering what his version of Blade might have looked like.
And while there are no vampires in this new movie, it does offer a glimpse of how Ali might have approached the Blade character—likely with the same ferocity and sincerity he brings to Latif, a devout retired assassin who finds himself at the end of his rope following the devastating death of his wife and suddenly responsible for protecting the children left in his care.
From what we can tell, Ali’s Latif lives by a certain moral code—one that is stretched to its limits as he’s forced to make hard choices for the benefit of his children.
“I thought I was your sword. Now I have to fill her shoes... I’m breaking.”
Latif confesses in the trailer, seemingly pleading with a higher power for strength and guidance as images show him swinging a thin wooden bat at a playground with his children.
In another scene, Latif visits a government assistance office and asks a social worker for help:
“I’m here for the breast milk. My wife passed away, and Zez is breastfed. She’s allergic to formula.”
But his request is denied because he doesn’t have the required prescription.
It’s such a compelling setup for a character who feels familiar: a reformed outlaw with a violent past who believes he has finally left that life behind, only to be pulled back in by financial pressure, grief, and a system that offers little support.
Left with few options, Latif returns to Houston’s criminal underworld, hoping one last job might give his children the stability he can no longer provide on his own. With a blade as his weapon of choice, as guns are no longer part of his code, Latif once again finds himself surrounded by blood, death, and violence.
John Cho co-stars as a cowboy-hat-wearing antagonist who appears to share a dark history with Ali’s Latif, drawing the former assassin back into his inner circle. We’re not sure whether Cho’s character wants him dead or whether Latif has made him his next target. Either way, the trailer promises plenty of action, giving Ali several chances to show off the blade work that inevitably leaves us wondering what his version of Marvel’s vampire hunter might have looked like.
Co-starring Abubakr Ali, Laith Nakli, Tramell Tillman, Tiffany Boone, and Giancarlo Esposito, the film is written and directed by Bassam Tariq, best known for the acclaimed Riz Ahmed–starring hip-hop drama Mogul Mowgli and the award-winning documentary These Birds Walk.
Interesting note: Tariq was previously selected by Mahershala Ali to direct Marvel’s Blade before departing the troubled production. That shared history between director and star makes this reunion especially intriguing, though it would only be speculation to say their frustrations directly gave birth to this project. Still, it’s hard not to wonder whether some of the ideas, themes, and character work they once hoped to explore together found a new home here. Perhaps this is the Blade movie they never got to make... just without the vampires or the Marvel label. In a lot of ways, that might work in their favor.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is slated to make its world premiere in September at TIFF before landing in limited release on September 25th, followed by a nationwide rollout in October.
🎥 “Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo” Teaser Trailer: Shun Oguri Stars as a Corrupt Cop Spiraling Through Addiction, Revenge, and a Missing-Person Case in Takashi Miike’s Twisted Crime Thriller with Lily James — Premiering at TIFF in September
Released back in 1992, Abel Ferrara’s crime film Bad Lieutenant featured an astonishing performance from Harvey Keitel as a corrupt New York police officer at the end of his moral rope. The film has since become a cult classic and is widely regarded as one of Ferrara’s masterpieces. It is also remembered for its graphic depiction of heroin use, as well as an infamous nude scene involving Keitel’s character during a drug-induced stupor.
Partly because it is such a distinctly ’90s New York film, it was never really thought of as anything more than a singular, self-contained piece of work. Then, in 2009, filmmaker Werner Herzog came along with Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a loose reimagining that transplanted the story to Louisiana and placed Nicolas Cage at the center of its own drug-fueled descent. Like its predecessor, the film became a cult classic and is best remembered for Cage’s gloriously unrestrained performance as a crooked detective spiraling deeper into addiction, paranoia, and madness.
Surely, there can’t be any more Bad Lieutenant movies, right? After all, stories about corrupt cops aren’t exactly rare, and the title never felt like the foundation for a conventional franchise.
Oh, wait! Here comes legendary Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike—the man behind Audition, Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins, and countless others—with his own take on the Bad Lieutenant legacy. After helming more than 100 feature films, the prolific director isn’t exactly known for playing it safe, nor for passing up the chance to put his own twisted stamp on familiar material.
With Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, Miike taps Japanese actor Shun Oguri (Godzilla vs. Kong and Netflix’s Human Vapor) as the titular bad lieutenant, a cop neck-deep in corruption and addiction. But when the daughter of a powerful American family goes missing, Tokyo’s worst detective may be the only man reckless enough to find her, placing him on a collision course with an uncompromising FBI agent and a former yakuza hitman seeking revenge.
Lily James (Pam & Tommy, The Iron Claw), Shotaro Mamiya, and WWE wrestler Liv Morgan round out the cast, with Miike directing from a script penned by Audition and 13 Assassins screenwriter Daisuke Tengan.
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo is slated to make its world premiere in September at TIFF. Already acquired by NEON, the film will be released at a later date.
