GUARD YOUR CHESTNUTS!

When it comes to Christmas movies, let’s be honest. The classics are few and far between. And with The Hallmark Channel churning out cookie-cutter, holiday-themed movies by the dozens every year, you can quickly overdose on Yuletide mirth.

But then along comes “Violent Night,” which more than lives up to its title, if not R rating. In a nutshell, the action-comedy mixes elements of “Bad Santa,” “Die Hard (yes, Die Hard),” “Home Alone” and a little-seen but worthy entry called “The Ref.” That’s a black comedy from 1994, starring Denis Leary and Judy Davis. Leary plays a thief who holds a family hostage.

Well, “Violent Night” is the story of some very bad dudes who hold a wealthy family hostage in order to steal their modest $300 million fortune stashed in an underground vault. As you do when you have a fortune to stash.

Santa Claus, the real Santa Claus, played by David Harbour (“Stranger Things,” “Black Widow”) happens to stop at the home of the Lightstone family on Christmas Eve and finds himself torn between his annual toys-down-the-chimney ritual and saving young Trudy and her family from some truly violent psychopaths who mow down the servants before rounding up the relatives for some harsh interrogations.

No surprise that the night visitors are all on the Naughty List.

Santa can’t bear the thought of leaving the Lightstones helpless in the face of all-but-certain death. Besides, director Tommy Wirkola gives Santa a unique back story. Turns out he was himself a baddie, about 1400 or so years ago. “I was mean,” he says. And he wielded a hammer that left no skull uncrushed.

Eventually he changed his ways, thanks I suppose to the love and support of Mrs. Claus.

But he now finds himself having to dig deep into that darker corner of his soul. And watching him stalk and dispatch the intruders, who by the way have cute nicknames like Gingerbread and Krampus, reminded me of Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” picking off the terrorists in the Nakatomi tower like decoys in a shooting gallery.

Harbour’s Santa is a world-weary slob with bloodshot eyes and some impressive tattoos. He is not the jolly archetype made famous in all those vintage Coke ads. Put another way, in his North Pole patois, the F-word ain’t fudge. Especially when he steps in some of Blitzen’s poo.

And yet he’s the perfect foil for John Leguizamo who plays Jimmy Scrooge, the sneering leader of the murderous mercenaries; he’s not a suave international evildoer like Hans Gruber of “Die Hard.” Jimmy’s more into bullets than bon mots. He’s a guy who grew up hating the holidays because of some childhood trauma that turned his heart as black as a lump of coal. And at one point, he comes close to realizing his ultimate dream: killing Christmas. But you just know that in the end he’s no match for the real Mr. Claus.

“Violent Night” goes down like spiked eggnog. It’s Christmas cheer.