The axe-wielding killers dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus return in The Nights Before Christmas. It has been one year since the killing spree of Nicolas Conway (Simon Phillips) and Michelle Weaver (Jennifer Willis), who terrorized the town of Woodbridge, dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus respectively. With survivors Courtney (Keegan Chambers) and Jennifer (Shannon Cotter) still dealing with post-traumatic stress, a new killing spree starts up, with the victims found labelled naughty or nice. This leads to very ambitious FBI Special Agent Natalie Parker (Kate Schroder) to play a deadly game of cat and mouse with the killers and to discover what their endgame is.
The Nights Before Christmas sees director Paul Tanter and writer/star Simon Phillips return with a sequel to their 2017 Christmas slasher film Once Upon a Time at Christmas. The film once again finds Philps and Jennifer Willis as the murderous Santa and Mrs. Claus, who once again begin a murderous spree. Special Agent Natalie Parker initially believes that the endgame is once again Nicolas Conway’s daughter Jennifer, however, evidence begins to point to the murderous duo having much more ambitious plans this time around.
When I reviewed Once Upon a Time at Christmas two years ago, I criticized that film’s mean spirited tone, but ultimately gave it a mild pass. Sadly, that is not the case this time around. The Nights Before Christmas is a completely tasteless and poorly written gorefest that fetishizes its violence, has very few sympathetic characters and features some of the most stupid plot developments I have seen. Admittedly, The Nights Before Christmas is once again a quite well-produced film, but so is pornography, which this film heavily borders upon.
