The Nights Before Christmas (2019) User Reviews (12)

Bad Santa.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 5/10 · 25 October 2020]

For the final day of FrightFest 2020 I looked at what the last stream flicks of the night were. Finding a lone Horror flick,I got set for a bloody Christmas.

View on the film:

Making a kill list and checking it twice, the screenplay by director Paul Tanter and lead Simon Phillips muddle through on it to sleigh naughty or nice,with naughty being a police procedural with cardboard characters which drains the entire energy out of the flick,and nice, being much-needed dollops of Grindhouse sleaze.

Splattering blood and red tinsel on the screen, director Tanter brings the Grindhouse cheer when finally free of the needless exposition, with zoom-ins on Santa's (played with a cackling menace by Simon Phillips) tasty chopping skills (including a hosepipe!) and lingering shots giving a eyeful of skin from Mrs. Claus, (played with a wicked raunchy edge by Sayla de Goede) until a swift whip-pans runs down Mrs. Claus digging her heels into the next naughty lad,as Santa and Mrs. Claus wish all a good bloody night.

Just another generic slasher flick...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 22 November 2020]

While the 2019 movie "The Nights Before Christmas" was dark and gritty, it was not an overly outstanding movie. Sure, it was watchable, but the movie just didn't really cut it - pardon the pun - in terms of being a properly entertaining horror movie.

So why was that? Well, mostly because the movie was predictable, but also because the storyline was just way too generic. It felt like writers Simon Phillips and Paul Tanter were playing it way too safe and going for something that had been done many times before this movie. Sure, it worked well enough, but at the same time it was restricting the movie from being more than less than mediocre.

The characters in the movie were cliché, and as such it was just a bit difficult to really establish any connections with them. The Santa Claus character was interesting enough, albeit generic, and actor Simon Phillips definitely helped to bring the character to life on the screen. As for Mrs. Claus, played by Sayla de Goede, was just too much of a clone of the Harley Quinn character.

"The Nights Before Christmas" is not a contender for becoming neither a Christmas classic nor a slasher classic. It is the type of movie that you watch once - probably because you got lured in by the movie's cover - and then never will shed a single thought to the movie ever again.

My rating of the 2019 movie "The Nights Before Christmas" lands on a four out of ten stars. It was watchable, sure, but it was ultimately a less than mediocre movie at best.

An unabating christmas plan

[RedKidBytes · 3/10 · 27 September 2022]

Mr. And Mrs. Clause have a naughty by-nature list of names. They meet personally with those on the list and send them away to their finality. Feds and police try to make a link between the events and seem like they are always several steps behind.

Nothing extraordinary happens in this sluggish slasher. As far as I could tell, not even one person or police fired a round to end Mr. & Mrs. Clauses' affairs.

In the slasher horror movie types, there are usually expectedly unexpected scenes where the element of surprise gives an advantage to the culprits whilst slashing their victims. However, it's not the case here, except for the second victim. With the cutlery in their hands, they talk and bore the victims to death.

Consequently, it is hard to buy into the story. It's just not believable.

Rubbish

[teresajose-68111 · 2/10 · 15 November 2020]

So this had such potential to be good. The story was well thought out but the acting.....shockingly bad. From ALL actors and actresses. At first I thought it was just the FBI woman and the 'mrs Claus' who was bad but then I noticed all the actors were awful. Absolutely awful. It's really difficult to watch actually. The production seems okay and the story, like I said, was good. But all the actors were TERRIBLE. There was one scene where the 'mrs Claus' had her shoe heal in an FBI mans throat and she killed him while another FBI man with his gun in her face just stands there and doesn't shoot. Like yeah, okay then. And the 'Santa' is cutting a rope with a machete and is cutting so stupidly it's frustrating. The 'Santa' also cuts a mans manhood off but they way he does it, the man could have gotten away because he WOULD have seen it coming. But he just stands there. If this movie had better actors, it could have been good. But it's laughable. The script is pretty rubbish too. It's almost like this movie was given to complete amateurs. Wouldn't recommend. 2/10

3 is generous

[iainmcleod_800 · 3/10 · 29 November 2020]

Honestly, this could have been such a good movie. The idea was good, but the movie just wasnt. Acting was poor at almost all times. Lines just delivered as if being read of the page. Except the bad guys and the sheriff who was only in one scene. And i know they wanted to make things scary, jumpy etc, but some scenes were just outrageously poor and unbelievable. Particularly when the FBI guy had a gun in Mrs C's face as she killed someone and did nothing. Then one scene "this is a private party" im not even going into And lastly the the girl with pink hair, we are supposed to care about her? She was rude and swore at the police etc. Pass

2 is for the concept

[RealisticCritic · 2/10 · 23 December 2022]

This was terrible. The "top review" at the time I'm writing this is just false.

Especially around the middle with the "escape". First, the wanna be Harley Quinn Mrs. Claus claims to have eaten razor blades. Yet she's acting and speaking fine, no blood, etc. Yeah, totally believable reason to transport her.

Then the "breakout". This ruined the entire fn film. You mean to tell me this "most wanted, murderous Santa" who is subject of a manhunt, isn't known by every agent assigned to this case and especially assigned to transport "Mrs. Claus"? Bulls**t.

Even if this was somehow possible, who wouldn't be suspicious of somebody in a Santa suit, grimy and dirty, stopping the transport of a woman dressed as Mrs. Claus? Not only that, one holding a giant machete obviously cutting a rope for 5 minutes? Ffs, whoever wrote this was an imbecile.

Not to mention the part already referenced in other reviews where she kills a guy in front of an agent with a gun drawn and he doesn't just shoot her and be done with it. That's cause.

Then we get to the board meeting. A dirty, grimy, nasty looking Santa with an ax walks in and nobody is freaking out. Even after somebody is killed in front of them. Good God.

And the fed shooting the girl? Moronic. Nothing else to say about that. Ending was a load of trash.

I so wanted to enjoy this movie. I liked the concept. It actually started out ok but quickly devolved into a heaping pile of utter s**t. The only reason it got a 2 was for the concept and the ok beginning. That's it. If it wasn't for that, I'd have given it a one.

Anybody who rates this higher than a 3 and says it's worth a watch needs to seek professional help immediately.

Stick to the first chapter only...

[theromanempire-1 · 3/10 · 18 January 2022]

In my book the first chapter called "once upon a time at christmas" was a solid santa slasher flick with it's flaws and it's positives and the most similar to the silent night deadly night film although not as good still as that great 1984 film was.

Still it had it's moments and it took itself seriously as far as plot conserns but showing the fbi and the cops so....helpless against this santa was kind of....hilarius.

Anyhow......if u wanted to find a serious kind of santa slasher close enough to SNDN then this film is for you but not it's sequel we are talking in this review. The sequel is a bore repetitive of the first film that eventually tire you watching it so u can skip it and stick to the superior first film.

Here are the top 5 santa involved slashers in my book

silent night deadly night 1 and 2

santa's slay

christmas evil

black christmas trilogy

once upon a time at christmas.

Not Great, But Ok

[vengeance20 · 3/10 · 20 November 2020]

Got this recently and have just finished watching this film. It's not great but its ok for what it is.

The film follows 2 serial killers who use the persona of Mr. & Mrs. Clause. Police are trying to track them down & put a stop to their killing spree. But a deadly revelation is about to be unearthed as the police close in...!

The film was ok, the kills weren't amazing but the film was below average for me anyway. I did feel that for what it was the film was overly long at 96 minutes. The eye candy & gore were pretty good however despite everything else.

Overall not a great film. But it's ok. 3/10

A scary movie and and great story.

[roger_2020 · 4 November 2020]

The Nights Before Christmas This movie I can definitely recommend to anyone. There isn't anything bad about this movie, really. The actors play well and the characters are built even better. I cannot express how good this is. 10/10

I've watched worse

[Das_Fenster2000 · 3/10 · 7 April 2023]

Wasn't unwatchably bad, but fairly bad. The actress playing "Mrs. Claus" seems to have based her character on a blend of Harley Quinn and Baby from House of 1000 Corpses and didn't come off very well at all being so blatantly obvious what she was attempting to do. The lead FBI agent was trying way too hard to pull off a "Clarice Starling" but failed miserably and seemed to be reading her lines, pretty much like most of the other actors. Story was fairly predictable but was still just okay. Seems to be pretty common with the films where the directors, producers, writers act in their films. I wouldn't recommend watching it, but I wouldn't steer you away from it either.

Christmas horror

[jfl77 · 7/10 · 6 December 2020]

Not bad for a Christmas horror film! I'm excited to watch the first one now. I'm hoping there's another sequel. I think more can be explained, this was a great movie!

Serviceable and entertaining enough but obviously falls short

[elliotcarrbarnsley · 6/10 · 17 December 2023]

There are the bones of a good movie in here. It's solidly directed, looks substantial and the plot has a natural born killers-lite vibe, which actually zips along fine for it's run time.

It falls down with clunky exposition that has no faith in its audience, which basically leads to the lead agent's partner being the dumbest man alive, asking inane questions just for the dunce's who haven't got the plot by an hour in. Honestly it's incredible watching what a list is being explained to him, up there with The Room.

This is bettered by an astonishingly poor scene involving a first week on the job agent getting his orders. The acting and dialogue in this scene is egregiously terrible and only serves to set up a diaboically bad scene that they've now completely telegraphed.

It would have taken almost no effort to write a better setup.

The acting is ok, Santa, who gets criticism here, is doing decent work with what he has, snarling his way through. I buy him and his goals, he's giving his all to the part.

Overall it obviously could have been much better but looked better than a lot of similar level films and went down fine.