Twelve days before Christmas, a small town mall Santa is killed in the parking lot by another Santa and Mrs. Claus – the only clue is a bitten pear, the next day two teenagers are burnt alive in their car at Turtle Dove Point; while the Mayor doesn’t see a problem, and Deputy Fullard doesn’t see a connection, Sheriff Mitchell is sure the sleepy town of Woodridge, NY, has a serial killer or two on the loose.

Meanwhile, teenager Jennifer learns that her mother and stepdad are getting a divorce after the holiday season; her boyfriend, David, and friends Courtney and Joe, invite her to an annual drum fest on Christmas Eve.

Later, the Claus’ strike at the home of divorce lawyer Mrs. Frenchen; killing her, her daughter and their dog.

Night four of the killings. Courtney and a few of her other friends hit a bar for some underage drinking; they’re being heckled by someone in the background and decide to head to the toilets – as girls do – and hear someone crying in the cubicle. One of the girls peers under the door and ends up with an arrow in the eye before Mrs. Claus and Santa reveal themselves and kill three of the other girls – leaving Courtney alive.

Against the Mayor’s wishes, the Sheriff brings in the FBI; the five agents suggest that there might be more victims but leaves it to the local force to track any down – Fullard then discovers the Frenchen family slaughtered in their own home. While the police investigate the murders, the FBI agents are ambushed at the station; all five are killed and their ring fingers cut off.

Fullard heads out to the farm to follow up on a report of the farmers geese being killed over night – six of them, later revealed to be poisoned.

Across town, Jennifer’s friend, Lisa, disappears from her late swin practice; meanwhile, Jennifer gets a mysterious present after her shift at the mall – surprise, it’s the missing fingers of the FBI agents. Lucy, Jen’s mum, tells the Sheriff (unconvincingly) that she has no idea who could have sent Jen the gift and threatens them with her lawyer: Mrs. Frenchen. Fullard tells her she’s dead, which only seems to solidify Lucy’s theory of who sent her daughter the gift. Sheriff Mitchell implements a curfew.

Fullard discovers seven origami swans at the pool where lisa went missing. Later, during a press interview, a reporter tells Fullard that the Mayor told her curfew should have been implimented earlier, Mitchell overhears that and rushes off to meet the Mayor – punching him in the face; the Mayor fires him from his duties and leaves for his nephew’s bachelor party. Fullard tells Mitchell what he found at the pool and that the Farmer called to report his milking machines had been destroyed.

Across town, Courtney and Jennifer investigate the killings themselves, trying to find a connection to Jen’s family; they later discover that Jen’s mum was dating a soldier before she was born.

Merry Christmas to Sheriff Mitchell, Santa has left a gift on his desk! Fullard puts on one glove (but handles the box with both hands?) and opens it carefully to discover a USB stick, on the stick is CCTV footage of the local strip club; the Mayor has been ‘giving back to the community’ there, watching nine lovely ladies dance – except one of them is Mrs. Claus! She and Santa murder everyone inside.

It’s this point that they begin to piece together the clues: the killers have been following the song Twelve Days of Christmas, starting with the mall Santa – whose name was Partridge – to the ten ‘Lords’ in the strip club. Fullard realises that the milking machines at the farm are the maids, and that the farm isn’t too far from Jen’s old house – they finally found the connection!

Jennifer confronts her mum about the news article she found online; Lucy explains that she married a British Marine, Nick, who came back from a war with PTSD and had violent outbursts; Lucy divorced him one Christmas after he attacked her, and later discovered she was pregnant with Jen. She continues that she thought he’d died in a fire in the asylum he was in – they never offically decalred him dead, but did find his teeth with a burnt out corpse three years prior to the events of the film. Jen, upset, goes to meet Courtney and friends for the drum fest; Lucy is attacked at home by Nick and Mrs. Claus.

Mitchell and Fullard go to Lucy’s home to check on her. There, they find a random Piper’s vehicle, Jen’s murdered step-father but no Lucy; they realise the last killings will take place at the drum fest and rush over to the venue. At the bar, patrons are counting down to Christmas day when the lights go out and killings begin; Courtney makes a run for it for help, but is caught in Mrs. Claus’ bear trap. Inside, Nick and Jen meet, and he has Lucy and Lisa wrapped up with IEDs; he wants to prove that Jen is just like him and wants her to pick between mum and best friend – going as far as to place a grenade in her hands as incentive. Mitchell and Fullard arrive; Fullard handles Mrs. Claus – rescuing Courtney – and Mitchell injures Nick. Nick convinces Jen that it will never be over unless he dies, so she drops the grenade which turns out to be a stun grenade – Nick disappears in the smoke.

At the station, Mrs. Claus has a very small cell where Fullard tells her it won’t be long until they get Nick. Unfortunately, Nick gets to him first.

One year after the previous killing spree, Nick and his Mrs. Claus, Michelle, are back for revenge; they begin with Courtney’s dad, Jim, as he returns home from visiting her in the city. Nick causes Jim to swerve from the road and into a tree; he makes a run into the woods but Nick catches up with him and kills him, making it look like a drink drive accident.

FBI agent Parker is convinced it’s Nick and Michelle and makes the local officers search for extra clues; they find a hachete in a tree and ‘naughty’ written in blood in the snow. Parker decides not to tell Courtney’s family it was Nick until they’re completely sure.

Courtney talks to her therapist, Dr. Mudd, over the phone about her feelings over her dad’s death. Mudd has an open file on Nick, who she treated at the asylum years prior along with Michelle. Later in the evening, Nick and Michelle break into Mudd’s home, attacking her, and killing her daughter and daughter’s boyfriend.

Lucy takes Jen to the funeral in support of Courtney, but the agent asigned to them doesn’t let them inside. At ther service, undercover agents see Michelle there and catch her – a waiting car speeds away and the FBI follow, believing it to be Nick driving; at a blockade, they discover the driver is Dr. Mudd with ‘nice’ carved into her forehead. Nick is still at the church and the FBI are too late to stop him murdering the Priest who held the service.

Parker is convinced that Nick is after his family again, but can’t figure out the connection between the killings and the family; she goes to Mitchell’s home, who has long retired and just wants to spend time with his granddaughter. Parker convinces him to at least look at the file.

Agents can’t get Michelle to talk, so Parker heads to the old asylum to look fore clues; there she meets Clayton, an abusive orderly turned groundsman. Clayton admits he got Jim a job there as an orderly back in the day, but can’t give her much more as everything was destroyed in the fire – and she’d need a warrent to get it anyway.

Mitchell thinks he’s found the connection, however, Nick goes after Mitchell, who holds him at gunpoint and calls the police, stating he shot in intruder in self defence; Nick taunts Mitchell into pulling the trigger but the gun is empty and Nick kills him. Parker finds Mitchell’s body, but his granddaughter has been left alive.

At the station, Michelle tells an agent she’s swallowed razor blades and they prepare to move her to the hospital. Meanwhile, Nick goes after Clayton, hanging him in an empty room of the old asylum; Parker thinks there something Nick doesn’t want them to see when she sees a blank space among all the pictures he left behind, she says the heat from the lights would leave an invisible trace behind.

Meanwhile, Courtney and Jen plan to meet Nick once more.

As the FBI begin to move MIchelle, they bring in a new recruit and advise him to shoot if she does anything fishy during transport. The convoy hit a roadblock along the way, a broken down vehicle, and can’t decide how to proceed; however, Michelle begins to attack the guards in the van with her, pinning one by the neck with her foot while the rookie holds a gun on her and begs her to stop. The lead of the convoy radios back about the car and Parker knows it’s Nick; the convoy give a description of a man in a Santa suit and Parker tells them to run him down. The convoy is hesitant while Nick begins to cut a rope holding up a tree above the lead truck; in the back, Michelle puts her heel through the guard’s neck while to rookie still hesitates.

Nick begins to kill of the agents and free Michelle. Parker and the others arrive too late to help, but Parker knew no one would be alive anyway.

In a business meeting, a board discuss the care of patients in the asylums they run – one previously being the Woodridge site; the CEO says costs are more important than care, to the disappointment of one of the women members. The lawyer on the board nips to the toilet, where Nick cuts off his penis and then throws it onto the desk in the meeting; he’d heard what they’d said about care in the asylum, and he knows first hand how bad it is; he asks who’s missing from the meeting, pulling out a list of names from his pocket, and is told Joe is having his appendix removed – Nick then asks what happens if he kills everyone in the room and learns they’ll just appoint a new board, but leaving one alive will make them the CEO. Nick and Michelle kill everyone but the woman who objected to the patient’s mistreatment. Nick tells her to be a better CEO.

Parker and a few other agents arrive later, still trying to piece the connections together; she’s then told they found the invisible writing, left behind at Clayton’s death, with the UV light – it’s a company Christmas card list with the names of Clayton, the priest and Jim’s name on it; Parker rushes to the hospital where the missing board member, Joe, is.

Courtney and Jen are already at the hospital. Joe happens to be Courtney’s uncle and the pair seemed to have figured out Nick’s plan before anyone else; when the crazed duo turn up, Courtney convinces Nick to let her and her uncle go in return for Jen; Nick tells them to leave, but sends Michelle after them anyway. When Michelle catches up, Courtney holds her at gunpoint and then hands the weapon to her uncle while she goes back for Jen; Michelle kills Joe anyway and rejoins Nick with the girls.

Nick is still trying to get Jen to see that they’re alike and gives her a gun to prove it; Courtney encourages her to shoot him, but Parker arrives in time and shoots Jen to stop her – then shoots Nick. Parker arrests Nick and locks him up, but Michelle is now the one rescuing him and kills Parker in the process.

Rating: 7/10 overall, averaging 3.5 each. They’re not bad films, but not great either; I prefer Nick and Michelle’s seemingly random spree in the second film, only to learn that they’re getting revenge on everyone who mistreated them in the asylum – and just happens to be on the company Christmas card list; however, the side story about Nick’s family just seems to be wedged in there, and if you don’t realise Nights Before Christmas is a sequel (like I did) then that plot just seems really random – it’s really important to watch them in order or you’re left a little confused and underwhelmed.