Arriving at their parents' house for Christmas, a woman and her brother realize that a strange series of killings around town are connected to a local legend from forty years earlier involving a killer Santa striking the town and must find a way to solve the mystery in order to stop the killings.
This was a rather enjoyable genre follow-up. Among the better features is the solid setup that allows for a nice homage to the original while tying things into a new storyline. The lengthy flashback detailing the events of the original and how the killer was diagnosed, confined, and released to set himself out on his rampage makes for a great connection to the antics played up here as the events described go a long way towards demonstrating the madness that set the original killer off. Bringing it around full-circle with how the family is connected to the killer and trying to demonstrate how the events are connected in the town makes for a fun time. There's also quite a lot to like with the enjoyable slasher set pieces when they arrive. Featuring a series of indie-flavored stalking scenes of the killer Santa appearing out of nowhere and striking unaware victims in graphic means, these scenes are usually quite fun here. The attack in the living room out into the front yard amongst the crowd of carolers or the killer striking the family in the house offer some enjoyable setpieces which are used to bolster the second half quite nicely with the chilling imagery of the killer at work for some frenetic scenes here, all making for a lot to like with this one. There are some minor factors that bring this one down. One of the few flaws here is the slow-burning pace on display that tends to keep a lot of the action off-screen during the first half. Since a large portion of the running time here is spent on going through the flashback in a fashion that fills in the backstory but does so with very little involving the current state of action. Most of the film is spent with this backstory flashback that takes up way too much of the running time establishing something that could've been done in a much more succinct and compact fashion without resorting to half the film being flashbacks. The other slight drawback to this one comes from the decision to incorporate the flashbacks from the original but change around the fates of characters for new purposes. Since this one very obviously changes around the fate of several individuals in some rather egregious choices simply to make the plot work, and while this makes for a fun connection to the original the logistics of doing so doesn't always require that rewriting. As well, despite the numerous kills throughout the film it manages to feature some rather weak effects-work on the kills that speak to its lower budget that all lower this one slightly.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.
