Review by paul_haakonsen

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.