Directed and written by Paul Tanter and co-written by Simon Phillips, this is a sequel to Once Upon a Time at Christmas. Courtney (Keegan Chambers), the daughter of the killer Santa, Nick, (Phillips), has left behind Woodridge and is living in hiding in the big city. Yet when her father and his wife, Michelle, (Sayla de Goede) return, she has to come back home to face off with him once and for all.

Now that Agent Natalie Parker (Kate Schroder) is on the case, she visits all of the survivors of the first movie, many of whom don’t make it to the end of The Nights Before Christmas. Like Courtney, who spoiler warning, dies thereby ruining. the father and daughter dynamic of the original. Also: the roles of Jennifer, Courtney and Lucy have new actresses, with Susannah Mackay and Brook Fletcher being replaced by Shannon Cotter, Keegan Chambers and Meredith Heinrich.

It also has the Santa go all Dr. Phibes and get revenge on the people who ran the sanitarium where he and his Mrs. Claus were mistreated, making him the hero, which didn’t seem like a direction I expected.

This does have drone footage, which makes it seem higher budget than the original, but the cops — defund the slasher, giallo and holiday horror police — repeatedly have the bad guys held down by their guns and are too afraid to shoot them. This goes wrong every single time. In reality, they would have no problem unloading full clips into these seasonal slashers.

There’s also a fair bit of homage — let’s be kind, it’s Christmas and not say thievery — to Silence of the Lambs. But that said, this looks better than it should and in the world of cheap Christmas killers, it feels like a better gift than you usually get.

You can watch this on Tubi.