Christmas Cruelty

Three friends decorate and celebrate the holiday season, filling Per-Ingvar's apartment with warmth and laughter. Eline, Magne, and Per-Ingvar toast and share jokes as festive lights glow around them. The scene establishes a safe, cheerful mood that the film will ruthlessly erode. Small details—a mug of cocoa, a wrapped gift—underscore ordinary happiness.

The apparent peace shatters when a brutal intruder breaks in, wearing a Santa disguise and unleashing a sequence of horrifying acts. The attacker is later revealed to be a NAV employee with a loving family, presenting a disturbing contrast to his facade. The attack erupts with shocking velocity, turning the holiday into a nightmare.

Dawn creeps in as the killer slips away, leaving the apartment in a hushed, bruised silence. The survivors reel from shock, realizing that the night’s terror has altered their sense of safety forever. The room bears the marks of violence, and even the youngest guests feel its impact.

With morning light, the killer begins to stalk the trio, unseen and methodical. He discovers Eline and Per-Ingvar’s case files, revealing a calm, predatory mind behind an ordinary life. The sense of danger grows as the killer maintains his patient, calculated presence.

The killer’s conversations reveal a chilling obsession as he speaks with unsettling calm about his victims. He even shares with his wife his disturbing fixation, exposing the double life he leads. This revelation deepens the threat, turning a single act of violence into a looming, personal menace.

Per-Ingvar hosts a small Christmas gathering in his own space, clinging to a sense of normalcy. A guest is injured during the celebration, prompting Magne to rush them to the hospital. The incident underscores how quickly care and danger can collide, even in a festive setting.

Back at the house, a door is left ajar during the hospital run, a small mistake with potentially fatal consequences. The killer, still unseen by most, returns and closes the distance, escalating the threat. The night tightens around the remaining revelers.

During the later hours, the intruder barges in again, subduing the revelers and targeting Eline. The attack becomes intimate and terrifying as the killer moves with cold efficiency through a space meant for safety. The survivors are forced into a powerless, suffocating position.

Using a weapon acquired in a startling, mechanical way, the killer ends the lives of Per-Ingvar and another guest. The act is precise and brutal, interrupting the holiday’s warmth with stark horror. The living survivors are left to confront the brutal reality of what has happened.

Amid the devastation, the killer leaves a final, chilling mark: the words 'Merry Christmas' written in blood on a wall. The image seals the night’s hijacking of the holiday and echoes through the aftermath. The apartment becomes a haunting tableau that lingers in the audience’s memory.

The three survivors grapple with trauma, fear, and the overwhelming sense that danger can lurk in ordinary life. The survivors navigate reminders of the violence and the heavy uncertainty of life after such an intrusion. The film follows their struggle to reclaim normalcy while the memory of that night casts a long shadow.

Throughout the aftermath, the killer’s dual life haunts the narrative—an ordinary family man whose calm conversations reveal monstrous brutality. In a chilling line that echoes the summary, he declares that he cannot stop thinking about a poor girl and a guy in a wheelchair, and that they are going to have a horrible Christmas; he believes he must contribute in his own way so they don't have to worry about the new year. The line underscores his disturbing justification and obsessive mindset.

The survivors cling to a fragile sense of safety while memory lingers, and the holiday’s warmth feels distant. The film closes by suggesting that ordinary life can fracture into nightmare, leaving a lasting unease. The final scenes juxtapose the calm of everyday life with the haunting possibility that danger may wear a familiar face.