Silent Night, Bloody Night

In 1971, Billy's family visits a Utah nursing home to see his catatonic grandfather. The old man suddenly wakes and whispers that Santa Claus punishes the naughty, seeding Billy's lifelong fear. The chilling warning foreshadows the horrors that will unfold on the road that night.

A few miles down the road, a Santa-suited robber who had just robbed a liquor store and killed the owner tries to carjack the family. The father is shot and the mother is fatally slashed when she resists, leaving Billy to escape with Ricky still in the car. The brutal chaos of that night marks Billy's future forever.

By December 1974, Billy and Ricky are in an orphanage run by a stern Mother Superior who believes punishment is virtue. Sister Margaret quietly offers help, but Billy endures regular discipline. During a Christmas visit, a man in a Santa suit forces Billy to sit on his lap, and Billy punches him, retreating in stunned horror.

In spring 1984, Billy, now eighteen, leaves the orphanage and finds work as a stock boy at a local toy store, with Sister Margaret's support. He develops a crush on a coworker, Pamela, while morbid memories of his parents' murders intrude on his thoughts. The fragile balance hints at the violence to come as Christmas approaches.

On Christmas Eve, the store's Santa Claus is injured, forcing Billy to don the suit at his boss Mr. Sims' instruction. The holiday atmosphere amplifies Billy's memory-driven despair as his colleagues Andy and Pamela share a kiss in the back room. The moment marks Billy stepping deeper into his terrifying alter ego.

Billy's suppressed rage erupts as he intervenes when Andy tries to rape Pamela. He hangs Andy with Christmas lights, then kills Pamela with a box cutter. The slaughter continues as he murders Mr. Sims and Mrs. Randall, leaving the store drenched in blood.

Billy breaks into a nearby house where Denise and Tommy are having sex, and a little girl named Cindy sleeps upstairs. He impales Denise on deer antlers and hurls Tommy through a window. He then offers Cindy the box cutter he used earlier, pressing her to answer if she has been nice or naughty.

As night falls, Billy encounters bullies harassing two teenage boys and brutally decapitates one with his axe. The violence expands beyond the store, showing Billy's total break from restraint. The town's fear of Santa Claus takes a horrifying new form.

The next morning, Captain Richards and Sister Margaret learn Billy is heading toward the orphanage where Ricky still lives. Officer Barnes, acting on fear and confusion, shoots Father O'Brien, a pastor in a Santa outfit, mistaking him for Billy. The city grinds to a tense alert as Billy closes in.

Billy reaches the orphanage where Mother Superior, now wheelchair-bound, confronts him. Captain Richards shoots Billy in the back, and he collapses as the ominous finale unfolds. The town breathes a sigh of relief—though the threat seems to have ended.

In the aftermath, Billy's pursuit ends and he utters the chilling line 'You’re safe now, Santa Claus is gone' before collapsing. The surviving children witness a final, unsettling image as Ricky, now fourteen, glowers and murmurs 'Naughty,' signaling a lasting cycle of fear.