Richard 'Ricky' Caldwell, Bill Moseley is the notorious Santa Claus Killer who lies in a six-year coma after being shot down by police, a transparent dome fixed to his head by doctors to repair his damaged skull. Wanting to contact Ricky, the eccentric Dr. Newbury begins using Laura Anderson, Samantha Scully, a blind clairvoyant, to reach out to him. On a Christmas Eve marked by tension, Laura experiences a particularly traumatic session and begins to regret her involvement, but Newbury presses on, promising they can talk more once Laura returns home to visit her grandmother over the holiday.
After Laura is picked up from the hospital by her older brother Chris, Eric DaRe, a flight attendant named Jerri, Laura Harring, whom Laura dislikes, is introduced. As the trio heads toward Granny’s house, Ricky—a voice Laura can hear thanks to their mental link—tracks them, following closely behind. Ricky then seizes a truck and fuel, having murdered a motorist and a gas station attendant, and speeds toward Granny’s.
Granny, portrayed with a wary kindness by Elizabeth Hoffman(/actor/elizabeth-hoffman), greets Ricky but, unsettled by a Christmas gift he is offered, she is killed in a flash of rage. Back at the hospital, Lieutenant Connely, Robert Culp, and Newbury discover that two staff members have been butchered, prompting a manhunt that hints Ricky’s fixation on Laura after surveillance footage captures him uttering her name.
When they reach Granny’s home, Laura senses something is wrong. Chris dismisses her warnings, thinking Granny might simply have gone out, but the car is found sabotaged and Granny fails to appear. Laura’s intuition grows stronger: she feels Ricky watching her from the window and screams, pulling Chris and Jerri back inside. The phone is dead and Laura’s photo is missing, confirming Ricky’s approach just as he bursts through the door and begins throttling Jerri. Chris intervenes by stabbing Ricky in the arm, buying Laura a precious moment of safety.
Meanwhile, Newbury drives off with Connely’s car, seeking to confront Ricky and salvage his experiment, believing the tape of Laura and Ricky’s sessions might calm him. Armed with an old shotgun, the group—Chris, Laura, and Jerri—go out to seek help, but Ricky ambushes them, stabbing Chris in the chest. Laura and Jerri hurry back to the house while Newbury confronts Ricky in a tense moment, listening to the taped sessions in the hope of stabilizing him. Ricky, drawn to Newbury by the emotional lure of the tape, ignores his captor at first but finally closes in.
Inside the house, Laura and Jerri barricade themselves, but Ricky forces entry. Jerri is killed, her body discovered by Laura moments later. Ricky advances on Laura, who reaches out to him in a moment of unsettling connection; his artificial skullcap repels her, and he closes in. In the basement, Laura is momentarily encouraged by a vision of Granny and, in a chilling turn, knocks out the lights. As Ricky closes in to strangle Laura, Chris bursts in and shoots Ricky with a shotgun. The shotgun, however, fires blanks, leaving Ricky unharmed and ready to finish the fight—until Laura seizes a broken piece of wood and uses it to impale him, bringing him down.
Reinforcements reach the house just as the dying Newbury collapses. Connely discovers Laura cradling her brother’s body inside the home, and Laura watches as paramedics rush the survivor away to the hospital. With a final, haunting moment, Laura wishes Lieutenant Connely a quiet “Merry Christmas” before a vision of Ricky breaking the fourth wall materializes, and his parting line echoes, “... And a Happy New Year.”
> "Merry Christmas"
> "... And a Happy New Year"
