Christmas at the Kringles (2026) Review: 0% and Earned It — A Stacked Comedy Cast Gets Buried Under an Unnecessary, Mean-Spirited Horror Twist

Willy's Wonderland director Kevin Lewis pairs a stacked comedy cast with a cult-of-Christmas horror plot, and critics say the two halves never agree on what movie they're in

Christmas at the Kringles opened in theaters nationwide on October 30, 2026, from Briarcliff Entertainment, and critics did not wait to pile on: the film sits at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes from 19 reviews as of this writing, with an audience score too thin to register yet. For a movie with this much recognizable comedic talent in the cast, that's a rare, almost impressive kind of unanimity.

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The setup: the Severson family — Mark, Julie and their son Bobby — relocate to the suburbs hoping for a fresh start, and get more than they bargained for in their new neighbors, the Kringles, who celebrate Christmas year-round with a cult-like fervor built around "joy." What plays at first like quirky-neighbor comedy curdles fast, as Mark starts to suspect the Kringles' obsession with his son is not harmless, and the film pivots into home-invasion horror with a body count.

Where the film actually lands, according to critics who've seen it, is in its comedic cast. The Daily Herald's review singles out Thomas Lennon as Nick Kringle, calling him "a comedic weapon, a cruise missile of targeted timing and hilarious asides," with Arden Myrin matching his energy as Carol Kringle. That's the version of this movie several reviewers say they wanted more of — a droll, cult-of-Christmas comedy in the vein of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, playing the Kringles' forced cheer for laughs rather than scares.

Instead, the film swerves hard into horror and action in its back half, and that's where the reviews turn from mixed to scathing. The Daily Herald calls the genre-shift "unnecessary, forced and mean-spirited," writing that the film becomes "a noisy, chaotic and ultimately meaningless bloodbath" and asking the question most reviewers seem to share: why not just stay funny? Geek Vibes Nation's review is blunter still, landing on a 2.0/10 and comparing the finished film to "the Christmas fruitcake: stale and bizarre," criticizing a script that "runs in circles" and "never gives us even a modicum of interest in any of the characters."

Individual performances fare unevenly once the plot turns. Geek Vibes Nation singles out Rob Riggle's action-Santa turn as "a pale imitation" of better action-comedy Santas that have come before him, while Ron Livingston's performance as the beleaguered father gets no specific praise from either review — he's along for the ride rather than driving it. Beverly D'Angelo's cameo as Mama Kringle registers mainly as, in one critic's words, an "amusing holiday-movie Easter egg" for fans who'll recognize her from other Christmas comedies, rather than a performance that changes the film's trajectory.

There's a version of this project that made sense on paper. Director Kevin Lewis previously made Willy's Wonderland, the 2021 Nicolas Cage cult horror-comedy that built a real following by fully committing to its own absurd premise. Christmas at the Kringles seems to be reaching for that same so-bad-it's-good energy, with a cast built to deliver it. What the reviews describe instead is a film caught between two movies it can't decide between — a cult-neighbor comedy and a home-invasion slasher — that ends up serving neither one.

Christmas at the Kringles does not yet have an IMDb user rating, since it released today and hasn't accumulated enough votes; its IMDb page is live for anyone tracking the score as it comes in. Based on the early critical consensus, this isn't a movie to catch in theaters for the horror or the plot — if you go, go for Thomas Lennon, and set expectations for the rest accordingly.