‘Christmas at the Kringles’ Trailer Turns Holiday Cheer Into a Fight for Survival
Christmas comes early this year, but the neighbors may have taken the holiday spirit a little too far.
The official trailer has arrived for Christmas at the Kringles, a new holiday action-horror comedy from director Kevin Lewis that turns a seemingly cheerful Christmas-obsessed family into the center of a suburban nightmare.
The film will open exclusively in theaters Oct. 30, 2026, with Ron Livingston and Rachel Bilson leading an ensemble that also includes Rob Riggle, Arden Myrin, Beverly D’Angelo, David Wain, Thomas Lennon and Donald Faison.
Written by Zack Imbrogno, Christmas at the Kringles follows the Severson family as they attempt to make a fresh start in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Their new home initially appears to come with an unusually festive bonus: the family living next door celebrates Christmas throughout the entire year.
At first, the Kringles’ permanent holiday spirit seems more eccentric than threatening. Decorations, Christmas traditions and endless seasonal enthusiasm are simply part of living next door.
Then the Seversons’ son begins getting a little too close to them.
Mark and Julie become increasingly concerned about their child’s attachment to the neighboring family, eventually leading to a confrontation that exposes something considerably more sinister beneath the Kringles’ carefully maintained Christmas cheer.
When Mark heads next door to bring his family home, he discovers that the Kringles aren’t simply obsessed with Christmas. Their plans involve hypnotizing and indoctrinating the Seversons into their year-round celebration.
From there, the neighborhood dispute turns into a rescue mission.
Mark finds an unlikely ally in a rogue Santa willing to fight back, launching the pair into an increasingly chaotic battle to rescue the family from the Kringles before their forced Christmas conversion becomes permanent.
The setup gives Lewis plenty of room to collide holiday imagery with action, horror and comedy, taking familiar symbols of seasonal comfort and pushing them toward something much stranger. Christmas lights, Santa Claus and aggressively cheerful neighbors become pieces of a suburban siege rather than signs of holiday hospitality.
Lewis previously demonstrated an appetite for combining heightened genre concepts with aggressive tonal swings, and Christmas at the Kringles appears designed to embrace that same anything-goes energy. Instead of building its nightmare around a traditional Christmas monster, the film finds its threat in a family whose relentless cheer masks an attempt to erase the individuality of everyone around them.
The cast should help keep that premise firmly planted in dark comedy territory.
Livingston and Bilson anchor the story as the parents caught inside the Kringles’ increasingly dangerous orbit, while Riggle, Myrin, D’Angelo, Wain, Lennon and Faison give the film an ensemble filled with performers accustomed to moving between comedy and more heightened material.
And then there’s the rogue Santa.
Rather than merely surviving their bizarre new neighbors, the Seversons eventually find themselves inside an action-driven fight for their family, giving the movie a considerably different flavor from the traditional Christmas horror formula.
Christmas at the Kringles is produced by Andrew Ortenberg, Tom Ortenberg, Liam Finn, Kevin Lewis and Jordan Dykstra.
With Halloween arriving one day after its theatrical debut, the film is also landing at an appropriate intersection between two holidays. Audiences can walk into theaters during Halloween weekend for a movie filled with Christmas decorations, indoctrination, suburban paranoia and a Santa apparently ready to throw down.
That’s one way to start the holiday season.
Directed by Kevin Lewis and written by Zack Imbrogno, Christmas at the Kringles opens exclusively in theaters Oct. 30, 2026.
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