Imagine the familiar 'neighbour-from-hell' scenario trussed up in a couple of yards of tinsel and with a covering of fake snow. That, God help ye merry gentlemen, is Deck The Halls.

"How bad can it get?" one hapless character asks of this seasonal version of the old (roasted) chestnut... and the answer is: "You have no idea. Just think Christmas with the Kranks."

Things twinkle promisingly enough in the opening scenes when we first meet Steve Finch (Broderick), the self-styled "Mr Christmas" in a small Massachusetts backwater.

He feels his crown slipping with the arrival of Buddy Hall (DeVito), a vulgar used car salesman who seeks to boost his flagging ego by decorating his home with so many Christmas bulbs that it can be seen from outer space.

On the sensible side are Steve's debilitatingly accommodating wife Kelly (Sex and the City's Davis) and Buddy's babe Tia (Broadway star Chenoweth).

However, even their plain, down-to-earth common sense falls on deaf ears when alpha males Steve'n'Buddy launch themselves into an escalating battle of wits as Krimble approaches.

The laugh-we-nearly-stopped antics include Buddy setting up a live nativity scene with a camel that spits goo in Steve's face and the inevitable retaliation featuring some big fireworks (that go wrong. Crazy).

OK, so we're not expecting It's A Wonderful Life but this mirthless, drearily unimaginative effort is the Christmas equivalent of an empty stocking with the humour as limp as last year's mistletoe.

Both the leads are unlikeable - Steve's a prissy control freak without an ounce of warmth while Buddy is the sort of sleazy slimeball you expect to see strutting his stuff on the forecourt.

Following 80-odd minutes where there's been an icy silence where the laughs should be, this changes tack into a denouement - part schmaltz, part vomit - where reconciliation results in the townsfolk tackily holding their mobiles aloft as ersatz candles.

Never mind deck the halls. Somebody ought to deck the director.

Tim Evans