Don't Open Till Christmas (1984) Reviews

• Another Christmas Holiday Slasher

  matt-2822001-08-14

  "Another Santa is slain," is the quote one person says early in this movie and that about sums it up for the outline. Set in London, England during the Christmas holiday season, someone killer is going around killing anyone dressed as Father Christmas, while two astonishingly stupid Scotland Yard detectives track him down and dither. Most of the abundant splatter is nothing new here as we see one Santa after another get either shot, stabbed, speared, burned, cleaverd, electriuted and even castrasted. Gore and splatter fans will not be disappointed. But here the victims are not the sympathetic bunch as every Santa victim is either a derelict, drunkard, drug user, or loser we most wish the killer would get. Edumond Purdom who directs and stars as the lead detective, Inspector Harris, who's in charge of investigating the murders, serves up some potential suspense and a fair amount of black humor, but the script plays it very straight. As for the rest of the plot, although we know that Inspector Harris is not the killer, he appears to know a lot more of what's going on with the killings than the other characters, one of whom is a woman who wants the killer brought to justice since her own father was one of the many victims. The rest of the movie is not as amusing as it sounds, but one can't completely dismiss a horror film like this that piles up more victims than a room full of attorneys. Pop star Caroline Munro even makes a musical cameo appearance as herself during one of the stalking/killings which adds a fairly nice touch to such nonsense. Contents: 14 killings; lots of messy looking corpses; a masked psycho; costumed victims; slight suspense; mediocre mystery; not bad as usual. With Pat Astley as the model who keeps removing her top.

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• More seedy slasher fun from the folks who brought you Pieces!

  hypostylin2008-04-24

  Now this is what I'm talking about! I love an unabashedly terrible slasher film that revels in its own sleaziness and stupidity. From the crappy synth score to the iffy performances, I was eating Don't Open 'Til Christmas up by the shovelful. I'm not even going to begin explaining the plot -- why should the plot even matter when drunk shopping mall Santa Clauses are getting their faces burned off, eyes slashed out, and penises castrated (YES!) all around you?! I'd never recommend this to anyone who isn't into true bottom-of-the-barrel stuff like myself, but sludge lovers will want their grimy stockings stuffed with this filthy British exploit. Let me put it this way: if you liked Pieces, you'll also dig this film (which kind of makes sense, since some of the people from Pieces worked on this). Sure, Don't Open 'Til Christmas lacks the acting chops of the Georges (that's Christopher and Lynda Day to you), but it's slightly more enjoyable in the sense that it isn't quite as misogynistic as Pieces (i.e., most of the victims in this one are male). Skeezemeister Edmund Purdom (I find him inexplicably unsettling in a creepy uncle sort of way), who was one of the headliners in Pieces, claims this gem as his one and only directing credit.

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• Could be woise...

  ofumalow2010-08-08

  The only movie directed by 1950s Hollywood costume hunk turned Euro-exploitation regular Edmund Purdom (at least partly--someone else is credited with directing "additional scenes," probably including the nudity inserts) is a typical 1980s slasher involving disco, sexually active youth, and crudely done gory deaths. I saw it in a budget packet of "Drive-In Movie Classics" that clearly used a 3rd-generation VHS dupe--so I can't fairly judge the film's visual presentation, which seems professional enough. It's odd that at age 60 Purdom suddenly decided to try directing, let alone on such an obviously cheesy project. This being a British film, the performances are competent despite the script's utterly shallow depths--no doubt everyone was conservatory-trained. At times the film feels jumpy, as if scenes (or just violent bits) were coarsely edited out. Even so, one murdered Santa is garroted, then thrust face-first onto a sausage grill. It's a Brit giallo that's not all bad, or as utterly formulaic as many slashers from the era, but it sure isn't inspired.

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• CHEESY 80's SLASHER!!

  psycho_1532000-01-12

  This movie is pretty lame, but not unwatchable. The acting is cheesy and the killing scenes are ultra cheese, but I did like the killer, his face (mask) was cool and when he talked to the girl he chained up his voice was great. It was an interesting concept but the makers didn't maake it solid enougth, a lot of loose ends, and holes in the plot. The story is Somebody with very little Christmas spirit is killing anyone in a Santa suit one London holiday season, and Scotland Yard has to stop him before he makes his exploits an annual tradition. It's a very cheesy flick, special effects arn't great but a good watch if you like 80's slashers.

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• ‘If I saw those eyes again I'd recognize him, if he were smiling'-Blackpool Pat Versus Crazy Alan in a second-hand Ford.

  gavcrimson2002-02-17

  SPOILERS Despite being shot in a decade when dodos and British horror films were becoming synonymous Don't Open Till Christmas must have initially seemed like an idea that couldn't fail. The late movie mogul Dick Randall was a character right out of Eskimo Nell. Chubby, with a thin Gilbert Roland moustache and of shortish stature he was the consummate low budget producer cum film broker. In the Eighties Randall owned a flat in the West End where he oversaw his production/distribution outlet Spectacular-Trading and also had dealings in the music biz. Don't Open Till Christmas seems to have been envisioned as a British version of Randall's chainsaw horror hit ‘Pieces'. Applying an ‘if it ain't broke don't fix it' logic Don't shares that films co-producer, its ultra-violent set pieces, and one of its stars in good old Edmund Purdom, but by all accounts the result was lucky to see the light of day. Brooding Purdom and bald former sex actor Mark Jones play baffled detectives on the trail of a psychopath (bad boy actor Alan Lake) who has made quite a habit of going round the West End bumping off anyone dressed as Santa Claus. The main plot evokes around a couple (Belinda Mayne and Gerry Sundquist) drawn into the yuletide slayings when a Santa-impersonating relative gets a spear through the head. Plot-diversions include a peep-show floosie witnessing a pervy client being butchered by Lake and later being the object of a kidnapping attempt and an anti-peep show rant. While Blackpool's own Pat Astley-plays topless model Sharon who also has an unpleasant encounter with the Santa-hating madman. None too pleased as to how she's dressed (as Santa) the masked man touches her up with a cut throat razor before disappearing into the night. ‘His eyes, they seem to smile' she tells the police who arrest her for indecent exposure anyway. Don't Open till Christmas is an uneven patchwork of a film, although not without good reason. The production was a deeply troubled one that took nearly two years and three men behind the camera to make. Edmund Purdom quickly exited the directors chair, and replacement director Derek Ford (also the film's writer) didn't last long either. It was in fact editor Ray Selfe, who finished directing the film and had the unenviable task of making his efforts and the aborted work of his two predecessors resemble a movie. Despite the best attempts of one time sex cinema owner Selfe, the released version of Don't bears all the scars of a film re-shot, re-cut and reinvented numerous times. Many scenes and one seemingly crucial character (Dr Bridle played by Nicholas Donnelly) are eluded to but appear to have been lost to the cutting room floor. The narrative is severely mangled with various protagonists randomly popping in and out of the action. By the end most of the cast are either forgotten about or mean-spiritedly bumped off as this rag-bag tumbles towards an abrupt excuse for a finale. Derek Ford was a dab hand at writing horror films (viz;1967's Corruption) but was principally known for directing sexploitation movies like The Wife Swappers(1969) and The Sexplorer(1975). Ford could never quite shake off the sex film director tag, on or off screen, so its no surprise that Don't Open Till Christmas retains the atmosphere of a Ford sex film, both in the seedy Piccadilly Circus area locations and the seaside postcard caricature characters like the ‘ducking and weaving' dirty photographer and the gormless glamour model. The casting of Mark Jones, Alan Lake and the always fun to watch Pat ‘Blackpool Patricia' Astley only adds to the blurring of British sex and horror film. ‘Additional scenes by Al McGoohan' seemly tagged on as an afterthought, amount to little more than a typical Dick Randall crash course in opportunistic filmmaking. Novelty value is provided by a scene set in the famed wax museum ‘The London Dungeon', while Dusty Bin era Caroline Munro appears as herself and sings a disco song (George Dugdale aka-‘Mr Munro' also worked on the film). Increasing the gore quota are ‘slasher-movie' sequences in which actors dressed as Santas suspenselessly meet their maker at the hands of Lake's psychopath. Faces instead of chestnuts are roasted on an open fire, machetes embedded in heads and brains blown out. Don't Open Till Christmas' vomitous highlight finds an obese Santa Claus relieving himself in a urinal only to be caught short when Lake creeps out of a toilet and castrates him. Such scenes caused the film multiple problems upon its British release in the closing months of 1985. After all the tail end of the ‘Video Nasty' furore was not perhaps the greatest of time to present the sight of Santa being castrated in a urinal as entertainment. Hands on heart, Don't Open Till Christmas is unlikely to feature on anyone's list of favourite British horror films in the near future. The film aims to be as colourful a B-movie as anything else with Dick Randall's name on it does, but the overall feel is one of desperation, from the repetitious score to the tacky gore effects and the casting of neglected, forgotten or never made it actors. But despite (or perhaps because) of these reasons the film still intrigues in an end of the pier pantomime way simultaneously being sad, distinctly British and all very low end of the showbiz ladder. Derek Ford worked with Randall one more time on Attack of the Killer Computer(1990), a gore film with a mostly porno cast shot in Randall's West End flat- it was never released. Don't Open Till Christmas may not have been the end of Dick Randall's career, but it was the last interesting chapter in his story. The final Randall productions that saw release (Slaughter High(1986) and Living Doll(1989)) are well made yet utterly routine 80's horrors. But that these business as usual productions appear to have passed without the headaches of Don't Open Till Christmas is perhaps all Randall could have wished for.

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