Don't Open Till Christmas

This is a slasher that has no qualms about mimicking others, employing abundant tropes, or being extra ham-handed or even cartoonish. The very premise is rather outrageous, as no few lines of dialogue portend each on their own: "He was the victim of another Santa murder." Make no mistake, 'Don't open till Christmas' fits neatly within the genre - so neatly that one quickly wonders if "movie by numbers" isn't an apt description. For what it's worth, though, it at least demonstrates higher production values and more restraint than some of its brethren (contemporary, or modern for that matter), and is mildly entertaining.

However, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

This isn't the type of slasher with substantial carefulness in its craft. Plot development is slow, and like the curious scene writing feels almost haphazard at points. Sequencing and editing at large are direly inelegant, and direction is more than a little slipshod, with some shots and scenes very notably suffering from a less than graceful hand. To be fair - I gather this production experienced no few problems, and changed hands multiple times, before it ever saw the light of day, so perhaps the indelicacies can be chalked up at least in part to "too many cooks." Still, even the core narrative is a pure contrivance of cheeky horror storytelling. Connective threads between scenes and story beats are deeply questionable, and the killer's motivations seem specious. 'Don't open till Christmas' is certainly a case in which death scenes were prioritized over writing - and pretty much all else, really.

There's broadly nothing remarkable about the performances here - though the fact of the cast in and of itself is a small bit of fun. Alan Lake's is a very recognizable name - and Caroline Munro's, too. Her appearance in yet another British genre film of the 70s or 80s is no real surprise, but a delight all the same. On the other hand, it's low-key astonishing that Belinda Mayne has such a substantial part; while she clearly has no few credits, she isn't someone who has ever been particularly prominent in cinema at large, so her involvement here is a joy. Des Dolan's score seems a little at odds at points - occasionally reflecting other horror themes, sometimes sounding out of place with synth-driven chords that would feel more at home in a sci-fi flick - but is enjoyable nonetheless. The blood and gore is definitely over the top, but looks decent enough.

This is an oddity, and a little bit all over the board. Some scenes are written and executed reasonably well, including the climax; others far less so - and most poorly rendered of all is the reveal, paired with the climax, that would hope to explain the killing motive. So it is for almost everything about the feature, a mixed bag of minor quality and major deficiency. And still, the most significant unifying factor is that both the storytelling and film-making that would connect all the dots are terribly weak, resulting in a story and a picture that often feels disjointed, with at most a very tenuous and at times nigh invisible through line from one scene to the next. It's as though the screenplay were founded on "Santa murders," but the writers struggled from there on to build their work, and after a point the directors just couldn't be bothered.

On the one hand I think I'm being too kind in my assessment - but then again, maybe I'm being too harsh. For all the clumsiness in its construction, 'Don't open till Christmas' still manages to be passably entertaining. I just rather wish it were approached with more thoughtful attention; a smidgen more diligence would have gone a long way. No matter how you look at it, this is far from solid - but if you're looking for a slasher no matter the quality, and a holiday-themed one at that, I suppose it's serviceable. Just don't go out of your way for it.

Recommended for fans of the cast and anyone who has a grudge against Santa.

One of the most troubled and delayed productions in horror cinema history is about a killer on the loose in London killing anybody wearing a Santa Claus suit.

One of the most cruel and mean spirited films ever made with a lousy ending and no payoff what-so-ever for sitting threw 90mins. of explicit murders with no plot, lousy direction (rumor has it three directors worked on this) & awful acting (watch for a silly cameo by Caroline Munro). Also film suffers from not knowing what it wants to be, a seedy sex thriller, a detective movie, or a drive in thriller. Rated R; Extreme Graphic Violence, Nudity, Sexual Situations, and Profanity.

I knew from previous reviews that "Don't Open Till Christmas" would be bad, but I didn't realise just HOW bad! But perhaps that's just as well. The 'story' is so sleazy and mean-spirited that the film would be deeply nasty if it were well-made. As it is, it is just laughable.

Even on the most basic levels, "Don't Open Till Christmas" fails to work. The various murders, though gory, are suspenseless. We know nothing of the victims, we know when the killer's about to strike (so there is no surprise) and the direction is hamfisted. The giallo elements fall flat because neither we nor the police are given any clues and indeed the police investigation never really comes to a conclusion.

Parts of the film simply don't make any sense. The timeframe is all to hell, for one thing. Early on, a newspaper headline reads "Only three killing days left to Christmas", but then four or five days pass and we're only at Christmas Eve! Lines like "Is there a pattern here?", after 3 Santas have been gorily dispatched, beggar belief. It also seems unlikely that people would still be happily wandering around London in Santa costumes if a psychopathic Claus-slayer WERE on the loose!

The direction is inept, the dialogue ludicrous and the acting desperately flat. And why does Mark Jones, as one of the police investigators, dress like a Twenties matinee idol? Perhaps his flamboyant costumes are an effort by the makers to disguise attention from the threadbare sets!

Nevertheless, "Don't Open Till Christmas" does have a certain historical interest as the very last gasp of the low-budget British horror film. The involvement of Derek Ford gives it a tenuous link to the gory glory days of Compton and Tigon. And it's amazing to think that it was made in 1984, the time when Goldcrest were at their height. What a contrast between such genteel efforts as "Chariots of Fire" and "The Dresser" and this sadistic little affair!

"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.

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.