Don't Open Till Christmas

Plot synopsis:
A woman greets a man dressed as Santa Claus, and they head to a nearby car to make out with each other. Somebody unseen approaches the parked car, and the Santa steps out when he sees the unseen person looking at them to confront the man. The unseen person stabs the Santa in the stomach with a knife. The woman gets out of the car to try to run for it and she gets killed too.At a party a little later, Kate and Cliff introduce Kate's father, who is dressed as Santa, to the crowd. An unseen man throws a spear and hits Santa in the back and the point comes out of Santa's mouth. Everyone screams. Inspector Harris and Detective Sergeant Powell from Scotland Yard arrive to investigate the murder. They talk with Kate and Cliff where Harris tells Kate that her father was a "victim of another Santa murder."Meanwhile, another man dressed as Santa is on the street, standing by a grill. The unseen killer approaches and wraps a wire around his neck and the Santa's face is shoved into the grill. The killer flees, leaving the dead Santa to cook and burn.The next day, a package with the note "Don't Open till Christmas" is delivered to Inspector Harris' place. He tells his housekeeper to leave it on his desk. Meanwhile, Kate tells Cliff that Harris asked about him, inquiring whether they were going to get married.At the police station, a man named Giles phones Powell, saying he is from The Daily News. He asks if Powell would like to solve the Santa murders that have been happening all over London for over a week now. Giles says that he will be in touch and hangs up.That evening, a drunken bum dressed as Santa is seen stumbling through an alley. The unseen killer approaches, puts a gun into the drunk Santa's mouth and fires, killing the Santa.The next day, Giles tries to talk to Kate on the street, and she says he would not bother her if he had ever lost a parent like she had. He tells her that he has and Kate leaves.Cliff is out playing a flute and Kate is holding a hat for money... clearing panhandling various passerbys. A photographer named Gerry sees the two, and he and Cliff go for a drink. At a nearby pub, Gerry asks Cliff to the studio and tells him there might be something for him, especially if he brings Kate. Cliff then tells Kate that Gerry invited them for tea. The couple walks to the studio and they walk in while Gerry is taking pictures of a model named Sharon who is posing. Cliff tries to persuade Kate to do some shots for Gerry, by saying "it's a quick 50 quid". But when Gerry brings out a Santa outfit, Kate storms out. Gerry convinces the irate Cliff to stay.Later that evening, Cliff is outside with Sharon (mostly nude under her Santa costume), and he tries to go back in when he sees policeman approaching, but the door is locked. He tells Sharon to run, but she follows and loses him. She turns around and sees the killer (his face is masked), who holds a straight razor over her. But the killer puts the razor away and leaves. The cops find a frightened Sharon and lead her away. At the police station, Harris and Powell talk to Sharon to ask her to give them a description of the killer, but she tells them that it was dark and she could only see the killer's eyes, "which seemed to smile".At a local porno house peep show, a Santa Claus arrives and sits to watch a nude woman. After the woman dances a bit, the Santa is attacked in the booth by the unseen killer and stabbed in the back.Cliff and Kate are seen arguing with each other. Harris arrives at their place and tells the couple that Sharon was attacked. Meanwhile, Giles sees Powell in his office and suggests keeping and eye on Harris who may know more what he knows about the case. Powell trails Harris to a local shopping mall, but loses him outside in the crowd.That evening, another drunken Santa is seen leaving a pub and then hanging around outside a local museum. He enters the museum through a back door when the unseen killer approaches. In attempting to flee, the killer easily catches up to the doped-up Santa and stabs him twice in his stomach before fleeing.The next day, Harris goes to see Powell and talks about the "decoys" being sent out. Two undercover police officers are seen dressed as Santa at a local carnival. The unseen killer approaches and kicks one of the undercover Santas in the crotch with a boot-knife and punches him with a studded glove. The killer then shoves a broken bottle into the eye of the other Santa cop.Powell talks to the woman from the peep show if she saw the killer, and she says she can only remember a dark figure with the "smiling eyes". Meanwhile, Kate calls Harris' private phone number, and his housekeeper tells her that it is the day the inspector visits Parkland's.The woman from the peep show return to her job, and the unseen killer arrives and punches through the glass to get at her. She is chased into the streets, where she is grabbed, dragged into a room, and thrown unto a bed. She tells the killer that she did not tell the cops anything and has not seen his face. But when she turns to look, the killer tells her that it is already too lake. The woman is restrained with a chain and left alone.At the station, Powell released Cliff from custody "once and for all" because he thinks he knows the "right man" who is doing all the killing.Meanwhile, another inebriated Santa on the street is approached by the killer who chases the drunk man into an auditorium where there is concert taking place and "Miss Caroline Munro" is performing with her band. The Santa hides backstage but is found and gets a blade to his face. The killer throws the dead Santa onto an elevator lift and brings the dead body upon the stage before the horrified Miss Munroe and her band.At Kate's place, she tells Powell that Harris was at Parkland's "lunatic asylum". She says that she cannot find a record of his name anywhere and that Harris irrationally implies that Cliff is the Santa Killer, despite the fact that Cliff was beside her when her father was attacked that night. Powell takes Kate's comments lightly. Kate goes to see Doctor Bridle at Parkland Mental Hospital.That evening, another "jolly ol' St. Nick" is working at a local department store before he goes to relieve himself. The Santa goes to the men's room where the unseen killer follows him in and uses a straight razor to slice off a particular body part, causing the Santa to bleed to death all over the urinal and mens room floor.Kate goes to see Harris who has now been suspended from the police force. She says that Cliff has been acting differently. Since it is Christmas Eve, the two of them decide to go out to dinner together. During the dinner, Kate asks Harris at what his first name is. Cliff arrives and is taken out of the restaurant by the host because his is not dressed properly. Cliff and Kate see each other.Back at Kate's apartment, Giles is there, and he pushes her against the wall before she can get to the phone. Kate tells him that she has figured out that Giles is Harris' brother, and that Harris has changed his name from Harrison when Giles was put in the Parkland institution. Giles says that he threatened his brother by saying that he would go to the newspapers if he did not visit him. Kate accuses Giles of being the Santa Killer by accusing him of killing her father. Giles says that Kate's father, like all of his other victims, reminded him to Christmastime. Powell calls Kate and she runs for the phone, but Giles pulls her back with tinsel from the nearby Christmas tree and stabs her in the stomach.Powell and another police officer arrive at the apartment to find Kate dead. Powell is told that Harris has been in his apartment all night. Outside, Powell spots Giles running from the scene and chases him to a warehouse filled with parked cars. Giles hooks cables to a car and murders Powell by electricuting him to the wired car.Giles then returns to the flat with some food for the captive woman from the peep show. She talks about Christmas and with her hands now free to eat, she hits Giles on the head with a piece of wood. Giles declares her to be the "supreme sacrifice" for the evil of Christmas and the woman runs out the door. She is chased upstairs and Giles swings the chain around, terrorizing her. The woman grabs the chain and pulls him over the stair railing, letting him fall. At the bottom of the stairs, the woman approaches the montionless Giles, but he gets right back up and attacks her again....Meanwhile, Harris stirs in his sleep. A flashback to many years ago shows a young Giles at Christmastime walking in on his father (who is dressed as Santa) with another woman. Giles' mother also walks in and sees the couple. The father angrily hits his wife and she falls down a flight of stairs while the young Giles and young Harris watch.Harris wakes up, and sees that it is morning; Christmas. Harris takes the package from his desk and unwraps it. There is a note with the package saying "from your Loving Brother". Harris opens a box to see a tiny music box with music and a dancing Santa. He sits it on his desk and rests in a nearby chair, listening to the soft Christmas music the box plays. When the song ends, the box suddenly explodes, killing Harris.

Tags: cruelty, murder, violence, cult, flashback, sadist

Review:
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The same British team that did this one also made one of the more idiotic American slasher movies of the 1980's ("Slaughter High"), but here they abandon the stateside setting and the faux American accents to embrace their inherent Britishness while still making a movie that is every bit as inept and pathetic as their "American" effort.In the seedier parts of London a mad killer is slashing men dressed as Santa Clause.
One sap even wears his costume into a peep show where (in a scene that, I think, is meant to be funny) he tells the stripper that he's not "the real one." Then there is nude fashion model who takes a guy out in the alley for a quickie dressed only in a Santa coat, and of course, meets the killer who luridly runs his knife down her nude body.
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.
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.
It feels as if the EastEnders writers thought that they'd give jumping on the slasher bandwagon a go, but lacking any real insight into the genre they get it a bit wrong at most turns!Lacking the perkiness of most of its American cousins and the style of the Italian gialli, the film is nevertheless more aligned to the giallo in terms of structure and plot, police procedural action and a whodunit angle with numerous characters.It gets pluses for the mask, a variety of amusing kills, the London Dungeon scene and the sheer curiosity factor given that UK slashers of this era are relatively rare.
The same year that the American made "Silent Night, Deadly Night" caused a furor over its controversial content, the US / UK co-production "Don't Open Till Christmas" was released, with a premise reversing that of its counterpart; it's up to the viewer whether they find this more or less distasteful.In this instance, Santa Claus is not the murderer, but the victim - more to the point, any man in this movie wearing a Santa costume is fair game for a sadistic killer with a hatred for all things Christmas.
The put upon Scotland Yard inspector Ian Harris (Edmund Purdom) is in charge of the case, while young Kate (Belinda Mayne) sees her own father perish near the beginning of the story due to his having been in Santa garb at the time.For a movie that was such a troubled production, "Don't Open Till Christmas" is about as "good" as it could possibly be.
Two major set pieces have one victim pursued through a "dungeon" containing assorted macabre displays and props, and another slaughtered in a basement while a cheesy music number, performed by the legendary sex symbol Caroline Munro, is taking place above.The decent performances (save for Purdom, who looks disinterested throughout) get the job done; standing out are Mark Jones as Sergeant Powell and Alan Lake (a real hoot) as the reporter Giles; sadly, Lake never lived to see this become a sort of cult favourite as he committed suicide the following year.
The story of "Don't Open Till Christmas" is easy to follow:an unknown maniac is killing Santa Clauses around London in the variety of nasty ways.The film was produced by the producers of "Pieces" and "Slaughter High",so I wanted to check it out for so long."Don't Open Till Christmas" is not as crazy and gory as "Pieces",but it certainly delivers plenty of gore and a bit of nudity.There is even infamous castration of Santa Claus in the toilet.The acting is sub-par and the atmosphere of suspense is almost non-existent.So if you are a fan of killer Santa themed slasher movies or slasher genre in general be sure to check out Mondo Macabro's DVD's of "Don't Open Till Christmas".7 killings out of 10.I pretty much enjoyed singing cameo of horror queen Caroline Munro..
"Don't Open Till Christmas" charts a series of yuletide slayings in London during the month of December, in which a killer is targeting Santa Claus impersonators and killing them in brutal fashions.
"Don't Open Till Christmas" looks and feels like a stateside picture, at times recalling the misanthropic underworld of "Taxi Driver," only set in a very clearly 1980s London, and populated with Santa slashings and the occasional nude model or sex worker.The tables here are turned from the usual Christmas horror ilk, however, with killer Santas out and dead Santas in-donning the red costume, beard, and cap gets characters killed in horrific ways.
It's difficult to classify the film as a slasher entire, as the script at times focuses significantly on the police detectives and investigation; meanwhile, two key female characters become involved when they witness two different murders, and the narrative splinters out from there.
The film purportedly took around two years to complete, which may explain for some of these imbalances, including the slipshod finale that is over before you know it.In the end, "Don't Open Till Christmas" is an undeniably fun film-a sleazy sort-of-slasher flick that delivers the goods in terms of gore and flair.
On a lighter note, though, it does have perhaps the best opening credit sequence of any Christmas horror film I know of, in which a wax Santa melts to a sparse, chimed version of "Jingle Bells." 6/10..
Gory, inane slasher flick has a murderous psychopath stalking Santa Claus' in London, as baffled detectives (Purdom & Jones) struggle to find leads let alone a suspect.
Consequently, the double-headed climax looks disconnected.The acting is variable, and the dialogue absurd, while the explanation for the killer's motivations (told in flashback) is laughable; the only redeemable feature is the film's tasteless and macabre sense of cruelty to the poor old, often sozzled Santas, slain in about a dozen different ways: digging implement gouges out the eyeball of one, another is speared through the mouth, gunshot to head, machete across face, hot plate face melt and the crowd favourite, the castrator.
If seasonal slashers such as Black Christmas, Christmas Evil, and Silent Night Deadly Night are to be believed, Christmas isn't really the season for 'peace on Earth and good will to all men'it's the time of year you're most likely to end up hacked into cubes by a maniac with an axe.Usually, a cinematic Yuletide killer is fairly easy to spot (hint: he's the one in a scruffy, blood-soaked Santa suit, clutching an axe), but UK horror Don't Open 'Til Christmas bucks this trend: in this film, it's those that are dressed as good old St. Nick that wind up dead, victims of an escaped loony with an extreme hatred of jolly old men with big white beards!A sleazy, low-budget slasher from exploitation producer Dick Randall and sexploitation scribe Derek Ford, 'Don't Open...' stars Edmund Purdom as a New Scotland Yard Inspector hunting for a serial killer who has left a trail of dead 'Santas' all over London (including a 'roast' Santa, 'shish-kebab' Santa, 'machete-in-the-face' Santa, and 'bloody-stump-where-his penis-used-to-be' Santa).
Given its exploitation pedigree, this tawdry tale should be a terrific slice of thoroughly tasteless entertainment, but thanks to some of the worst acting, weak direction, and cheap gore effects in slasher movie history, the film only succeeds in being extremely tedious.'Don't Open...' never really finds its feet, faltering during the opening scene, in which a couple canoodling in the back seat of a car are unconvincingly stabbed (with a retractable knife presumably purchased from the local joke shop).
The film then stumbles chaotically from one dreadful moment to another, subjecting viewers to lots of unconvincing gore FX, a pointless tour of a wax museum, an even more pointless cameo from beautiful British scream queen Caroline Munro, and some hilariously bad dialogue ("they'll think we're a couple of gays"; "it'll make your nip-nips stick out"), until an unintentionally funny 'explosive' finale ends the film rather abruptly.On a positive note, there is some welcome gratuitous nudity from softcore star Pat Astley and a surprisingly repugnant scene where the killer torments an abducted peep-show stripper, but it just isn't enough to prevent this from being a dud..
This movie was terrible!For some stupid reason,which they never explain,This man goes around killing everyone dressed as Santa.It may sound alright,but it sucks.I picked up this movie at a $5.00 sale,and it isnt even worth that.Caroline Munro fans wont even like this,beware.
Given the dearth of admirable qualities on display here (it is considered the cinematic equivalent of a Christmas turkey dinner!), there remains little for me but to describe the copious murders: from the very first sequence, we have a Santa done in through the window of his car where he is smooching his girlfriend: she, too, foolishly but predictably rushes out of the car to her death; a reluctant Santa Claus is impaled through the mouth with a spear during a Christmas party by the murderer wearing a gruesome mask...but, apart from a weak scream, none of the witnesses make any kind of reaction – not even his daughter nearby!; a street-side Santa is strangled, has his face pushed against a stove and subsequently set alight!; in the re-edited version I watched, the fifth murder – where a Santa has his brains blown away with a gun, has been removed and replaced by the later tenth(!) one of a Santa castrated with a razor in a urinal!; another Saint Nick (a lonely, middle-aged soul) unwisely takes a break from his Christmas duties to go check out a peep-show and gets his in the neck to the horror of the teasing tit-flasher in the booth (when the murderer returns to kill her, she subsequently runs out into an incongruously deserted London street!); another is stabbed in the gut via a knife-wielding shoe!; a Santa – who has taken shelter in the London Dungeon (which I visited on my first trip to the British capital in 1999) – gets it in the neck too; another receives a machete to the face and turns up on-stage during a musical performance; the heroine is strangled but subsequently found all bloodied(!?); an investigating police officer is electrocuted; the killer's mother dies in a fall in a flashback sequence; the villain himself is thrown off the stairs at the top floor of the stripper's flatwho predictably comes back to life when she goes to check up on him!; finally, the Police Inspector on the case (though his lack of productivity eventually gets him taken off it) dies in a slow-motion bomb blast, which effectively concludes the film, when committing the titular act (why he never doubted the contents of the package is anybody's guess)!
The daughter of the second murdered Santa and her callous boyfriend subsequently become the relative protagonists of the piece; however, during the latter stages, it is the stripper who takes centre stage (especially since the nominal heroine is herself bumped off) – she is eventually kidnapped by the killer who intends offing her on Christmas Day (earlier, she had told the cops she might be able to recognize the murderer if he smiled at her!?).
It is idiotic to have people keep turning up everywhere in Santa outfits when they are likely to be targeted by the murderer for it – neither do the local authorities issue any order to refrain from doing so for safety's sake; in any case, the Police put Santa decoys in an effort to apprehend the killer but they only end up among his death-list, one of them messily losing an eye to him!
Persistent journalist Alan Lake turns out to be the killer and Purdom's insane brother (the heroine comes to know of his monthly visits to the ostensibly committed sibling but she is not given the opportunity to do anything about it), taking care to implant the seeds of suspicion into the mind of the latter's direct subordinate (though he misconstrues the situation by thinking Purdom himself is the guilty party); tragically, the actor committed suicide before the film's release as a result of the death of his wife, iconic British star Diana Dors earlier in the year!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Edmund Purdom stars as a police inspector on the lookout for a psycho who kills people who dress up as Santa.
As more and more Santa's are viciously murdered can Harris and Powell track the killer down before it's too late and manage to save the stripper!?Directed by star Edmund Purdom I liked this sleazy mix of murder mystery and gory splatter.
Oddly structured, startlingly sadistic, and extremely sleazy British slasher concerning a maniac viciously stabbing and slashing unfortunate victims who happen to make the mistake of wearing a Santa costume during the Christmas holiday season.
Inspector Harris(Edmund Purdom)is being grilled by his superior at Scotland Yard to solve the case before Christmas Day arrives, but he doesn't entirely seem that interested in finding the perpetrator, singling out Cliff Boyd(Gerry Sundquist), the live-in boyfriend of a wealthy heiress, Kate(Belinda Mayne)whose father was a victim of the Santa Claus killer when dressed like Jolly Saint Nick one night at a party(..thanks to a spear through his head and out his mouth..ouch!)who couldn't possibly be the one responsible if he were standing beside his lover when the murder took place.
When Harris comes up with no results, he's suspended and his associate, Sergeant Powell(Mark Jones)takes over, given information by a creepy supposed newspaper journalist, Giles(Alan Lake)to keep an eye on the Inspector for he might know more than he letting on regarding the Santa Claus killer.
The film also shows that a stripper, who witnesses a murder through her glass terminal towards someone wearing a Santa costume, who gave what little information she knew to Scotland Yard, herself is kidnapped by the mysterious killer, given a little time alive, imprisoned in a small makeshift room hoping that he makes a false move so she can escape.Pretty messy which is understandable due to it's difficult production problems.
And yet another has his face grilled while roasted chestnuts on an open fire.Scotland Yard inspector Ian Harris (Edmund Purdom, who wrote and directed this film as well as appearing in 2019: After the Fall of New York and Pieces) and detective Powell are perplexed.
Plus, Harris just got a gift that says "Don't Open Till Christmas." They question Kate, whose father was a killed Santa, and her boyfriend, Cliff.The next day, Cliff tricks Kate into coming to a porn studio.
Usually in this sort of flicks, the maniacal killer dresses up as Santa Claus and goes on a murder spree.
Luckily enough the body count of "Don't Open Till Christmas" is quite high, because the film is incredibly boring when there aren't any murders occurring.