Don’t Open Till Christmas
(1984) 86 Min.
Rated: R
Country: UK
Director: Edmund Purdom
Starring: Edmund Purdom
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Guys dressed as Santa are getting killed in London and Inspector Ian Harris is on the case.
Synopsis:
The movie opens up on a Santa Claus in the street going into a car with a woman, making out and being stared at by a POV camera breathing heavily. The couple inside notice and try to shoo away the POV-man, but he stabs them each once causing them to collapse onto the floor and die.
Cut to the opening credits. During a Christmas party, a man dressed as Santa Claus has a spear thrown through his head. He dies instantly, leaving the party guests bewildered and not reacting. No reaction at all. Except of course for the man’s daughter and her boyfriend who are present at the time of the murder.
The murder is splayed across the morning paper. Scotland Yard investigates by paying a visit to the man’s daughter Kate and her boyfriend, Cliff Boyd, who were both present at the time of the murder. They inform Kate that her father was “the victim of another Santa murder”. And it is this way that we are informed that there is a serial Santa slayer running around London killing Santas.
Meanwhile, in an alley somewhere, a chestnut vending Santa has a piano wire placed about his neck. He’s choked and his face pushed into his roasting fire. As he dies he’s laid on the hot coals, lighting the body on fire.
Inspector Ian Harris (Purdom) receives a mysterious package at his home marked “Don’t Open Till Christmas”, but he has no time for this and hurries off to work. He also learns that Kate has been inquiring about her father’s murder.
A man named Giles, who claims to be from the newspaper, calls Detective Sergeant Powell and hints that he knows more about the murders. Not giving much more than his name he hangs up on Powell.
Somewhere a laughing drunk Santa ambling down a street during the night is shot in the mouth.
Randomly Giles walks up to Kate and asks her how she’s doing, though she dismisses him and tells him to talk to the police.
Cliff and Kate meet Cliff’s old friend Gerry while they are busking in the street. Gerry takes them back to do a photography session. As a model poses provocatively while partially nude, Gerry suggests that Kate model too. Kate is furious when Gerry produces a red and white robe to wear. She storms out of the building. Cliff puts the red and white robe on the model who plans to do outside shots. They run away from police (as the model is nude under the open robe). She runs into the killer, but after he gets a view of her bare boobs he backs away and runs off, leaving her to survive and take many more breast photos.
A Santa enters a peepshow, as he talks to the girl inside he gets stabbed from behind.
Harris goes back to Kate’s apartment thinking that her boyfriend might be the killer. He gives Kate his phone number and leaves. Powell finds Giles rooting around his office. Giles tells Powell to keep an eye on Harris.
At night yet another Santa is chased through town into a torture museum where he is stabbed in his belly.
In their apartment, Cliff and Kate discuss not seeing Inspector Harris at the inquest and Cliff reassures Kate that he loves her, not Harris.
Harris informs Powell that this will be his last case.
At a circus two Santas are stabbed to death.
The peepshow girl gets interviewed briefly and goes back to work where the murderer finds her and chases her through London back to a basement room where he chains her up.
Another drunk Santa wanders around London and ends up backstage at a live musical performance. He gets chased around during the song and has a knife hacked into his skull.
Kate calls Powells and informs him that Harris’ housekeeper told her that Harris visits a lunatic asylum.
A store santa visits a urinal in the restroom and gets his penis cut off, killing him instantly.
Kate visits Harris who takes her out to dinner. Home alone, Kate gets an intrusive visit from Giles, creepy as ever. Kate admits that she knows Harris and Giles are brothers. Giles had been sent to an asylum, he decided to give his brother a real case to work on. He admits to killing the santas. She tries to call Powells but gets stabbed to death. Powell arrives and searches Kate’s apartment.
Powell chases Giles out into the street and ultimately to a place where Giles hooked the car battery up to the door of a car. Powell opens the car door and electrocutes himself, dying.
Giles visits the girl in the dungeon and she talks about Christmas, scaring him. She makes her escape and tries to run away, eventually running up a flight of stairs which she causes Giles to fall off of. At the bottom he’s seemingly dead. He grabs the girl and chokes her as she nears, flashing back to his childhood when he got a knife for Christmas and where he saw his father dressed as Santa Claus having sex with a woman and pushing his mother down a flight of stairs.
Harris wakes up from a nightmare and enters the living room. Spotting a present from his brother he opens it, revealing a music box with a tiny Santa figure twirling to music. It explodes, ending Harris’ life and the movie.
Review:
A one of a kind horror movie that focuses solely on the murdering of Santa Claus. Who doesn’t want to kill Santa? The giver of joy and gifts to millions upon millions of children worldwide, this icon of seasonal festivity is seen with loathing hatred by Giles, the murderer in this film. In all about nine Santas and a few other people are killed.
This movie tries hard to play the entire thing straight-faced, turning the identity of murderer into a whodunit, which most viewers will figure out in two seconds is the creepy guy who refuses to give much info about himself. So instead of figuring out who the killer is, we’re left to just enjoy the many deaths of Santa Claus. Actually, that might make a better title for this movie, because one of the most silly things about this movie is the title, which inspector Harris does (opens the gift) and causes an explosion.
I guess I have a bit of a problem with the idea that a man who worked in the police force for most of his life would just open an anonymously given gift from his deranged brother. That couldn’t possibly be something malicious, could it? Even after Harris admits he knows who the killer might be, he opens that box. Perhaps he was searching for his brain.
Overall, the movie had some hammy acting, stilted dialog and was over-dramatic. The death scenes are a bit silly but bloody and a gratuitous display of breasts abounds, not to mention a short scene of Santa Claus humping a drunk lady in a bedroom. Don’t Open Till Christmas certainly has its share of sleaze and gore, that’s for sure. It’s worth seeing if only for the odd spectacle of a Santa murder spree.
Note: Edmund Purdom directed and starred in this movie.