xposipx
There isn't much of an understandable plot here. There's a killer on the lose taking out every Santa in sight. Meanwhile, detectives and our protagonists are trying to figure out how to solve the mystery. They never seem to get anywhere and pretty much ruin the movie while they're at it.Don't Open 'Til Christmas gives us plenty of kills, but they are really lame. It provides multiple stabbings using a toy knife that inverts when you stab someone, someone burning to death, a cut off penis (off screen), and a melted face. The lighting was so dark it was difficult to see how the face was actually melted; I know they used a cheap plastic eyeball though. Pat Astley is a porno actress who made a sweet appearance in this film. All three times she is shown she gets topless. Makes me want to go check out her other movies: Dr. Sex and Nymphmania. The film took 2 years to make due to the fact that they ended up having three different directors. Edmund Purdom began and also starred in the movie, but then switched it over to someone else who was fired after two days. Eventually, they got someone to finish this piece of crap up. It was a British movie, but it seemed like it was in a foreign language because the audio was dubbed so horribly. Not only that, there were so many clips from obvious different time periods that did not belong but were thrown in anyways. Tons of random clips would occur every few seconds that made no sense. Oh, and the lighting was awful and it was difficult to see any outdoors shots.Bottom Line: This was a horrible mess of a movie that went like this: 1.Detectives being detectives. 2.Protagonists being sketchy. 3.Detectives questioning protagonists. 4.Random Santa dying with no build up. 5.Repeat sequence.Eventually the protagonists are no longer in the film and the detectives never figure out the case or have anything to do with the ending. This is due to the 2-year process of making a simple horror film. The ending makes absolutely no sense and just leaves the viewer feeling like they wasted a lot of time watching this garbage.
Rainey Dawn
A film I acquired in the 50-pack Drive-in collection. The movie is not remotely interesting, not "horrific", not anything but a waste of time and film. It's nothing more than a crappy excuse to put boobs on film in what is supposedly a "scary Christmas" type of horror film. Basically it's a real yawn and eye-roller.A guy goes around killing Santa Clauses while girls flash their boobs on film. This might appeal to some but the film does not appeal to me.Like all films, you will have to watch the film for yourself to know if you will like it or not. I will not recommend this film to anyone - I recommend to find a better "scary Christmas" flick than this drab, flat trash.1/10
WirelessE
A very British entry into the 1980's slasher cannon. 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. There is a bargain basement TV actors look and feel throughout, like a fairly straight BBC version of a slasher film. London looks suitably gross, seedy and grotty. A few off the wall moments keep it fairly enjoyable and worth a look for fans of sleazy, cult, obscure trash.
MARIO GAUCI
Following on from the previous decade's BLACK Christmas (1974; easily the best of the bunch), SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1973) and Christmas EVIL (1980), the Eighties also saw a proliferation of Yuletide horrors like GREMLINS (1984; a Yuletide perennial during my childhood days) and the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT franchise; this troubled production was the British contribution to that cycle. The three uncredited directors, collectively dubbed "Al McGoohan", included screenwriter Derek Ford (whose most notable work was done in the 1960s for director Robert Hartford-Davis), editor Ray Selfe and director Alan Birkinshaw (of the reportedly just-as-abysmal KILLER'S MOON {1978} fame)! Rather than the expected 'murderer dressed in a Santa costume', here we have the annihilation of the persons dressing up as Father Christmas – a modus operandi that is, needless to say, triggered by a childhood trauma (involving a man in a Santa outfit who is obviously not his father shagging Mommy). 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)! While the killer is seen having no qualms about stabbing a couple of females, he is clearly taken aback when a would-be Santa victim turns out to be a nude model to whom the hero had taken his bereaved girlfriend to uplift her spirits by taking part in a saucy shoot (WTF?!). 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! For no very good reason (except that her husband was behind this production), Caroline Munro appears as herself to warble a tacky song. 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! The film (which, apparently, was not even officially released, going straight-to-video instead!) has been recently released as a SE to little fanfare on R1 DVD by esteemed cult label Mondo Macabro. For the record, it shares its producer with that of the equally execrable PIECES (1982), also featuring Purdom; the latter, then, appeared in the following horror-related films throughout his European wanderings: THE NIGHT THEY KILLED RASPUTIN (1961), Sergio Corbucci's THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1966), Pupi Avati's THOMAS AND THE BEWITCHED (1970), THE FIFTH CORD (1971), LUCIFERA: DEMONLOVER (1972), Riccardo Freda's TRAGIC CEREMONY (1972), FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974), THE NIGHT CHILD (1975), Joe D'Amato's ABSURD (1981), the aforementioned PIECES and FRACCHIA CONTRO Dracula (1985; as the Count!).
