FESTIVE FRIGHTS # 2 - DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS (1984)

DIRECTED by Edmund Purdom (with Derek Ford & Ray Selfie)

SCREENPLAY by Derek Ford & Alan Birkinshaw

STARRING  - Edmund Purdom as Chief Inspector Ian Harris,  Alan Lake as Giles Harrison,  Belinda Mayne as Kate Briosky,  Gerry Sundquist as Cliff Boyd,  Mark Jones as Detective Sargeant Powell, Kelly Baker as Sherry Graham,  Caroline Munroe as Herself.

PLOT - London at Christmas time. A depraved serial killer is stalking the nighttime streets. His victims - people dressed as Santa Claus.

Chief Inspector Ian Harris is called in to catch the killer and end the reign of terror. However as the case continues and the body count increases Harris will find that the identity of the killer may be closer to home than even he imagined...

TAGLINE - "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring...they were all dead !" (Poetry...sheer poetry).

PERFORMANCES  - Believe it or not this film actually started out as something of a vanity project. Actor Edmund Purdom was approached by the producers to star in the film as the main character Chief Inspector Ian Harris. Purdom agreed only on the condition that he could also direct the film. Somewhat foolishly, it would turn out, the producers agreed to this madness and the rest is just a bizzare footnote in cinematic history.

Purdom and the producers soon clashed (that old bugbear "creative difficulties" - read "egos") and after a few weeks Purdom threw a hissey fit and walked off the set, leaving an unfinished film which no longer had a leading man or a director. Script writer Derek Ford was then hired to finish the film but he was fired after two days. This left the film's editor Ray Selfie to try to salvage this whole mess. With a few rewrites the movie was eventually completed (after a fashion).

The result of this cinematic train wreck is evident to see onscreen. Although he is supposed to be the main character Purdom appears for only a relatively small amount of time. His character Harris is supposed to be a grizzled police inspector but Purdom plays the part like he's acting in an entirely different film - his version of Harris seems to be a lot more suave than I think the producers intended the character to be (reading between the lines this is probably partly where the clash of interests came from). Due to Purdom quitting Harris disappears for large parts of the film's runtime, including scenes involving his character that are central to the story. 

As a result of the main character's absence it is left to other characters to pick up the slack. This means the audience gets a bunch of secondary characters who come to the forefront in an attempt to carry the story.

This wouldn't be so bad but the script is so hastily re-written that none of these people get much chance to make an impression and in several cases some of these secondary protagonists just disappear off screen never to be seen again with no apparent explanation. It's a mess.

Picking up the slack we have Mark Jones as Detective Sargeant Powell who becomes the film's "hero" when Harris isn't around. Jones does a decent enough job but his character doesn't really develop much beyond two-dimensional. We also get Belinda Mayne as Kate Briosky - a young woman whose father was one of the victims. Mayne gives a stilted performance and doesn't seem to know what emotional range is. Maybe she's a bad actress or maybe she just got pissed off with the hacked up script and phoned it in - it's difficult to tell.

A mention must be made of Gerry Sundquist as Cliff (Kate's boyfriend). He's probably the best character in the film if only for unintentional comedic value. He's just such an ARSEHOLE ! He's got to be the WORST boyfriend on the planet. A couple of days after Kate's father is murdered Gerry berates her for not getting on with her life. To then aid the delicate healing process of grieving, Gerry takes Kate round to his sleazy photographer friend's flat and tries to get her to take part in a pornographic lesbian photoshoot with some random prostitute. When Kate (understandably) turns this down and leaves in a fit of rage, Gerry then cops off with the prostitute and takes her outside (presumably to shag her down a back alley). As Gerry and the prostitute are starting to get down to business they are disturbed by two police officers walking by. Gerry shouts "Run for it - they'll think we're gays" (the prostitute is wearing a Santa outfit) and promptly legs it, leaving the woman to get menaced by our friendly neighbourhood serial killer. Gerry is just unbelievable but at least he's entertaining - sadly he's one of the characters that just disappears for no reason - a victim of "rewriteitus".

Our final secondary support character comes in the form of Kelly Baker as Sherry - a young stripper who is kidnapped by the serial killer. She's actually quite good, her character is at least slightly more three dimensional as she attempts to get inside the killer's head in a bid to find a weakness within him that she can exploit to escape. Needless to say it doesn't work out.

Finally we get the killer himself  - Giles Harrison played by Alan Lake. Giles turns out to be Inspector Harris's long lost brother who went mad as a child after seeing his father dressed as Santa Claus having sex with a female party goer at a Christmas party (this was apparently enough to push him over the edge and "explains" his weird Santa Claus fixation).

Lake is actually really good in the role (far better than this film deserves). He gives Giles a sense of mad eyed menace (I don't think we ever actually see him blink throughout the entire film). The film is supposed to be a bit of a "whodunit" but Giles is so shifty and unnerving that it's really bloody obvious that he's the killer as soon as we set eyes on him. Maybe Lake was a bit too good at playing a creepy psychopath...

Finally we get Caroline Munro playing herself. At this point Munro was trying to get away from her acting roots and set herself up as a popstar. She kindly sings us one of her songs in this movie...it's not very good.

SFX - Some halfway decent gore effects (see below).

SEX & VIOLENCE  - This a VERY sleazy little movie. Most of the female characters are portrayed as either being prostitutes or strippers or at least seen purely as sex objects. We get scenes of mild nudity and some unconvincing sex.

If seeing people dressed up as Father Christmas being offed in various ways is your thing then this film definitely has you covered.

The film opens with a P.O.V scene (that rips off Halloween) where the killer dispatches a couple that have been having sex in a car. The young bloke was initially wearing a Santa outfit so that makes them both fair game...

Kate's dad is next to go. After complaining that his Santa makeup makes him look like a "gay old queen" (this film sort of has a thing about gay people) kate's father is then shot dead by a harpoon being fired into the back of his head...

We then see another Santa roasting chestnuts on a open fire (like in the song). The killer comes up behind him, garrots him and then roasts his face on the open fire (which doesn't happen in the song)...

Another Santa is then shot in the mouth at point blank range...

Another Santa decides to go to a peepshow where he meets Sherry. The killer walks in just as the show's getting started and knifes Santa in the neck before Shelly's horrified eyes, helpfully dousing her nice clean glass partition screen with claret...

A drunk dressed as Santa manages to annoy a group of Punk Rockers, they chase him and he hides inside the horror themed tourist attraction "The London Dungeon". Unfortunately for him he's followed in by the killer and is soon despatched along with an employee who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Two undercover cops disguised in Santa outfits fall victim to Giles. One is kicked in the balls with a "Rosa Klebb style" knife shoe, the other gets bottled to death...

Yet another Santa is murdered via a machete in the face while Caroline Munro is singing...at least it shuts her up.

 Yet another unfortunate Santa is castrated in a public toilet whilst having a piss...

Kate is then strangled by Giles using a length of tinsel, just to be sure he also stabs her for good measure.

In the movie's most OTT death scene, Giles rigs up Powell's car so that Powell is electrocuted to death. Cue lots of flashing lights, smoke and overacted screaming.

Sherry escapes from Giles and causes him to fall to his apparent death over a balcony. When Sherry goes to check his body he springs to life and throttles her. Whether Giles dies from his injuries off camera or lives to kill again we don't get to see (and seeing as there was no sequal we'll now never know).

Finally Ian Harris opens a Christmas present from his brother which turns out to be a booby trapped bomb. The bomb explodes, presumably killing Harris (at least he could be bothered to show up for his own death scene).

RATING - Don't Open Till Christmas is a stinking mess of a movie. Beset on all sides by hastily re-written scripts, bad acting, amateur special effects and many, many scenes which haven't aged well at all.

And yet...it's strangely entertaining. It's fairly well paced for a B-movie, there's literally never a dull moment. I like the grimy early 80's setting - a nicotine stained world of peep shows, sex shops, Punk Rockers, Skinheads and seedy nightclubs. Its of it's time and feels like a snapshot of bygone days...this isn't "Swinging London" its "Stinking London". As such the film manages to be weirdly atmospheric in its own seedy way.

Overall I'm giving this 3 and a half dead Santas out of 5. Watch it by all means but you'll probably feel like you need a shower afterwards.

POSTER/VHS/DVD ART  -