Don't Open Till Christmas 1984
director: Edmund Purdom
Genre
Country
Great Britain
Cast
Edmund Purdom Alan Lake Belinda Mayne Mark Jones Gerry Sundquist Caroline Munro Kelly Baker Kevin Lloyd Wendy Danvers Nicholas Donnelly Pat Astley Lawrence Harrington Ken Halliwell Ray Marioni Wilfred Corlett Ricky Kennedy Sid Wragg Max Roman George Pierce Ashley Dransfield Derek Ford Adrian Black John Aston Maria Eldridge Des Dolan Derek Hunt Paula Meadows
Synopsis
...t'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring... they were all dead!
From the makers of 'Friday the 13th' comes the film that shatters all barriers of horror. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is the thrilling and bizarre murder mystery where nothing is sacred - even Santa Claus! A killer is loose in London and his sights are set on one target - Santa Claus - dozens of them. Jolly old Saint Nick is stabbed, beaten and electrocuted in department stores, at parties and even on crowded street corners. What sort of twisted mind is behind these barbarous acts of violence? Scotland Yard is on the trail but every clue points them in a different direction. The culprit is right under their nose but will they come to this climatic conclusion in time? DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS - the gift of terror that just won't wait!
From the makers of 'Friday the 13th' comes the film that shatters all barriers of horror. DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is the thrilling and bizarre murder mystery where nothing is sacred - even Santa Claus! A killer is loose in London and his sights are set on one target - Santa Claus - dozens of them. Jolly old Saint Nick is stabbed, beaten and electrocuted in department stores, at parties and even on crowded street corners. What sort of twisted mind is behind these barbarous acts of violence? Scotland Yard is on the trail but every clue points them in a different direction. The culprit is right under their nose but will they come to this climatic conclusion in time? DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS - the gift of terror that just won't wait!
Formats
Average User Rating: 1 Vote(s)
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 Not Available | Purchase this movie on DVD! |  Amazon UK |
| Distributor | Vestron |
| Catalogue Number | VA14372 |
| Release Series | |
| Release Date | December 1985 |
| Duration: | 80m 27s |
| Printed Classification | |
| Notes |
User Reviews:
A lunatic is on the loose in London's West End, carving up any poor sod who happens to be dressed as Father Christmas - and as it's December, he's spoilt for choice regarding victims. Santas are roasted, castrated, stabbed and otherwise eviscerated right left and centre in this cheap, tasteless and - let's be honest - bloody awful slice of low-budget British horror. What should have been a surefire proposition given the 'talent' on board - Alan Birkinshaw ([i]Killer's Moon[/i]), Dick Randall ([i]Pieces[/i]), Derek Ford ([i]Corruption[/i]), Des Dolan (Go Video's head honcho), Edmund Purdom ([i]Absurd[/i]) and a veritable who's who of British bit-part players, has-beens and nearly-weres, plus genre star Caroline Munro singing a glitzy pop number - [i]Don't Open Till Christmas[/i], following hot on the heels of the controversial slasher [i]Silent Night Deadly Night[/i], turned out to be something of a cursed production, shot piecemeal over the course of almost two years with Ford, Purdom, Birkinshaw, and editor Ray Selfe (under the pseudonymn Al McGoohan) all taking turns in the director's chair, so it's no wonder the end product is such a choppy, almost incoherent ragbag of scenes where most of the actors seem to plod through their lines as if they're sleepwalking. To further confuse matters, by the time this cheapskate mess arrived on the Vestron label in 1985, the video nasty era had put the BBFC on red alert concerning on-screen carnage, and the board's cuts to an already fairly shoddy outing made it even more of a chore to sit through. Regarding the cast, the nominal leading man is Gerry Sundquist, a former boyfriend of L[i]oose Women[/i]'s Denise Welch who took the John Travolta role in the flop British [i]Saturday Night Fever[/i] clone [i]the Music Machine[/i], but the film really belongs to Alan Lake, the former Mr Diana Dors, whose fast living, fondness for drugs and booze and spell in chokey had really caught up with him by this stage, giving him a genuinely disturbing presence that matched his off-screen notoriety. Sadly, he committed suicide a year before this clunker saw the light of day.