Don't Open Til Christmas
Director: Edmund Purdom
Writer: Derek Ford (story by Alan McGoohan)
Starring: Caroline Munro and Alan Lake
Body Count: 12
Review: Just about every holiday on the calendar has been the subject of slasher flick, and Christmas has been the setting for literally dozens of them. Most of them (if not all of them) suck royally, so when I popped this into my VCR, I was actually quite surprised by the flick.
Breaking the mold of most X-mas slashers, the killer in this movie is not wearing a Santa Claus suit to do his deeds, he's killing everybody that is wearing a Santa suit. Now, that's probably about the only real original twist on the Christmas slasher slant that's in this movie, but it does make the film at least a little more interesting that, say Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out.
As I stated above, the film's killer is offing all of the Santas in Britain, and nobody seems to know why...in fact, even after the movie's over, you might not know why. It might just be me, but the "plot" here was a little hard to follow. Something about a fashion photographer, and the daughter of one of the Santa slaying victims...oh yeah, and this chick who works in a peep show for her mother (?!?). None of it really meshes together coherently, but hey, we're here for slasher movies, not coherency, right?
And the slasher trimmings are out in spades here. There's a ton of blood in this movie, particularly considering its place in the timeline of the genre, and some fairly original kills. There's also ample, gratuitous nudity, and the number of cheesy lines is only eclipsed by the larger number of boring expositional lines.
Not exactly the greatest thing ever, but Don't Open Til Christmas does manage to put an ever-so-slight twist on the familiar turf, and can prove to be a lot of fun to watch.
