Entry 93: Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)

Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)

Dir: Edmund Purdom

"The gift of terror that just won't wait..."

 

'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even Michael James Harmon
He was comatose on the couch
And watching the shit out of Don't Open Till Christmas!

A quick note before getting to the entry.  I realize I haven't exactly been prolific with the Basement the past month or two; I've had a lot going on and, believe it or not, maintaining this shitty blog takes effort that I'm not always willing/able to put in at the end of the day.  I TRULY appreciate all of you who've stuck with me this long; you're comments and support (mostly in person) mean A LOT.  I'm hoping to crank out entries at a steadier pace in January.  Alright, enough with the touchy-feely horseshit; let's get to the goddamn movie!

Alright, this British slasher opens with a way-too-skinny department store Santa meeting his (unrealistically well-dressed and hot) girlfriend in an alley.  They are followed POV-style by an unseen, heavy-breathing assailant who proceeds to slaughter them both when they try to fuck in their car.  THEN we get to the opening credits, which are set against a burning Santa Claus candle (subtle!).  Next, a (much more suitably chubby and middle-aged) Santa is killed with a sword through the back of the head at a bitchin' Christmas costume dance party (has that ever been a thing?  Maybe in Europe?  One of German readers should lemme know...).  It doesn't take long for the crack minds at Scotland Yard to determine that they've got a Santa serial killer on their hands, and Inspector Harris (director Purdom, Ator: the Fighting Eagle, 2019: After the Fall of New York) and Detective Powell (Mark Jones, Tales of the Unexpected, The Empire Strikes Back-"Captain Needa, the ship no longer appears on our scopes!") are assigned to the case, just as another Santa is garroted and fucking burned alive!  Meanwhile, Kate, the daughter of one of the victims ("My father's just been killed...I can't concentrate!" Belinda Mayne, Krull, Lassiter) and her boyfriend Cliff (Gerry Sundquist, Boarding School) begin their own investigation and are hounded by tabloid newsman Giles (Alan Lake, TV's Hart to Hart).  Cliff's clearly not the sensitive type, as not a day after her father's death he tries to pressure Kate into doing a nude, Santa-themed photoshoot with his sleazy pornographer friend, Gerry (Kevin Lloyd, Britannia Hospital, Link, in a great, super-scuzzy performance).  Cliff and Kate end up reconciling, and the killer pops up again, this time dispatching a Santa using a goddamn knife-shoe, and another by CHOPPING HIS FUCKING DICK OFF with a straight razor in a urinal (think about THAT next time you're taking a leak in public!)!  In a totally nonsensical plot twist, it turns out that the killer is Giles, who is the long-lost brother of Powell; they were separated at birth at Christmastime and Giles is out for revenge!  Giles murders Kate and, after he's offed by a peep-show worker he'd kept hostage, the sanity-doubting denouement reveals that Giles, after receiving a knife for Christmas, witnessed his mother accidentally murdered by a man in a Santa suit.

To say that this scuzzy import resembles Silent Night, Deadly Night with the sleaze quotient turned WAY up doesn't really do it justice.  Oddly, though released the same year, it didn't cause nearly the uproar Silent did (possibly because that film's misleading ad campaign featured Santa as a serial killer; in this film, ol' St. Nick is the victim).  While the plot is threadbare and Purdom is a pretty blase director, he fills the flick with a an endless display of blood, boobs and seedy 80's London locales; enough to make this a yuletide classic for sleaze enthusiasts.

So, from the bottom of my heart: whether you're spending time with family, swilling hooch in a gutter somewhere or beating off or finger blasting yourself in a peepshow booth, merry goddamn Christmas from the Basement of Sleaze!