SHOCK celebrates the advent of The Big C day with a prime piece of British dead Santa trash.
In your rush to absorb tried and true Holiday horror-shows this season, once youve taken in BLACK CHRISTMAS and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT for the ten thousandth time and after youve done your part to keep the theatrical box office beefy for KRAMPUS, may I humbly suggest you venture down the sticky pole and seek out a skid row Christmas creeper that time has seemingly forgotten?
Good!
Allow me to stuff your too-tight stocking with this nasty number
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmx0sch9gaU
Yes indeed, DONT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is an unfortunately overlooked British slasher that sits in opposition to its other axe-swinging, knife-wielding killer-Santa brethren in that Santa isnt the predator hes the prey!
The film charts the days leading up to Christmas in swinging, ultra-tacky, early 80s London. Seems some sort of dedicated maniac is taking out every shoddy Santa Claus clone he (or she) can find; unfortunate gents dressed in red suits are stabbed, slashed, burned, chopped and one poor unlucky St.Nicholas even becomes St. Dick-less after the lunatic crudely removes his member and leaves him to bleed out in pain and shame.
No street corner Santa is safe. White beards are stained red. Department stores reveal empty thrones.Sally-Ann drop-boxes are left unmanned. Throw in some useless and totally gratuitous jiggly female flesh, a police procedural and a supporting role from CAPTAIN KRONOS and MANIAC legend Caroline Munroe playing herself in a garish musical number and you have a prime piece of seasonal trash worth savoring.
Randall then skanked his way to England and set up shop where he grabbed his PIECES star, former British movie idol Edmund Purdom, to both headline this film and direct. Presumably, Purdoms role in the directors chair was a contractual deal in exchange for his still marketable presence in front of the camera. Purdoms chops as a shot-caller werent exactly top-of-the-pops and DONT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is kind of a mess but what a mess!
Plenty of laddish humor, chunky and effective gore gags courtesy of CANNIBAL FEROXs Giuseppe Ferranti, healthy dollops of innocuous sleaze, acres of dead and damaged Santas, at least one traumatic childhood flashback and a literally explosive ending make this a memorable slab of fatal Father Christmas kitsch.
UK label Mondo Macabro spat out an immaculate DVD release of the film a few years ago and certainly, if you feel the need, you can purchase an out of print copy of that very same, features-packed, anamorphic edition here.
Or, if you’re feeling all pirate-y, you can watch a crappy bootlegged version of the entire film for free below! Merry Christmas to all!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlsbvu_don-t-open-till-christmas_shortfilms
