Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)

Directed by:
Derek Ford (uncredited)
Edmund Purdom
Ray Selfe (uncredited)

Despite running on about three hours of shut-eye today, I had a great visit with my sister and niece, got some nice gifts, had a lovely family dinner and made my five hour round trip drive to and fro without a flat tire, an accident or a speeding ticket in very mild and cooperative weather. I must have been a good boy. Right? Well, now I'm not so sure, especially after popping in Don't Open Till Christmas. For a change, I actually decided to heed this film's warning, which is more than I can say for answering the phone, opening the door, going into houses and the woods (... alone even!), going to sleep, looking in the attic and basement, messing with sisters (OK, that one's a joke) and torturing ducklings (that one too). Like its lead detective character I opted not to open this until Christmas day because sometimes I do like to follow the rules. Little did I know, but Open would become the proverbial lump of coal in my stocking on an otherwise fine day. Yes, Mr. Claus can and does work in mysterious ways. Now I feel like I've gotten my just punishment for being a naughty boy who watches naughty movies all year long.

A man dressed as Santa and his girlfriend get stabbed to death while necking in a car. Soon after at a Christmas party, a man decked up as Saint Nick gets a spear chucked through his head. Has the real Santa finally gotten ticked off about all the posers out there spoiling his good name? Sadly, no. And that is a movie I wouldn't mind watching at all. Here all we get is yet another maladjusted psycho who had a fucked-up childhood (*yawn*) in yet another inept slasher flick (double *yawn*).

As the LOL-worthy headline "Santa Slain in Soho!" splashes across the evening paper, detectives at the New Scotland Yard know they've got their work cut out for them. With the commissioner breathing down their necks and newspaper columnist Giles (Alan Lake) worrying the citizens with his sensationalist articles, Chief Inspector Ian Harris (director Purdom) and his assistant Sgt. Powell (Mark Jones) get on with their investigation. They first question Kate (Belinda Mayne), daughter of the spear victim, and her live-in lover Cliff (Gerry Sundquist). Since Kate's father was very rich and Cliff is a "cheeky little bugger" and a drop-out, Harris' first instinct is that one or possibly both of them offed pops for his money. That doesn't quite explain why the couple would be killing numerous other Santa's in the area, but hey, at least it's a theory. Having the rich, now deceased father also doesn't explain why Kate and Cliff are forced to panhandle (!?) on street corners for money. Nor does it explain why Cliff tries to coerce Kate into posing topless for his sleazy photographer friend Gerry (Kevin Lloyd) - who keeps his studio cold so that his model's "nip-nips stand out" - for 50 bucks either.

Meanwhile, many (and I mean many) other Santa's bite the big one. A "chestnut vendor" has his head fried on an outdoor grill and bursts into flames. A portly Santa gets his dick cut off (!) while taking a piss in a public restroom. While visiting a peep shop, another Santa gets stabbed through the neck in front of a worker there and in a long and seemingly tacked-on sequence, a Santa steals a bike, is chased by some punks, jumps a fence, has a run-in with a guard dog and ends up in some kind of bizarre indoor spook show where he's stabbed to death. Not enough? Two Santa's are killed at a circus. One has a broken bottle jammed into his eyeball. The other is kicked in the crotch with a boot with a retractable blade hidden inside (!) and is hit in the face with a spiked glove. One Santa sneaks into Piccadilly Theater, gets an axe planted in his face and his body pops up on stage to spoil sequined-and-teased Caroline Munro's performance of "I'm the Warrior of Love." Even Gerry's favorite nudie model Sharon (Pat Astley) has a run-in with the psycho, but he decides to let her go and she gets arrested by the police for indecent exposure instead! All of this begs the question: If there's a psycho going around murdering Santa's right and left, who in their right mind is going to be out in public by themselves - and at night - dressed in a Santa costume like the dozen dummies featured in this movie?

In between the numerous murder sequences, the film ineptly fumbles around with false leads, multiple suspects and other such nonsense to try to throw viewers off. The killer kidnaps Sherry (Kelly Baker), the peep show worker who witnessed one of the murders, then takes her back to his apartment, chains her up on a bed and plans on making her "the supreme sacrifice to all the evil Christmas is" on Christmas day. The killer also has a flashback that explains things. As a little boy, he walked in on his mommy boinking Santa Claus and then his nanny accidentally got knocked down the stairs and died. On yes, and I almost forgot that Inspector Harris has received a mystery present with a "Don't Open Till Christmas" tag on it and a nice holiday surprise inside.

The seldom-seen, 52-minute behind-the-scenes documentary THE MAKING OF A HORROR FILM (1984), an extra on the Mondo Macabro DVD release, recounts the numerous problems that plagued this production. Purdom quit before completion, was briefly replaced by scripter Derek Ford (who was fired after only two days) and then Ray Selfe stepped in to finish it off. There's also a credit for "additional scenes" being written and directed by "Al McGoohan;" a pseudonym for Alan Birkinshaw, so perhaps he was the fourth (!) director. Many scenes from the original shoot got scrapped, roles had to be recast or just dropped altogether, stuff was re-shot and additional scenes were filmed and eventually wedged in to give us the film we have today. It took two full years to complete!

 

Mean-spirited, sleazy, bloody, filled with unlikable characters, horribly plotted and completely ridiculous, this will likely appeal to the same people who dug the laughably awful Spanish slasher flick PIECES (1981), another Dick Randall production which also happened to star Purdom. SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986) from the same team starred Munro and Baker.

★1/2

Christmas Season Massacre, The (2001)

Directed by:
Jeremy Wallace

In Christmastown, California on Christmas Eve, an eyepatch-wearing psycho is on the loose. Tommy "Oneshoe" McGroo was, according to one of his classmates, a "total fucking loser." He was a geek, his family was poor, he smelled bad, he had a weird pirate fetish and he was a "pussy" who wouldn't fight back and cried a lot. One day, some bullies beat him up and stole one of his shoes. Since his family was so poor and couldn't buy him another, Tommy had to go to school for the next eight months wearing only one shoes, prompting his peers to nickname him "Oneshoe" McGroo. He endured the harassment, figuring on Christmas that Santa would bring him another. He'd write letters to the North Pole, made cookies for the elves and bent over backwards to be good, but on Christmas morning he opened his one and only present and all that was inside was a "pussy eyepatch" with a Christmas tree on it. Tommy snapped and, from that day forward, decided he was going to be a bloodthirsty maniac. Every single Christmas since more and more of Tommy's former classmates have disappeared...

Boom Boom (co-writer Eric Stanze), the guy who relayed the above story to us, and his girlfriend Kitty (Julie Farrar) decide to drive out into the woods to where Oneshoe (Michael Hill) is said to lurk. He gets his testicles ripped off while taking a piss and she's attacked but not killed. Next up a man and his girlfriend sit by a Christmas tree. He unloads a suitcase full of junk like vegetable oil and an ice cream scooper, then undresses her, handcuffs her and starts having sex with her while wearing a paper mache watermelon over his head (??) The killer sneaks in, turns the guys head around and then has sex with the woman instead and she comments about he's gotten bigger. Pointless? Yup. Completely.

Dorcus Cunningham (Jason Christ), a hefty, geeky hitchhiker is headed to Camp Lame Dog Hollow to meet up with the only other five survivors from his graduating class; the ones Tommy hasn't yet killed. Ernie Campbell (DJ Vivona) has organized the group, which also includes slutty Abby (Joy Payne), Poison shirt wearing Danny (Chris Belt), musician Isaac (Michael Wallace) and virginal Lana (Melissa Wallace); Isaac's girlfriend who won't put out despite being constantly serenaded for seven years. The six go to a cabin, drink beer, play strip Trivial Pursuit, argue and then die one-by-one in badly staged amateur gore scenes. The killer surprises Isaac and Lana on a canoe, slashes his throat and shoves an ice pick through her head. He chainsaws Dorcus to pieces, ties Abby to a tree and stabs her between the legs, sticks a screwdriver in Ernie's head and then blasts a smoky hole into Danny's chest with a shotgun. The end.

This is just one of thousands of homemade shot-on-video gore-fests released during the 2000s. Almost all of these are awful and this is no exception to the rule. I actually expected a little better since this is from some of the same people who made the effective shocker SCRAPBOOK (2000). Long credits and outtakes aside, this runs less than an hour and wouldn't even make it that far if it weren't for tons of padding. There are lots of long, obviously improvised and awkward dialogue scenes to slog your way through just to get to the amateur gore fx, some of which are decent enough, but not good enough to merit sitting through this. The only other possible redeeming qualities are a shower scene (complete with slow-motion breast scrubbing), lots of obvious nods to the Friday the 13th series and some decent songs on the soundtrack (especially "A Pirate's Christmas" by Hotel Faux Pas).

Wallace also made the backwoods slasher THE UNDERTOW (2003), which is slightly better but still hampered by terrible acting and awkward (seemingly improvised) dialogue scenes. The DVD is through Sub Rosa.

★1/2

Exorcism, The (1972) (TV)

... aka: Dead of Night: The Exorcism

... aka: Exorcism by Don Taylor, The

Directed by:
Don Taylor

Rachel (Anna Cropper) and Edmund (Edward Petherbridge, from the Ghost Story for Christmas entry THE ASH TREE) stumbled upon an "pleasantly isolated" country cottage reasonably convenient to London. The place had been derelict for years and, since the home doesn't appear to have an owner or even a descendant who may own it, the couple were able to purchase the plot of land it sits on and get the home in the process. Since then they've fixed the whole place up into a weekend home where they can come and get away from the big city for some peace and quiet. Another wealthy married couple; pompous Dan (Clive Swift) and his wife Margaret (Sylvia Kay), come to stay with them over Christmas, where they discuss socialism, Marxism, generational problems and how there's an undeserved resentment for the rich. The cottage has been updated with a new kitchen, new bathroom and central heating but has retained its old charm... and that's not the only old thing it has retained.

Rachel sits down at the piano and plays a song, but has no clue what she's playing or why she's playing it. It's written off as her subconscious temporarily taking over and raiding her memory bank, but the four will soon realize that's not the case at all. The power mysteriously goes out, battery operated clocks and watches die and the phone stops working. And then everyone starts suffering from signs of what they think is a mass hallucination. Over a lavish dinner, Edmund spits up wine claiming it tastes like blood and everyone comes down with a burning cramp from inside their stomach. Rachel sees the skeleton of a dead child on her bed. Outside the windows everything looks completely dark and nothing can be seen even when a flashlight is shined through. The front door won't budge and the glass on the windows won't break even when they are beat with a hammer. Some inexplicable force has tapped them inside, but why?

Plaster and drywall start falling off of the walls and ceiling, before-and-after pictures of the cottage that Edmund took soon turn into pictures of the home more than a hundred years earlier and poor Rachel starts freaking out, screaming and discussing things that happened there in the past. That's because she's speaking for the former occupant of the home; Sarah Jane Morby. A young woman living during impoverished times, Sarah Jane went through hell there and doesn't want her story to go untold. While the village squire and a select few in their village feasted, the rest of the village was starving and nothing could be done. Her husband was executed for protesting, while Sarah Jane retreated to her cottage, this cottage, where she and her two young children starved to death. There's really no difference between the upfront injustices of yesterday to the more polite, mannered injustices of today.

Despite being hampered with TV production values, this 50-minute-long BBC presentation proves, yet again, that thoughtful writing and good actors are all that is really necessary to make a compelling horror film. No bells and whistles. No flash. No special effects or gore. Just strong, old-fashioned storytelling brought to life by a talented, small cast. Filmed indoors in just a couple of different dimly-lit rooms, this impressively manages to intrigue and entertain whilst being genuinely creepy and having an important holiday-centric message to convey. This would be a superb choice for any parent wanting to introduce their children to the genre. The title had me going into this expecting your usual possession film and, while there is indeed a possession, it wasn't the kind I was expecting to see. There are no demonic spirits to cast out. The only evil is man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

Having watched 300 genre films this year alone, the finale of The Exorcism is actually one of the only things I've seen in the past 350-some days to actually send chills up my spine. And I'd be amiss if I didn't single out Anna Cropper in the cast. She has a brilliant 10-minute-long monologue scene with few cut-aways that's utterly compelling. It's one of those rare scenes that's so vividly-written and well-acted one can just sit back and do all of the visual work in their own mind. Actors with this talent seem almost completely absent from the genre these days, but at least their work is preserved for future generations to enjoy.

This originally aired as part of a short-lived series titled Dead of Night, which only produced seven TV movies. I don't believe any of these have been officially released to DVD or VHS, but if you can track down a copy, it would make a fine addition to any genre fan's holiday collection.

★★★1/2