Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)

he 1980s was a Golden Age of Christmas movies: A Christmas Story (1983), Christmas Vacation (1989), Scrooged (1988), A Very Brady Christmas (1984) and many count Die Hard and Trading Places.

There were also a handful of Christmas horror movies: Gremlins (1984), Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) and Christmas Evil (1980), Elves (1989)... and this movie. 
Don't Open Till Christmas is a British Christmas horror movie that was riddled with problems.  They went through three directors and took two years to make.  It's been almost universally unliked ever since its release.

The movie begins with a flaming Santa doll, so it's off to a good start with one of the best title screens ever.

British partygoers stare in horror as their guest Santa is harpooned through the mouth.  The gal in front is the daughter of the Santa, Kate (Belinda Mayne).

As it turns out, her dad is just the latest victim of the still-at-large Santa slayer.  Yes, instead of making St. Nick the slasher, Don't Open Till Christmas makes Santas the victims.  An interesting twist.  A stupid one... but interesting nonetheless.

And so we're treated to a series of senseless Santa slayings and boring police investigations until Kate is brought to a nude photo shoot by her douchebag boyfriend.  Just when you think she might disrobe, the photographer pulls out a Santa costume (?) which sends her hysterically from the room.

Note the model here is Pat Astley, no stranger to taking her clothes off in British sexploitation.  You may remember her many appearances on Are You Being Served?

Pat Astley leaves the photo shoot wearing the Santa costume.  Her and Kate's douchebag boyfriend start making out on the street outside the building..... the police arrive, and apparently are going to arrest them for being gay in public (they think Pat is a man, and being gay in public was evidently a criminal act in 1984 England).

Pat runs for it, and is nearly killed by the mysterious Santa Murderer.  When the masked madman realizes she's no Santa, her life is spared.

Another Santa bites the dust.  This one is a perv visiting a peep show.  The model looks on in horror as the Kris Kringle is bludgeoned to death.

The police warn the poor girl that the killer knows she's seen his face, and will come after her.  And so he does.  But what interested me was her shirt.... "Ti-Ti Decontract Diffusion No Parking".  What the hell?  I had to watch an extended sequence of her in the police station, then stalked endlessly through back alleys, all the while wondering what this shirt is about. 

Another look at the shirt that will haunt my dreams.  But moving on from the shirt, there's Caroline Munro...

She plays a Sheena Easton type singer who witnesses yet another Santa Claus murder.  (Truly, the number of Santa deaths in this film is ridiculous.  There's more Santa killings in Don't Open Till Christmas than teenage killings in Friday the 13th!)

Munro, one of THE hottest babes to ever to grace the silver screen is wasted on a few precious moments of her singing, then screaming.  Just as in Dracula AD 1972, Faceless, and The Devil Within Her, she is waaaaay underutilized.

And speaking of being under-utilized, Belinda Mayne as the main character, Kate, is left with a nothing role.  She's gorgeous, but never gets to project it, offering no eye candy whatsoever.  And considering the story more or less revolves around her, it comes as a bit of a shock when this happens with over thirty minutes of film left to go....

Spoiler alert, Kate dies for no reason.  Note the sad bit of garland draped across the lamp stand.

In the end it's the "Ti-Ti Decontract Diffusion No Parking" gal who gets to be the Final Girl.  She's able to toss the psycho down a stairwell.

As he revives, we get to see the killer's backstory (very odd to have it at the very end - a reverse of Halloween and similar slashers).

You see, the killer caught a guy dressed as Santa doinking his mom... thus, he's grown up a Santa serial killer.  Painfully stupid.

Overall, Don't Open Until Christmas is just too inept to provide anything approaching horror...  and it's too blah to at least operate on an exploitation level.  It falls short of the mediocre line, and winds up miles from being either great or godawful.  If I were a movie critic, I'd feel obliged to say something like, "Don't Open Till Christmas shouldn't be opened at all.  I recommend you keep it wrapped, save the receipt and return it from whence it came."

★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆