Actor Edmund Purdom (the villainous Dean of PIECES) gets together with his PIECES pals Dick Randall (writer/producer) and Stephen Minasian (producer) to bring us a twist on the Christmas murder movies. Instead of a killer Santa on the loose, we're given a Santa killer. That's right, no longer is St. Nick doing the slaying, now he's getting the axe, literally! And, unlike the segment in SCROOGED, there's no Lee Majors to save the day here! Hell, nor even Jim Varney is around to save the yule tide this time! Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus... and that guy just cut off his fucking head! Hahahahaha... look, there are a million and two jokes I could make at the expense of holiday classics. For instance, "Why's Rudolph's nose red? Cuz Santa's bloody stump of a neck is spurting all over him! His nose is red, his eyes are red, his whole fucking body is red! Hahahahahahahah!". So, now that I've proven my knack for making horrid X-Mas jokes is equal to my knack for making horrid jokes in general, let's just skip that bullshit, put the bad puns and jokes behind us and read on...

The sacrilege starts off early in our little movie, as a store Santa sticking his candy cane to a backseat bimbo in his car, gets a rude interruption courtesy of our antagonist, who plants a sizable knife blade into the red suited man's guts, up to the hilt! Oh well, at least one things' positive about this movie: none of the victims need to worry about their clothes getting too messed up, unless they start bleeding green paint like a Predator... but, even then gore couldn't get any more festive! Nothing like bloodletting to get you in the mood for the Christmas season. Anyway, following this cheery scene, we roll over the opening credits, as a Santa decoration burns if effigy. Next we jump to a Christmas party where the theme is costumes... well, if nothing else we take from this movie, at least we've learned the important information that the British like to celebrate Halloween a mere four days prior to Christmas... At the party, a rich old man is dressed as, you guessed it, Santa Claus. He's soon dispatched from the land of the living thanx to a psychopath in a second rate Grim Reaper outfit who hurtles a spear through the air and plants it into the back of the man's head. What else can you say but, "that's gotta hoit!". The Reaper of course escapes in the resultant chaos, leaving behind no clues but his mask. So yes, had someone been watching where the spear came from, instead of everyone screaming and going into a panic, they might've seen just who it was behind that mask and I could've focused the next 90 minutes on something more constructive, like finding out who put those bowls of shit in the freezer...

The next day the boys at New Scotland Yard are stumped, with only 3 days till Christmas and a Claus killer roaming the street. This brings up many interesting questions, not about the killer or his motives, but why they decided to tag "New" onto the Scotland Yard sign. I mean, what happened to the Old Scotland Yard? Also, who mows this supposed "Yard"? Come to think of it, what kind of yard is it? Is it a front yard, a backyard, perhaps a side yard of some kind? So many interesting questions that go unanswered by the film, because everyone's so preoccupied with this serial Santa slayer. Speaking of which, despite citywide coverage of the recent rash of Cringle killings, drunkards still insist on donning the red and white and getting plastered each night, only to wind up not making it to the next morning. The next such victim is a sidewalk chestnut vendor, who's roasting his nuts over his portable roaster, only to be strangled and have his face shoved onto the hot plate, melting it slightly before the man dies. I'm not sure as to how turning a guy's face into the stunt double for Freddy Krueger's ass can possibly kill the man, but then again I'm not sure how the guy's suit would also combust simply by touching the hot plate. If the guy had gotten far more of his Wild Turkey on his outfit than in his mouth, and were the suit made entirely out of some kind of ultra-flammable material, then yeah, I guess he'd go up pretty quick... with an open flame. But as far as a hot plate causing the suit to burst into flames, I don't believe it. Then again, maybe he's got that radiation mutation like the dude in SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION, but somehow I think I'm starting to stretch a little beyond my own reach here.

The following day, Chief Inspector Ian Harris (our director, Edmund Purdom), the bloke in charge of the case, gets a special delivery at his house with a tag reading "Don't Open Till Christmas". Remember SE7EN? I'd say it's safe to imply that this will have a similar outcome. Meanwhile, that night another Santa bites the big reindeer turd in the sky, his brains blasted out rather unceremoniously all over the wall of an alleyway. But, let me take this moment to inform you that the movie's not just about dying Santas and Christmas jeer, as the real focus of the story is on Kate Brioski, daughter of the second slain Santa (the rich one with the spear in his head), and her boyfriend Cliff. Both are under the microscope of the good New Scotland Yarders with motivation being tacked up as monetary gain. If it was Kate, then she stands to gain the inheritance. If it was Cliff, then perhaps he plans to marry Kate and get access to the cash that-a-ways. Either way Inspector Harris has his eye on them and they won't have a moment's peace until the real killer is caught... well, provided neither of them is the killer in question of course. Then again, I don't really see why either of the duo would be killing additional Chris Cringle impersonators, but far be it from me to try and make sense of anything, that's not MY job! Speaking of dead Clauses, let's get back to that, shall we? The next person that SHOULD have bought the farm is a nude model in a Santa-like robe, whom the murderer confronts in an alley. However, mesmerized by the lady's underwear (or lack there of), he simply runs the dull side of a straight razor over her body and leaves with a "Leatherface likes pussy" kind of grin on his face. Hence why women should be wearing LESS clothing in public!

The following evening (which SHOULD be Christmas Eve by my calculations) a department store Satan taking in a booth show at a local porn house loses his lease on life, stabbed in the neck with an ice pick while the should-be stripper just screams on from behind the crimson immersed glass. Elsewhere, at New Scotland Yard, Sgt. Powell, an officer therein, gets a visit from a guy named Giles, who claims to be a reporter from one of the local papers in search of a story. Giles claims to have information on who the Santa Claus killer is, and tickles Powell's fancy (no, not that way your seething perverts) with the notion that capturing the killer may just get him that promotion he's been after. The clue to the killer's identity? Keep an eye on Inspector Harris. Later that same evening, another Father Christmas gets the punk card, first having his yellow bicycle stolen by a gang of London street punks (complete with mohawks, and such) and then getting his potbelly punctured by our killer amidst a a neo torture Christmas nightmare art expo thingy. Hmmmmm, maybe London's not so stuck up and boring after all. Following this, the fuzz seem to have little option other than dressing up some of their own in St. Nick costumes and sending them out amongst the public at a local Christmas carnival. Both officers are downed in a hail of knife slashes to the balls, chest and faces, one even getting a blade in the eye that might turn some viewers off of egg nog for a while. As for the booth stripper who witnessed one of the killing the night before, she eludes police protection to return to her place of business, where the killer shows up, busts through the looking glass and drags the cock tease back to his place. Normally I'd never say this, but in this case it looks like the cops would've been the better choice.

So, the babe is bound with chains and left to her own devices (sadly none of those "devices" happen to be sexual in nature) and to think about how she's selling her life and her soul away while the knife wielding human Grinch heads out to continue his work. That next victim is, you guessed right boys and girls, a soused out representation of a certain holiday icon, cleaved in the face with a machete-like instrument at a badly lip-synched Christmas concert... well, the chick singing was wearing red, so I GUESS it was a Christmas concert. Back to Kate (who I tend to neglect in this review in favor of the grisly yule tide massacre), it seems she's been doing some detective work of her own, a little background info on Inspector Harris such as his monthly visit to the local asylum and a name change in his life at one point. Sergeant Powell seems uninterested in these finds at first, but they become a tad significant later on. The bigger concern for me is the obvious lack of chronological order the Brits must have, because according to what the Inspector said near the beginning of the film, there were three days until Christmas. Well, one day scene, then a night scene, another day then another night, yet another day and yet another night, and it should be the day AFTER Christmas by this point. And yet, according to the characters, our story actually sits now on Christmas Eve... bad editing or British time warp? You decide, cuz I'm far too hopped up on crush Smarties to do it for you. Then again, maybe their days are counted differently, like that shit about "fortnights" being two weeks long. Well, either way it's still somehow Christmas Eve, and another department store Santa goes down the hard way, when his "candy cane" gets *thwack*ed off with a razor blade and leaving him to piss more blood than Dwight in THE NIGHT FLIER!

With no one else to believe her, Kate investigates a little deeper into the life of Inspector Harris, taking him out for a Christmas Eve dinner to get better acquainted. When she returns home Kate gets a painful surprise visit from that Giles guy, who she cracked the case on to reveal he's actually Harris's evil younger brother, whom Harris visits once a month at the local nuthouse. As for why Harris changed his name, well, it was originally Harrison, so to hide his association with his crazy sibling, he dropped the "on" part and got a life as a cop. But, to keep big brother's life interesting, and give him the bid profile case he's always whining about, Giles broke out of the crazy ward and started slashing up Santas like a theme killer. Hmmmm, that twist is actually pretty interesting. The guy has no motive for killing Santas like a bad SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT sequel, he's just giving his brother something to keep himself busy... actually not a bad idea... think I'll give my sister the same thing for Christmas this year... Anyway, now that he's revealed everything to Kate like a dumbass James Bond villain, Giles sheathes a knife in the lady's vital organs and escapes before the Bobbies can arrive. But, since Harris has been snoozing in his apartment since his dinner date with our corpsed up heroine, it seems he's off Powell's most wanted list.

Speaking of Powell, he catches up to Giles near Kate's apartment and chases him into a nearby warehouse, where he falls for a booby trapped car and winds up electrocuted to a crisp on this fine Christmas Eve. Giles may be a weirdo, but I think his method works a Hell of a lot better than the old "no radio" sign, and it's not nearly as obnoxious as those damn car alarms! Having escaped the not-so-long arm of the law, Giles returns to his captive stripper friend, bringing her some food to munch on before he kills her. I guess he's courteous enough to not let his victims go belly up on an empty stomach. Giles's good hosting manners get him bitten in the ass in the long run though, when the broad lashes back at him, taking her moment of freedom to her utmost advantage and clobbering her abductor in the face with a 2x4 and a handful of chains... never be kind to people you intend to kill, at least not AFTER you've got them in your basement apartment and at your mercy. In the resulting chase, Giles winds up taking a long walk off a short balcony, falling 5 stories straight down to certain doom. However, in true slasher genre fashion, the female hero must pull the most retarded move in the book and check to make sure the guy's dead. Of course he's not, as he sits right up from his spot on the floor (where every bone in his body, especially his spine, should be shattered) and strangles the wench. But, we leave this happy scene suddenly, so we can interrupt in one of Inspector Harris's flashback dream sequences.

Ever wonder why Giles was in the asylum to begin with? Turns out that long ago, on Christmas Eve, Giles came across a rather dysfunctional moment in his family life, when he walked in on daddy (dressed as Santa) roasting his chestnuts in the open fire of a beautiful young blond. Mother too walked in on the excursion, getting slapped silly and shoved down a flight of stairs for her efforts, likely killing her by the time she hit the bottom, not that gravity seemed to be up to speed when it happened. From here I'm guessing that Giles planted the new Swiss Army knife "Santa" brought him into dad's jugular, getting him a padded room for the rest of his life ala Michael Myers. But, since they don't really show this much of it, we're left to speculate. What ISN'T up for speculation in this flashback is why the father was cheating on the mother. When she crash lands down the stairs, take a gander at the Afros she has planted under her arms! Cripes! As if British women weren't cursed enough with horrible oral hygiene, this broad's giving Buckwheat a headlock! As the token Death God, all I can say here is, "that is whack!". Harris awakens from his bad dream though, saunters downstairs, either half awake or a little too happy for a man in his shoes (or just having a hard time acting his way out of a wet paper bag), and finds his X-Mas package. Checking out the card it comes from none other than little brother Giles, and opening it reveals... a little Santa Claus music box. Awwww, how nice. Ian then sits down to masturbate or something when *KA-BLAMMO!!!*, the box explodes and takes out Ian, prompting the ends credits to scroll up my screen and bring an end to a movie that, well, wasn't as bad as CHRISTMAS EVIL, but wasn't as good as I was expecting from the people behind PIECES.

Amongst the standard slew of holiday horror flix, DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS stands tall above most, though not tall enough for anyone to really give a fuck. If you're looking for something to really mess up the kiddies with around Christmas time, and you can afford the psychiatrist bills later on, then it's a good pick, as it's the only film to feature Santas getting slashed as the main feature. In addition to the PIECES staff, the movie features make-up FX by Giuseppe Ferranti, who's filmography includes NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES ('83), MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY, CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD and Dario Argento's CAT O' NINE TAILS and THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE. Really not a bad mix for the discerning horror aficionado who looks for their gore outside the mainstream. However, on the back of the box cover, it states that DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS is brought to us by a grant from the Chubb Foundation and from the creators of FRIDAY THE 13TH. Now, I don't know exactly what Chubb is or why there's a foundation for it, but after looking deep into the other statement, I've found it to be yet another lie of the movie media, as not ONE member of this Limey cast had anything to do with the exploits of revenge driven mother Pamela Vorhees! NOTHING FROM NOBODY, NO HOW!!! I hate to be lied to, and it's this simple mistruth that knocked off an extra smiley face or two from this film for me. But, like I said, check it out for the one time of year that it's actually entertaining.

Sequels: None

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT or CHRISTMAS EVIL