Who is killing all of London’s drunken bums dressed as Santa Claus? Whoever it is is wildly inconsistent in his methods, using a straight razor, a garrote, a spear and even a broken beer bottle, all the better to gouge Kris Kringle’s eye with. The result is Don’t Open Till Christmas, which is as if Pieces were a Christmas special, and all because some kid saw Daddy in a Santa suit screwing someone who wasn’t Mommy. (A similar sight lights the fuse of 1980’s also-recommended Christmas Evil.)

Pieces vet Edmund Purdom partially directs and stars as Inspector Harris, hot on the trail of the masked maniac slaying the aforementioned hobos and the occasional blonde sex worker. Frustrated at the lack of clues are a victim’s daughter (Alien 2: On Earth‘s Belinda Mayne, who cries, “My father’s just been murdered. I can’t concentrate!”) and her boyfriend (Gerry Sundquist, Boarding School), a street-corner flutist who comes under suspicion.

Scream queen Caroline Munro appears in one scene as herself, singing a synthy-sweet pop number onstage while caressing her inviting curves in a slinky, sequined red dress that sparkles as bright as her bedroom eyes. (Er, please excuse me for a couple of minutes. … Okay, I’m back.)

Consider this 86-minute exercise in holiday horror a gift from schlock producer Dick Randall. Like his earlier Pieces, the slasher is a mess about messes, bearing his distinctive stamp of delightful but highly watchable incompetence that rolls around in nonsense scripting, gory violence and gratuitous nudity. We’ll call it the bow on top. —Rod Lott

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The best adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel I’ve ever seen, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rightly won Fredric March an Oscar for his portrayal of the scientist who seeks to separate the good from the evil in man, and unfortunately succeeds.

When the enterprising Jekyll tests his experimental serum, he transforms (sometimes startling without the use of makeup or camera tricks) into Hyde, a hairy, snaggletoothed, horny creature with a taste for blood, prostitutes and the blood of prostitutes. Neither the police nor Jekyll’s fiancée take too kindly to this development.

The best thing about this version is Rouben Mamoulian’s direction, which looks innovative even today through his unique use of subjective camera, split-screens and framing of certain shots. It’s way ahead of its time. The film kind of peters out in the last half-hour and I’m bothered by the way everyone pronounces the doc’s name as “JEEK-ul,” but this is still a great old horror movie through and through. —Rod Lott

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