Black Christmas

Historical slasher with John Saxon, Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder

Its the Christmas season at a sorority house in the Northeast wherein an ambiguous psycho hiding in the attic makes crank calls to the girls and slays them one-by-one. John Saxon plays the local detective.

Black Christmas (1974) obviously influenced Halloween (1978), e.g. the closet scene, but was influenced itself by psycho slasher flicks like Psycho (1960), Dementia 13 (1963) and Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972).

Honestly, the 2006 remake has a more absorbing story which, to me, is the best indicator of a quality movie. This version is dull by comparison, particularly the first half, but it picks up steam in the second. And the open-ended climax is intere...

Black Christmas is what happens when a director decides to make a slasher but also decides to make a good movie.

Each character has a purpose. By that, I don't mean simply to drive the plot along. Each character is a person, and they each have their own unique personalities and motivations. Barb isn't just the drunk and morally abrasive stereotype; she's driven by her jealousy and likely by issues from her childhood. Each character feels about as deep as her, at the least.

The only character who isn't fully explained is Billy, and that's for the best. Billy isn't a character we want explained, and it only drives the horror deeper that he isn't.

This should be on every horror fan's Christmas playlist.

One of only two films in my adult life to have been in any way involved in giving me a sense of genuine fear.

Final rating: ½ - I strongly recommend you make the time.

Black Christmas decorates traditional festivities with blood, suffocation and disturbing phone calls. Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! And have a slashin good time! The slasher sub-genre was most proficient during the mid-to-late 70s, with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and a plethora of spicy Argento features to add a worldly aesthetic. However, one film that innovated the tropes and traits commonly found in the aforementioned titles, was Bob Clarks Black Christmas. A horror slasher (if you can classify it as that...) where an anonymous serial killer remains secluded in a sorority house, gradually picking off the girls one by one. Just in time for Santa to come down that warmly lit chimney and deliver them coffins wrapped up in cute little...

I suppose a sorority can be used to host a multitude of characters, so that's what Bob Clark does here as he puts four quite different girls into an house supervised by the likably dypso "Mrs. Mac" (Marian Waldman). The house has, for ages now, being getting crank calls from a guy they call the "moaner". Some get upset by his behaviour, others laugh it off but when one of their number "Clare" (Lynne Griffin) disappears and the police are called in by her boyfriend "Chris" (Art Hindle), the sense of menace ratchets up a notch. As we get to know these characters, there are quite a few suspects and quite a few decent reasons why we might want to bump them all off. "Jess" (Olivia Hussey) is expecting a child with wayward boyfriend "Pete" (Keir ...