Black Christmas, 1974.
Directed by Bob Clark.
Starring Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder and John Saxon.
SYNOPSIS:
It’s Christmas time and a group of sorority sisters are getting ready for their break from study to celebrate the holidays with their families when they begin to receive a series of obscene phone calls from a deranged stranger. Soon the situation escalates as one of the girls goes missing and a high school student is found murdered, which the authorities quickly deduce is connected to the obscene phone calls, prompting a frantic hunt for the killer before he can strike again.
Following the coma I was put into by yesterday’s Silent Night, Bloody Night, I figured I would check out another festive horror from the 1970s picking the cult classic Black Christmas and I say this without any word of a lie; this film is quite possibly one of the best slashers I’ve ever seen.
The acting is stellar throughout with excellent performances. Olivia Hussey (best known for playing Juliet in the acclaimed 1968 version of Romeo & Juliet) gives a terrific lead performance as Jess, who has been retrospectively dubbed as the original “final girl”, being a likeable and sympathetic protagonist even before the killer sets his sights on her, with her being pregnant and arguing with her boyfriend on whether to keep the child. We sympathise with her and her difficult decision, not helped by her rather controlling boyfriend, and when the bodies do start piling up with fear for her safety as the killer bites at her heels.
The supporting cast is also spot on with Margot Kidder (who you’ll recognise as Lois Lane from the Christopher Reeve Superman films) almost stealing the show as the perpetually sarcastic and perpetually drunk Barb. Always quick with a one-liner or two, Kidder brings welcome brevity to the film when things threaten to become too dark and morbid.
Also, props should be given to the always reliable cult actor John Saxon who delivers another fine turn as Lt Fuller who leads the hunt for the deranged killer, with Saxon being a commanding presence but also managing to keep things light when needed. John Saxon is just awesome anyways and his mere presence can elevate any film, in my view.
The killer of the film, dubbed “Billy”, is quite possibly one of the scariest killers in any slasher film I’ve seen. The obscene phone calls in which he torments the sorority girls initially feel darkly comic (mainly due to Kidder’s snide replies) but soon become incredibly disturbing, as “Billy” acts out some kind of deranged scenario using all manner of freaky voices and noises, with each new call being more unsettling than the last.
The brilliant thing that the film does to make “Billy” even scarier is the manner in which the film shows him away from the phone; we never get a good look at him, with almost all of his scenes being shown through his eyes. This first person perspective is masterfully executed thanks to the brilliant cinematography, with a scene of him rocking a corpse him a rocking chair or smashing a room in a rage being made all the more unsettling by this visual approach. The final act in which Jess is pursued by “Billy” around the house is especially scary, with his deranged howling while banging on a locked door Jess is cowering behind, making for a truly trouser ruining moment of sheer terror.
The excellent visuals are not limited to the first person shots with the film having many little moments of visual mastery, my personal favourite being a truly spine-chilling shot of “Billy” quietly looming in the shadows as our heroine talks on the phone.
While the film is fairly dark – it’s certainly the darkest Christmas film I’ve ever seen – it manages to work well as a black comedy with the film being genuinely funny at times. I’ve already mentioned Margot Kidder who provides much of the comic relief, but we also have a housekeeper who hides booze in every corner of the house and the gullible desk sergeant who doesn’t seem to understand sarcasm and who, to quote Saxon, “wouldn’t pick his nose without written permission”. This heavy use of humour is quite refreshing throughout and serves to keep you entertained when things slow down, also it certainly might explain why director Bob Clark eventually spend the latter half of his career making cult classics like Porkys and A Christmas Story.
Black Christmas is simplybrilliant and quite possibly one of the best slashers ever made. The film is best remembered pioneering many of the tropes used by later slashers a full four years before the much more popular Halloween which often gets credit for birthing the slasher genre. Although I might be committing blasphemy when I say that I think Black Christmas is better than Halloween. John Carpenter’s classic is a great film no question, but I didn’t scare me in the same way that this film did, this film really had me gripped and it didn’t let go until the final credits rolled. If you watch any horror film this Christmas I’d recommend this one to start.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Graeme Robertson
Originally published December 15, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
