#135. Black Christmas (1974)

Directed By: Bob Clark

Starring: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder




Tag line: "If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl... It's On Too Tight!"

Trivia:  The role of Mrs. Mac, the house mother, was first offered to Bette Davis

While John Carpenter's Halloween is widely accepted as the film that inspired the 80's slasher craze, there are a few who feel the sub-genre's roots go back a few years earlier, to another holiday-themed horror film: director Bob Clark's Black Christmas. 

Regardless of whether or not this is the case, one indisputable fact remains: Black Christmas is a very creepy, very effective horror film.

In the college town of Bedford, a local sorotity is preparing for the upcoming Christmas break. With most of the girls already gone, the few who remain behind, including Jess (Olivia Hussey), Barb (Margot Kidder) and Phyl (Andrea Martin), do their best to cope with a frightening situation. 

For the past several days, the sorority has been terrorized by a mysterious caller, who rants uncontrollably about blood and murder. When Clare (Lynne Griffin), one of their sorority sisters, mysteriously disappears, the remaining few go straight to the police. 

The case is eventually turned over to Lt. Fuller (John Saxon), who senses there might be a connection between this disappearance and that of a local girl, which has just been reported. 

But what nobody knows is that Clare never left the house: she was murdered by a psychopath hiding out in the sorority's attic!

Despite its story of an enigmatic killer knocking off young girls one at a time, Black Christmas is not a particularly bloody film. What it is, however, is ultra-suspenseful, and it's the sheer anticipation of the inevitable that makes the kills in Black Christmas seem all the more disturbing. 

Director Clark builds incredible tension throughout the film, sometimes to an almost-unbearable level. In the very first scene, he clues us in on one important piece of information: the killer has set up shop right above his potential victims, in the attic of their sorority house.  Just knowing he's there introduces an air of impending doom, which settles over the entire film. 

Added to this is the fact that the killer likes to taunt the girls with obscenely creepy phone calls (made from a separate line inside the house). These calls range in intensity from mildly perverted to downright chilling. 

Then there are the point-of-view shots Clark throws in from time to time, where we're looking through the eyes of the killer. Used as a device to show us where he is in the house, these shots are often distorted, sometimes jarringly so, as if we're not just peering through his eyes, but into his warped psyche as well. 

All of these elements come together brilliantly, working in unison to transform Black Christmas into one of the most imaginative - and most frightening - films of the 70's. 

As for the debate on which movie actually started the slasher frenzy, I don't think you can argue against Carpenter's Halloween. While both films do share plot and structural similarities (young people stalked by a deranged killer, POV shots, etc), one thing Halloween had that Black Christmas did not was a big box-office return, and no film, regardless of how well-made or effective it is, can spawn an entire sub-genre unless it's a proven moneymaker. 

But while Black Christmas may not be the granddaddy of slashers, it still deserves a place alongside Halloween as one of the elite, that rare breed of horror movie that combines shocks and suspense to deliver a very memorable experience.