Black Christmas (1974)
Directed by: Bob Clark
Premise: The women of a college sorority house are beset by obscene phone calls. A killer hides in the attic of the house, preying on the members of the sorority.
What Works: Almost a decade before he created a holiday classic with A Christmas Story, filmmaker Bob Clark helmed Black Christmas (alternately titled Silent Night, Evil Night in some early releases). The film is set at Christmastime but it’s not really about the holiday. Black Christmas is more about misogyny and the filmmakers create a creepy atmosphere that is both sexual and violent while not actually showing very much. The women discuss a recent sexual assault on campus, they receive obscene phone calls, and one of the women copes with a belligerent and controlling boyfriend. Unbeknownst to the sorority sisters, a killer has taken residence in their attic and stalks them from the dark corners of the house. We never see the killer in full view, just a silhouette here and an eye through a doorway there. The imagery creates an impression of threating voyeurism that’s complemented by the sound design. The score by Carl Zittrer is haunting and interweaves ambient sound with Christmas music. The holiday decorations fit into the tone and the filmmakers use the Christmas season as a creepy counterpoint to the violence. The women of Black Christmas are well characterized. Played by Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, and Andrea Martin, the sorority sisters feel real and they are allowed to be complicated and flawed characters.
What Doesn’t: When Black Christmas was released, the slasher film was a relatively new formula and this movie does not adhere to a lot of what we now regard as tropes of the genre. It doesn’t have a traditional Final Girl who fights back against the killer and the ending is inconclusive. In some respects, Black Christmas has more to do with haunted house pictures than slasher movies and it doesn’t provide many of the qualities that viewers expect from the subgenre. That makes it more unsettling but perhaps not in a way that some viewers may enjoy.
Disc extras: The 4K Blu-Ray edition of Black Christmas released by Shout! Factory includes commentary tracks, interviews, featurettes, trailers, TV and radio spots, an alternate title sequences, and an image gallery.
Bottom Line: Black Christmas is an underappreciated horror gem and among the best of the holiday horror films. It’s impressively crafted and a superbly creepy exercise in tension and horror.
Episode: #1028 (December 22, 2024)