Black Christmas
Director: Bob Clark
Writer: Roy Moore
Starring: Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon (yes!)
Body Count: 7
Review: Damn, what a creepy film! I can't recall being this freaked out by a movie in a LONG time. Black Christmas is just awesome. I truly cannot believe how under-appreciated this movie is.
Black Christmas is the story of a deranged killer breaking into a sorority house on Christmas Eve and spending the next 48 hours killing off each sister one-by-one, then following his murders with obscene phone calls to those still alive in the house.
Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it? That's because the opening moments of When A Stranger Calls, a far more popular film (though undeservingly so), basically stole this same premise and placed a baby-sitter in the role of the sorority sisters. Black Christmas was made 5 years before When A Stranger Calls, and the film is so much better.
In fact, a majority of modern slasher standards where born in Black Christmas. Everyone gives John Carpenter credit for his ingenious use of the killer's point-of-view for Halloween, but Black Christmas uses the same technique, yet was made 4 years before Halloween! Black Christmas also introduced audiences to the climactic heroine/killer chase-sequence made famous by Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween.
Though the film begins somewhat slowly, Black Christmas DEFINITELY pays off to those who view it all the way through. The ending of the film is just terrifying. To give away any details would spoil the extreme delight of viewing for yourself. Just make sure you watch it alone--it's always scarier that way....
Trivia: Black Christmas was also released under the titles Silent Night, Evil Night (which is just a little too close to Silent Night, Deadly Night) and Stranger In The House (which sounds like a TV movie--in fact, I think it was the title of a TV movie).
Director Bob Clark got his biggest fame from directing the first two Porky's movies, as well as his other holiday movie, A Christmas Story. If you enjoy his style, you should also check out his zombie-filled directorial debut, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.
John Saxon, who plays a police officer in Black Christmas, went on to greater slasher fame in the immortal Nightmare On Elm Street playing, once again, a cop. He also appears in the wicked vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn.
