Black Christmas (1974) Warner Bros./Horror RT: 98 minutes Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity, adult situations) Director: Bob Clark Screenplay: Roy Moore Music: Carl Zittrer Cinematography: Reginald H. Morris Release date: December 20, 1974 (US) Cast: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, John Saxon, Marian Waldman, James Edmond, Doug McGrath, Art Hindle, Lynne Griffin, Michael Rapport, Leslie Carson, Martha Gibson, John Rutter, Robert Warner. Box Office: $4.1 million (US) Body Count: 7, maybe 8
Rating: ***
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, a killer was lurking and waiting to pounce. That’s an apt description of Black Christmas, a holiday-themed horror film directed by Bob Clark who would go on to make the timeless classic A Christmas Story nearly a decade later. Perhaps it’s his mea culpa for this demented fright flick about a deranged killer loose in a sorority house during the most wonderful time of the year.
I should mention I’m more familiar with the 2006 remake of Black Christmas than I am with the 1974 original. The general premise is the same in both versions, but each one goes in its own direction. The newer one is an outright slasher flick whereas the older movie relies more on suspense than gore to keep the viewer on edge. The victims-to-be go about their daily lives doing what they normally do, completely unaware they have an uninvited houseguest who could strike at any time.
The other major difference is in the handling of the killer. You know his identity right way in the 2006 version. You also get a complete backstory revealing the killer’s motives. It isn’t done that way in the original. Although there’s one obvious suspect, we never see the killer whose motives are only hinted at. Knowing nothing about the killer, expect that he’s obviously insane, makes this Black Christmas all the more creepy and unnerving.
The characters are better fleshed out in this Canadian-made version of Black Christmas. Some of them are dealing with their own personal dramas. Jess (Hussey, Romeo and Juliet) has just informed her music student boyfriend Peter (Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey) she’s pregnant and plans to get an abortion. It angers him. He wants to marry her and raise a family. That’s not what Jess wants. They fight and he storms off. He’s the obvious suspect even though he couldn’t possibly be the killer unless…. oh, never mind.
There’s also a subplot involving the worried father (Edmond, Devil Girl from Mars) of one of the girls, Clare (Griffin, Curtains). She didn’t show up at the designated time and place when he came to take her home for the holidays. Maybe it’s because she’s dead in the sorority house’s attic? She was Victim #1. When they try to report her disappearance to the local police, the decidedly unhelpful desk sergeant (McGrath, Porky’s) dismisses it saying she’s probably shacked up with her boyfriend someplace. When a town resident’s 13YO daughter goes missing as well, the local police start to take it seriously. Lt. Fuller (Saxon, A Nightmare on Elm Street) arranges for a tap on the girls’ phone in hopes it will lead him to the killer.
Other characters in this Black Christmas include Clare’s concerned boyfriend Chris (Hindle, Porky’s), drunk and abrasive Barb (Kidder, Superman I-IV), house mother Mrs. Mac (Waldman, Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile) and Janis Ian lookalike Phyl (SCTV’s Martin in a role originally intended for SNL’s Gilda Radner). A couple of points of interest here. McGrath and Hindle would reunite in Clark’s 1982 teen comedy classic Porky’s. Martin would go on to play the house mother in the 2006 remake. How’s that for useless trivia?
Not surprisingly, the violence in this Black Christmas isn’t graphic. Very little blood is actually shown. There’s nothing about Christmas cookies made of human flesh and trees decorated with body parts. It’s tame compared to the slasher flicks that came after it including the original Halloween which a lot of people mistakenly think is the first slasher movie. That is INCORRECT! The idea of seeing the action through the killer’s POV also started with Black Christmas. So did the notion of the phone calls coming from inside the house which, in turn, were inspired by “the babysitter and the man upstairs” urban legend. You probably know it from the 1979 shocker When a Stranger Calls.
Black Christmas reminds me of one of those movies that would show up on the late show in the late 70s/early 80s. It’s the kind of horror movie best watched late at night. It’s actually pretty good. The actors are reasonably talented. There are a few eerie moments scattered throughout. The creepy phone calls get increasingly creepier. The ambiguous ending is sufficiently disquieting. HOWEVER, I have to admit I prefer the 2006 remake. It offers much, MUCH more in the way of splatter and gore. As an admitted gorehound, I want to see a lot of blood and gore in slasher movies. Otherwise, what’s the point? Of course, this Black Christmas is really more of a suspense thriller. It works very well on that level. This and the 2006 version make for a cool Christmas double feature. You can skip the rotten 2019 remake altogether. It’s an insult to both of its predecessors.
