Day Twelve: Black Christmas (1974)
Bob Clark’s Black Christmas is a sort of feature length reworking of the urban legend (that also inspired When a Stranger Calls) where a maniac continues to call a woman. Eventually she gets the call traced and the caller’s location turns out to be a little too close for comfort. Clark’s film is set in a soriority house right before Christmas, so its several women hearing the strange, barely coherent calls. We can make out a few things: the names Billy and Agnes, and a whole lot of gibberish and vicious sexual threats. The ladies, boozing and excited about the Holidays, brush it off, but the calls continue, and the ladies’ plans begin to seperate them from one another.
Slasher films are usually too rigid and predictable for my tastes, but Black Christmas is not just a great slasher film, but a great horror film in general. The film, maybe its because its set during the holidays, has a certain sadness. The deaths feel remote and lonely, the corpses of friends shut off in the attic or the bedrooms as everyone else goes about their plans. A subtle wail of winter wind can be heard throughout the soundtrack and that only exasperates the melancholy, and the relentless calls of the killer who seems to refer to himself as Billy.
A sort of plot eventually arises amongst the soriority girls (Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder are the most famous of the ladies) but that’s primarily there as a red herring that we never fully buy, and to set up the absurd but perfect ending. The ending would never happen, but as the credits roll you find yourself wondering, what if it did happen?
Bob Clark’s work here is stylish, and economic. Our characters are no richer here than in any other slasher film, but they are convincing and devoid of any major expositional howlers. No “This reminds me of the story I read about the guy who got out of the insane asylum” type crap here, the girls are too drunk, and they never know they’re in a horror film. One of the girls eventually finds out, and that’s fifteen minutes before the picture ends. Until then, Black Christmas has an appealingly loosey goosey catch as catch can structure, our characters are all over the place doing a variety of things, but they eventually always have to go back to where they sleep, where Billy can kill them.
I said the characters don’t have any expostional howlers, but it should also be noted that there’s really no exposition at all. The murders could be random, the sorority house could have been picked out of a phone book or just the first stop in the neighborhood. Our opening shot is the now de rigueur killer’s POV shot, and he just walks into the house by climbing through the window on the side. That’s it. Black Christmas is so airy, so surreal, that it could just as easily be a haunted house film, only the spectre is one very deranged human that we are never able to see.
The ending has the primal terror of an Edgar Allan Poe story. The superb final shot returns us to the corpse of the first victim, frozen mid death cry, wrapped like a dime store mummy. The red Christmas lights and easy access (the characters could see her if they looked up) mock her demise. She was celebrating Christmas a day earlier, now she’s another forgotten relic of the attic. No overly mannered directorial ticks here. This is unlanced, true dread. Black Christmas is easily the most unnerving slasher movie I’ve seen.
Black Christmas would also work as a nice double bill with the 1970s anthology film Tales from the Crypt, which also features a Christmas that goes belly up at the hands of a madman. Both films also have a certain ’70s, clammy cinematography that looks partially like embalming fluid. If you don’t like that idea, you could also pair Black Christmas with Clark’s other Christmas film, A Christmas Story and tell your little nephew that Black Christmas is the sequel and that Ralphie is the guy making all the funny calls to all those pretty girls.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Nice! Ruin your nephew’s Christmas once and for all!
I’m watching exactly 2 Christmas movies this year: Bad Santa and Black Christmas. Ok, I’ll probably sneak in Charlie Brown and the Grinch cartoon (not that Ron Howard abortion). Oh and I’ll probably get sucked into another viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life, but…oh wait, it’s still Halloween. I’m getting off the subject.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:58 am
It’s a totally different subject but I actually don’t really like A Christmas Story. I think its shrill and overbearing, and I had to watch for about ten Christmas Eves in a row. I remember one Christmas Eve coming to the revelation that, hey I don’t like this anymore, it was shocking for my parents but I certainly could’ve put them through worse.
October 12th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Consider me indifferent to A Christmas Story, which I suppose is a form of heresy in its own right. I’d certainly rather watch it than most Christmas themed movies these days whichi seem to exist simply because they’re a guaranteed rental once a year.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I watched the Black Christmas remake recently and did not enjoy a bit of it. How much did it depart from the 1974 version? I had never even heard of the original until about three or four years ago. I don’t know what took so long, but I’m glad to see it getting a renaissance.
October 13th, 2007 at 8:26 am
I’m not sure how they compare Joe, I’ve never seen the remake. I can get a little grouchy usually about horror remakes, particularly of slasher films, so I didn’t bother. Anything in the new one worth looking at?