Black Christmas is often lauded as being one of the pioneering films for many slasher movie staples. The menacing phone calls, the killer’s POV shots, or the general atmosphere of suspense have all been copied and ripped-off countless times to make watching Black Christmas for the first time is a rather odd experience. On one hand, you pretty much know what is going to happen, beats and all throughout the film, but the fact that it predates even the seminal classic Halloween makes it the template to which most all other slashers were created. Other than true horror buffs, the slasher subgenre is laughed upon and Black Christmas, while an admirable feat in some ways, did not set a very high standard.
Had I watched this movie twenty years ago, I would have been bored senseless. This was during the “dark ages” of my life that I considered Halloween 2 better than the original due to its higher body count. Even now having the appreciation for slow and methodical horror films that don’t rely on frequent jump-scares, I can’t say I really liked Bob Clark‘s ORIGINAL Christmas Story as I also have an appreciate for characters that don’t make me want to hurt myself. Just before Christmas break, the sorority house winds down to only housing a few girls and their drunk-ass house mother. In the midst of looking into the whereabouts of a missing housemate, the girls are stalked by a man who calls himself Billy and is truly insane judging from his obscene phone calls. The local inept police are called in to investigate and we soon find ourselves with one girl and one killer stuck in a house. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
I was pleasantly surprised with how quick everything started off with a disposable sorority girl getting offed pretty early into the movie but the next 50 minutes or so meanders around with just some phone calls and the killer creeping around. During this time, we are subjected to some of the most goddamn annoying characters ever including final girl Jess. Olivia Hussey is quite fetching but she either has one of the most annoying accents or method of delivering lines ever. I literally winced whenever a phone rang and she was around it because that meant I would have to endure her answering it in the most shrill way possible. Margot Kidder is pretty decent as the bitchy, drunk girl but she disappears far too early and has little to do in the climax of the film. Good ol’ John Saxon is present though and out acts everyone around him even during hilariously out of place scenes as when he and another detective rib on a guy for his ignorance of the act of fellatio.
Clark’s entire structure of the movie is quite odd as even though he goes to great lengths to create some truly creepy sequences, these are immediately cut to something different (and mostly irrelevant) entirely which breaks the tension. The story itself is all over the place ranging from the missing college girl, to the prank phone calls, to a wacky search party, to a random cop sitting watch outside the girls’ house (you know that won’t end well). The last 40 minutes or so are the best once the random characters are dispatched and it boils down to trying to nail down the killer courtesy of Saxon sitting tirelessly at a desk and some guy running around in a warehouse full of telephone switches.
Being that it has a 7.3 rating on IMDb, I was a bit disappointed in the film. The horror elements come off well (considering the sheer number of times I have seen them since) but the setup to that is largely forgettable. I have doubts that the recent remake improved on the problematic aspects but I suppose we’ll find out next year.
Had I watched this movie twenty years ago, I would have been bored senseless. This was during the “dark ages” of my life that I considered Halloween 2 better than the original due to its higher body count. Even now having the appreciation for slow and methodical horror films that don’t rely on frequent jump-scares, I can’t say I really liked Bob Clark‘s ORIGINAL Christmas Story as I also have an appreciate for characters that don’t make me want to hurt myself. Just before Christmas break, the sorority house winds down to only housing a few girls and their drunk-ass house mother. In the midst of looking into the whereabouts of a missing housemate, the girls are stalked by a man who calls himself Billy and is truly insane judging from his obscene phone calls. The local inept police are called in to investigate and we soon find ourselves with one girl and one killer stuck in a house. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
I was pleasantly surprised with how quick everything started off with a disposable sorority girl getting offed pretty early into the movie but the next 50 minutes or so meanders around with just some phone calls and the killer creeping around. During this time, we are subjected to some of the most goddamn annoying characters ever including final girl Jess. Olivia Hussey is quite fetching but she either has one of the most annoying accents or method of delivering lines ever. I literally winced whenever a phone rang and she was around it because that meant I would have to endure her answering it in the most shrill way possible. Margot Kidder is pretty decent as the bitchy, drunk girl but she disappears far too early and has little to do in the climax of the film. Good ol’ John Saxon is present though and out acts everyone around him even during hilariously out of place scenes as when he and another detective rib on a guy for his ignorance of the act of fellatio.
Clark’s entire structure of the movie is quite odd as even though he goes to great lengths to create some truly creepy sequences, these are immediately cut to something different (and mostly irrelevant) entirely which breaks the tension. The story itself is all over the place ranging from the missing college girl, to the prank phone calls, to a wacky search party, to a random cop sitting watch outside the girls’ house (you know that won’t end well). The last 40 minutes or so are the best once the random characters are dispatched and it boils down to trying to nail down the killer courtesy of Saxon sitting tirelessly at a desk and some guy running around in a warehouse full of telephone switches.
Being that it has a 7.3 rating on IMDb, I was a bit disappointed in the film. The horror elements come off well (considering the sheer number of times I have seen them since) but the setup to that is largely forgettable. I have doubts that the recent remake improved on the problematic aspects but I suppose we’ll find out next year.
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