Black Christmas (1974)

It would seem that horror is going to dominate the list today. And that's a good thing when the movies are geniunely scary.

Upon watching Black Christmas, I probably did what most serious horror fans have done when discovering this film for the first time: I checked my timelines. Black Christmas came out in 1974, 12 weeks after the premiere of Texas Chain Saw Massacre and 4-years earlier than Halloween. So where does that put it in the slasher chronology? Pretty much at the front.

What's clear seeing this film now is how much of Bob Clark's 1974 horror prototype was co-opted, borrowed and (please forgive me for this) sliced up in the decades to follow as Dead Teenager Movies (Roger Ebert's classic definition, not mine) became the reigning sub-genre in multiplexes. It is John Carpenter who probably has the most to account for. I'm not about to proclaim that any element of Halloween was directly stolen from Black Christmas, and will continue to maintain that it is the much superior horror film, however the similarities are pretty clear. Likewise When a Stranger Calls (original and remake alike!) The calls are coming from inside the house, indeed!

But history lesson aside, how is it?

Black Christmas has held up extremely well and is as strong now as any of its late-70's and early-80's slasher counterparts. As timeless as Halloween (Jamie Lee Curtis fashions aside) and certainly less creaky and dated than any of the Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street films, Black Christmas plays like a solid slasher film without the franchise appeal. While it can certainly be argued that having an unidentified predator victimize the girls in Black Christmas maximizes the terror and creates a more imaginative monster than other slasher films (since it is the viewer who must imagine who or what the killer is!), there's something to be said about the iconic status of Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger (all names which are synonymous with their given franchises.) In fact, perhaps the most surprising thing about this early pioneer of the slasher genre is that it didn't spawn any sequels at all...something which clearly makes it unique or un-slasher-like?

Most importantly, the movie is still pretty scary. I have a relatively thick skin for these sorts of films now, having grown up on this formula, but I can report that for much of Black Christmas's runtime, I was geniunely "nervous". Most effective are the phone calls from the killer, relaying crypic messages about "Billy" in those terrible parrot-like voices. Something about the inhumane banter elevates the film and creates geniune apprehension about who or what is stalking the house. The murders themselves are pretty pedestrian by modern standards (propping up and posing your bloody victims is so 1978!) but the iconic image of Clare Harrison under her plastic bag is still pretty snappy.

Still, given the saturation of Dead Teenager Movies in the last three decades, it's tough to imagine the impact this film must have had on movie-goers that grew up on 50's and 60's horror films, particularly given the relentlessly anti-social slasher formula. As a kid who grew up on the Michael Myers and Freddy Kruegers of the movie world, I'm just glad to see that Black Christmas hasn't become a stiff museum piece. I'd like to revisit some of its offspring in the weeks to come.