Black Christmas (1974)
Sub-Genre- Slasher
In Attendance- Me, Eryn, The Vanilla Gorilla, Machine, and Nick.
Cast Members of Note- Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, Kier Dullea and John Saxon!
What's it about?- Poor Billy is only tying to find someone who will listen to him; too bad he wasted his time on those snotty sorority girls... they don't seem to care at all! Every time he calls and tries to pour his heart out to them, they laugh and hang up on him and just wont listen. That means they have to die.
You see, Billy lives in the attic, so it's easy for him to kill a girl, meow like a cat, then hide her body, then wait for another one to kill. He really does like meowing like a cat. He also likes to ski, but nobody ever asks him about that. Not even Agnes... Bitch.
I wont ruin the end here, but let's just say that everyone gets whats coming to them... except for Billy. Nobody got him as much as a card for the holidays.
The Good- What a creepy classic this one is. Tense, dark, and unsettling, Bob Clark made a horror movie that was years ahead of it's time. His use of shadow, odd angles, and tension in place of buckets of blood were genius for its time, and stands up even today. Not bad for a budget under a million dollars.
This film is not only a Horror classic, it was also groundbreaking when it was released; it was basically the first U.S. "Slasher movie; it used the "The calls are coming from inside the house" motif years before When a Strangers Calls did; and it was one of the first movies to show us the action from the killers POV. This movie deserves to stand alongside of Halloween, although it tends to be a footnote when the two are discussed.
Billy and his phone calls are genuinely twisted.
Buy it, watch it, love it.
The Bad- I had certain misconceptions about this movie before I saw it...
The Downright Horrendous- WTF was up with the cops at the end? I mean seriously, do we leave a girl all alone in a house where multiple murders were just committed when the killer is still at large and we haven't searched the house? That sentence was a HUGE run-on.
The Gory- There were a few on screen deaths, but they were very light on the blood. Creepy though, very creepy.
The Naked- Nope... This one was tame in that department.
Best Line- "Darling, you can't rape a townie." or "I'm going to kill you."
What did we learn?- When someone tells you to get out of the house, dont run upstairs with a fire poker.
Rating- A An all-time classic, that every horror fan should have in their collection, especially those of us that love slashers.
Final Thoughts- John Saxon Rules!
