BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)

 DIRECTED by Bob Clark

SCREENPLAY by Roy Moore

STARRING - Olivia Hussey as Jessica "Jess" Bradford

Keir Dullea as Peter Smythe

Margot Kidder as Barbara "Barb" Coard

John Saxon as Lieutenant Kenneth Fuller

Marian Waldman as Mrs. Barbara "Mac" MacHenry / Mrs. Mac

Andrea Martin as Phyllis "Phyl" Carlson

James Edmond as Mr. Harrison

Douglas McGrath as Sergeant Nash

Art Hindle as Chris Hayden

Lynne Griffin as Clare Harrison

Michael Rapport as Patrick

Les Carlson as Bill

Martha Gibson as Mrs. Quaife

John Rutter as laughing detective

Dave Clement as Cogan

Julian Reed as Officer Jennings

Nick Mancuso as Billy / phone voice (uncredited)

Bob Clark as Billy's shadow / phone voice 

Albert J. Dunk as Billy's POV (uncredited)

PLOT - It's Christmas time and the female students of a university sorority house are getting ready for the festive holidays.

However, little known to them a homicidal maniac has broken into the building and one by one he starts picking them off.

Billy is in the house...and he's going to ruin Christmas for everyone...

PERFORMANCES - Black Christmas features a strong ensemble cast and is - arguably - the very first "slasher" movie of its kind (predating John Carpenter's Halloween by several years). As such, many of the characters follow the traditional slasher movie tropes - yet this was before they became clichés, here it's all fresh and new.

The "final girl" is Jess played by the stunningly beautiful Olivia Hussey. Jess is a quiet sort of girl, you get the impression that's she's had a bit of a sheltered upbringing and comes over as prim but caring. She's stuck in a relationship with her controlling music student boyfriend Peter (Kier Duella) and has recently found out she's carrying his child. Jess's relationship troubles form the backbone of this movie as she slowly comes to believe that Peter is the killer. Hussey makes for a strong lead (she does terrified very well) and seeing as this character is a key figure in horror history (her being the proto final girl) it's also an incredibly important performance, so it's a good job she completely nails it.

Then we get Duella as Jess's boyfriend - Peter - who gives an insanely intense performance. At one point Jess describes him as an "artist, he's highly strung" - this is a MASSIVE understatement - if he was any more "highly strung" he'd be abseiling from the top of Mount Everest. This man is INSANE - a temperamental artist with an explosive temper and definite control freak tendencies, it's no wonder everyone thinks he's the serial killer (he isn't of course - he'd be way too obvious, but you can easily imagine him going postal regardless).

A slight nitpick - although Duella is phenomenal in the part he is...well...a bit long in the tooth to be playing a 19/20 year old student. Take a look at him...

Either Pete's had an incredibly hard life or he's got terrible genes but there's no WAY that that this guy is a teenager (even Steve McQueen in The Blob makes a more convincing teen). So, imagine how unsurprised I was to find out that at the time of filming Duella was...THIRTY EIGHT YEARS OLD, that's right - a man who was just two years off from his fortieth birthday (and the start of middle age) was playing a university aged teenager...wow.

The supporting cast are all top notch too - there's future Lois Lane - Margot Kidder as the sassy, alcoholic party girl - Barb - who's incredibly funny at points (my favourite moment being when she gives a five year old boy some alcohol and then says "I do believe the little bugger's sozzled"), Marian Waldman as the equally alcoholic sorority house mother - Mrs Mac  -who also gets some humourous scenes too - these comedic moments in the film are almost a foreshadowing of director Bob Clark's Porkies movies (which where big hits in the 80's, especially on VHS).

Finally we get John Saxon as police lieutenant Fuller - the hard-nosed cop who wants to bring the killer to justice - this is the sort of role Saxon could play in his sleep and still be cool, he does it effortlessly here.

Finally we get the killer himself - Billy - who is actually played by several people - one for the brief shots we see of him (he's always only seen in shadow), a couple of people do his voice when he leaves obscene phonecalls to the sorority girls - these are INCREDIBLY creepy by the way, easily the most unnerving part of the entire movie, and then we get shots from Billy's point of view (a trick John Carpenter would later use in Halloween) which are "played" by yet another person (presumably the cameraman). This all serves to make Billy seem even more mysterious, enigmatic and downright sinister as Hell. He's a shadowy, barely glimpsed killer who could be lurking anywhere (and usually is). Very, very effective.

VIOLENCE - Some pretty memorable kills - unlike later slasher films we don't usually see the entire killing - we see the start of the kill and then the end result (the victim's corpse), this serves to give the killings a more gritty feel - we, the audience, are coldly observing the basic facts rather than sensationally lingering on the gory details.

Which doesn't mean we don't get any blood and guts - it's just not showering the screen with red every few minutes.

Probably the most iconic kill is when Billy suffocates a girl to death with plastic sheeting - he then props her corpse up in a rocking chair and "stores" her in the attic. The image of the dead girl wrapped in plastic sitting in a rocking chair is a haunting one and actually became quite iconic when it was used for the film's poster and VHS cover.

The other kills are more basic stabbings but still effective - Barb's death scene where she's stabbed to death with a Chrystal unicorn statue being particularly well shot and memorable.

SFX - Low level gore effects - mainly "bloody" makeup.

RATING - This film has a wonderful sense of atmosphere - you can almost feel that you're stuck in that old house with a sadistic maniac whilst the Christmas tree lights twinkle and carols play in the background, all the time the cold winter wind swirls outside. It's both cosy and bleak (just like Christmas can be itself), funny and chilling.

It's a film that broke the mold and helped shape an entire sub-genre of horror cinema. 

5 creepy Christmas killers out of 5 - a classic that deserves it's status.

ART -