Bleak Christmas

Black Christmas (1974)
Directed by Bob Clark, Screenplay by Roy Moore

Black Christmas is one of the bleakest films ever. It's bleak even for a horror movie. It's bleaker than Bleak House by a long shot. There's something appropriately unsettling about a horror film where all you see is a pair of hands from the killer's perspective and not only is there no comeuppance for the murderer but there's not even the satisfaction of learning anything about the killer. Isn't that what really scares people? The closest glimpse we get of the killer is a quick shot of him in a closet as he's strangling one of his victims and his voice in the multiple obscene phone calls he makes to the sorority house he is stalking. This is the only sure indication of the killer's gender. At some point in the calls he says his name is Billy and later he speaks as if he's talking to someone named Agnes. The phone calls are barely intelligible. An analogously bleak movie would be if you took Jaws and shot most of it from the perspective of the shark and let the shark get away without showing the audience so much as a fin. That's how bleak Black Christmas is.
Of course, it's a movie from the '70s, so there's almost an expectation that it will be a bleaker film than anything we can get today. A contemporary horror film will be more graphic, more disgusting, more visually violent than something like Black Christmas, but for the most part they can't compare with the genuine unsettling nature of the unseen and the unknown and yet (because this film does not have anything supernatural in it) not unbelievable or impossible.

So what's the big deal about Black Christmas? Why did anyone feel the need to remake it? Look at the date on it. It precedes Halloween, Friday the 13th and all the other slasher classics and it came out the same year as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is the bleak maternal grandfather of the sorority house massacre sub genre (though there were other sorority house massacre films that preceded Black Christmas). If you've grown tired of the old cliche of the phone calls that are traced to someone calling from inside the house of the victim then you should know that Black Christmas is the film that first used that old gag. In fact, the scenes in the telephone exchange provide an interesting historical record of telecommunications systems and their physical operation.

The thing that is unsettling about a film like Black Christmas is that it doesn't really give you the chance to shake off the horror at the end. Even in films that pop back with the shocker ending you are allowed some degree of understanding of the reasons (albeit usually crazy) for the killings. You're given some psychic solace of knowledge about the perpetrator of the preceding violence. But in this film we don't really get much of anything and what's more, the killer is still on the loose in the house at the end of the film while the police are standing guard outside. The symbolism is obvious: the danger is within and the system only knows how to guard from danger from without, even when the spate of killings was obviously perpetrated from within the house and the police haven't made a thorough enough search to notice the dead girl in the attic sitting right in front of the window. I personally found that to be the most unsettling thing of all: that the authorities are still searching for the first victim when her body is sitting wrapped in a plastic curtain right in front of the attic window visible to the street below if you just look hard enough. It's as if the real horror you take away from this film is that the world is full of un-thorough and incompetent guardians who are of no use when a psycho decides to go on a rampage. All of this makes this film a purer type of horror film than the ones that allow you to come away from the experience refreshed and having enjoyed the ride. It's up to you to decide which is the more disturbing thing in the long run. I can say that I haven't watched this film a second time--and I think that's a testament to how unsettling it can be. For a student of horror films, this is a must see. For anyone delving into the history of the slasher subgenre Black Christmas is essential viewing. For folks just looking for a film...well, as difficult as this film is it does have a lot going for it. To whit, I will give you the 5 Days of Black Christmas.

On the first day of Black Christmas my true love gave to me....a film with a hundred different titles.
Black Christmas has not always been called Black Christmas. This is one of the reasons that it has been slightly more obscure than Halloween or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or any of the other films in its category. Distributors in the US were concerned that the title would lead people to mistake it for a blaxploitation film and either avoid it because they weren't fans of Melvin van Peebles or were fans of Melvin van Peebles and would be disappointed by a Canadian slasher movie. Frankly, I think it's a good bet the same audience that saw The Omen also saw Shaft. If they hadn't there never would have been a film called Blacula.
At any rate, the film was released under such titles as Silent Night, Evil Night, Stranger in the House, We Wish You a Deadly Christmas, and The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove. NBC showed this film exactly one time on television before deciding it was too scary for TV.

On the second day of Christmas Bob Clark gave to me a Canada goose.
Did I mention that this film was a Canadian affair? There's nothing like winter in Canada in the early 1970s to give you a bleak film. In fact, Canada was also the origin of Halloween and My Bloody Valentine--which could lead you to suspect that there's a Canadian plot to keep Americans paranoid and up all night.

On the third day of Christmas Santa gave to me...a Red Ryder carbine-action air rifle.
Director Bob Clark would go on to direct such classics as Porky's and Porky's II as well as A Christmas Story. How about that for a festive Christmas film festival? Seriously, this sorority house could have used a kid with an air-rifle patrolling the place and maybe putting out someone's eyes.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a dark old Canadian sorority house.
It's difficult to watch any movie from the 1970s and not chuckle at the terrible hair and fashion. Maybe the slasher is just disgusted by what people are wearing. I'm not saying that the girls are unattractive. Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey and Lynne Griffin are quite attractive and I could see how if it was 1974 and after a couple of Molson's Andrea Martin would be nice too. Heck, a six pack of Molson's and a cold night and maybe even the old drunk house mother would start looking good as a means of warming up. Still, the sorority house is populated by an unlikely crew of victims. There's the relatively decent girl Clare (Lynne Griffin, who looks at times like a proto-Saffron Burrows) who gets strangled and suffocated with a plastic sheet/curtain, wrapped up in that same plastic wrapping and put into a rocking chair by the window of the attic. So much for letting the nice girl survive.
The next nicest girl Jess (Olivia Hussey) is also the one with the biggest problems. She's pregnant and wants an abortion. Her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) is an angry pianist who wants her to keep the baby (before she got pregnant and desiring an abortion he was presumably a slightly less moody pianist) and is prepared to quit school so they can start that awkward little family. Peter is so angry that Jess ends up killing him with a fireplace poker when she's convinced he was the killer. (He wasn't. But he was angry enough to wreck a piano.) That's quite a bit of social commentary wrapped up in this relationship. For those who are convinced that slasher films have to follow certain rules it's hard to imagine one of them being that the one who survives the killing spree is pregnant and wants an abortion and ends up being left alone in the house with the killer at the end of the film. Not only does that violate the so-called "rules" of the subgenre, but it also violates a dozen "rules" of screenwriting. For that alone Black Christmas is a nice stick in the eye of the rules-hounds and screenwriting seminarians.
Now look at Peter and Jess again. Recognize them? At some point you've probably seen her as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. Also she played the Virgin Mary in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth. And Keir Dullea? Well, you might have seen him being stalked by a computer in Kubrick's 2001. That's right, Peter is better known as Dave. You'd think he'd be better at finding a killer and unplugging him, but no he's just good at smashing pianos angrily.
And then there are the other two sorority sisters, Phyl and Barb. Phyl is played by SCTV's Andrea Martin and Barb is played by Margot "Lois Lane" Kidder. Barb gets most of the best lines in this film. She has a long painful anecdote about seeing turtles doing it at the zoo and she tells the cops that the phone number at the sorority house is Fellatio 20880. The appropriately named Barb also comes out with the zinger "Darling, you can't rape a townie." Wow, that's pretty cold there, Barb. Barb is stabbed to death with a glass unicorn while a group of Christmas caroling children sing at the door, but it's a good bet Barb was too drunk to notice she was dead. Phyllis, on the other hand is quite sober when she goes upstairs to check on Barb and gets killed. It might have been better to also put her chubby boyfriend and his ridiculous jewfro out of everyone's misery.
The house mother of this crew is an old drunk nicknamed Mrs. Mac who used to be quite the floozie and now just hides whiskey in various locations all around the house. As you can imagine, she has to die in a particularly ingenious way with a crane hook.
As for Jess, she has the worst time of it as she is in the house alone with the killer and doesn't even know it. When she finally gets the word that the killer has been calling from inside the house the whole time it's still pretty terrifying even though we already know that to be the case.

On the fifth day of Christmas Herman Melville gave to me...a very serious Ahab character.
The white knight of the film is Lt. Kenneth Fuller played by the great John Saxon who would go on to play another police Lieutenant in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Saxon brings a sense of earnestness and reassurance to the story. He's not so much an Ahab as an Ishmael. Once he's on the case you think maybe the girls have a chance. But then, they don't but it's not really Fuller's fault.

If you're looking for a genuine fright fest and don't want to deal with blood and gore, then Black Christmas is a good bet. Sure, there are a lot of funny aspects to something this old, but on the other hand the film is still revolutionary compared to the relatively conservative attitudes (both aesthetic and social) that are enshrined in more contemporary fare. At any rate, the juxtaposition of a happy holiday with brutal horror is another thing that we really owe to Black Christmas which paved the way not only for so many Christmas themed horror films but also a slew of other holiday slasher films like My Bloody Valentine, April Fool's Day, Prom Night, Slay-bor Day, etc.

Special Edition Bonus Material

1. 12 Days of Black Christmas (2006)
Written and Directed by Dan Duffin
John Saxon narrates this short history about the process of making Black Christmas and its place in horror film history. The script was based on a series of killings in Montreal. Clark did the film as an exercise in formal experimentation. Could you make film where you never see the killer and which lacks the typical kind of resolution you get elsewhere? Could it work? The live interviews included here are the edited versions of the interviews with Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder and Art Hindle that are included separately along with interviews with John Saxon, Lynne Griffin, Doug McGrath (who played Sgt. Nash), art director Karen Bromley. Also making an appearance is cameraman Bert Dunk, who was responsible for much of the POV shooting that made this such an innovative film. Carl Zittrer notes how Bob Clark asked for less scoring and the overall effect is that's it a quieter film that doesn't give away too much or overdetermine the direction of the film.

2. "Uncovered" Sound Scenes
A. Trellis Climb -- In this sound mix you can hear the conversations inside the house more clearly while the killer climbs the trellis.
B. Final pan
Billy (the killer) can be clearly heard giggling in the final series of shots that pan about the house where Jess is sleeping off the stress of the terror ride. It's pretty damn creepy.
I don't know if these scenes add much.

3. Midnight Q&A
Taped after a midnight screening of Black Christmas at the Nuart in Santa Monica, California in December 2004 this series of audience questions features composer Carl Zittrer, John Saxon and Bob Clark. Clark and his son were killed in a head on collision with a drunk driver in April 2007.
Clark mentions that the remake is in the works that will go deeper into the question of the background of the killer, Billy and his sister Agnes who he mentions in his ramblings.
Saxon's part originally went to Edmond O'Brien because Saxon had a scheduling conflict but O'Brien was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and had to be let go and luckily Saxon was available again.

4. Interviews
Olivia Hussey
Black Christmas I took because I had just given birth to my first child and I'd never done a scary film...
These interviews are a bit rough--the interviewer isn't the smoothest one I've ever heard--but I think the relative unpolished aspect of them gives them a genuineness that is missing from the more packaged making of things that are usually attached as special features. It's nice getting a retrospective look at a film from people who haven't completely disowned it. Hussey has some good points about how the mystery of not knowing is scarier than films that show and tell everything.
Margot Kidder
"When you did horror movies you sort of thought nobody would see them..."
Margot Kidder sitting poolside and recounting the days of being young and Canadian and struggling as an actor.
"As young people we were a lot looser than you guys are."
True enough. I like the things Kidder has to say about career advice. It's all surprisingly lucid.
Art Hindle
Hindle, who played Clare's boyfriend has some of the best memories of the film. He apparently used his own coat in the film and still has it. The interviewers, though, seem like barely competent and overeager fanboys.