Welcome, girls and boys, to the second day of my War on Christmas 2016. Between now and the night Santa came back, I’m going to view and review as many Christmas-themed horror movies as I can. Because I’m all about the Christmas cheer...and fear.
Black Christmas [1974] might not be the first slasher movie, but it is rightly praised as pivotal in the development of the genre. It was directed by Bob Clark, whose other Christmas movie was a little film called A Christmas Story, and written by Roy Moore. The cast includes Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon and Andrea Martin. From the Internet Movie Database:
During their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stalked by a stranger.
That synopsis isn’t even good enough for government work, but, to tell you more, I have to activate the warning system.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s the Christmas break. Sorority sisters, their house mother and boyfriends are getting ready to head home or wherever. Except for the heavy-drinking Barb [Kidder] who’s been ditched by her family. Most of the other girls are in good spirits, save for Jess [Hussey] who is dealing with some personal issues. As they engage in their pre-Christmas events and parties, the sorority sisters are troubled by strange anonymous phone calls.
The calls are coming from someone named “Billy,” who we never see clearly. Nor do we ever find out what his deal is. We do know he’s insane and murderous. He’s killed a high-school girl off stage and now he’s getting to work on the sorority house.
His first victim is a girl whose father is picking her up for the holidays. She’s not his last victim, but this movie’s body count is surprisingly low for a slasher film. None of the killer’s murders are particularly inventive. But, with the gore kept to a minimum, they add to the mounting suspense.
During the frantic search for the missing teenager and the missing sorority sister - the first is in the woods, the second is in the sorority house attic - Jess’s problems are also playing out. She’s pregnant, but planning to have an abortion. Her perpetually on the verge of a breakdown boyfriend David [Dullea] has just flunked his concert piano playing midterm. He wants to leave school, marry Jess and raise their child. Jess? Not so much. In fact, not at all. Her goals don’t include a husband, a kid or for that matter, continuing her relationship with David.
Given the slain teen - whose body has been found - and the missing college girl, Lt. Ken Fuller [Saxon] is taking the anonymous phone calls seriously. However, tracing a phone call in 1974 was far from easy. By the time the police figure out the calls are coming from a second phone inside the sorority house, Jess is all alone fending off a killer.
David has been the prime suspect since he made a drunken phone call to Jess earlier that evening and since the police discovered he had smashed up a piano at the rehearsal hall. Jess is hiding in the basement with a fireplace poker when David breaks a basement window to come looking for her. Thinking he’s the killer, Jess beats him to the death. When the cops find her, she’s in shock.
Up to this point, I had been loving this movie. That’s when it all went south due to terrible police work.
The police don’t clear the house, so they don’t find the murdered sorority sister or the house mother in the attic. They would have found “Billy” there as well.
When the dead girl’s father collapses with a heart attack, they all leave the house to get him to a hospital. Let me put this another way...
They leave a heavily-medicated Jess lying on her bed in the house. Because they won’t be able to question her for several hours and, hey, what could possibly go wrong?
Yes, they think the killer is dead. But what about making sure the heavily-medicated young woman in shock is not left alone to awaken in the same place where she saw her friends slaughtered and where she killed her boyfriend?
Billy leaves the attic and the credits roll. I think we can assume Jess never wakes up
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
I mostly love this movie. It doesn’t need buckets of blood to keep the suspense and tension high. Hussey and Dullea are not very good in their roles, but Kidder, Martin and Saxon all shine. There are some good supporting players as well.
Steve Martin, the actor and not the newspaper reporter who almost got killed by Godzilla, told Hussey that Black Christmas was one of his favorite movies and that he had seen it over two dozen times. The movie was also an inspiration for John Carpenter’s Halloween. Not too shabby.
Black Christmas deserves respect. I enjoyed the movie enough that I’ll watch it again. You should watch it again. Just make sure you are watching the original and not 2006 remake. The remake adds background details for the killer, thus spoiling a major element of the original. Bad move that.
Black Christmas [1974] might not be the first slasher movie, but it is rightly praised as pivotal in the development of the genre. It was directed by Bob Clark, whose other Christmas movie was a little film called A Christmas Story, and written by Roy Moore. The cast includes Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon and Andrea Martin. From the Internet Movie Database:
During their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stalked by a stranger.
That synopsis isn’t even good enough for government work, but, to tell you more, I have to activate the warning system.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s the Christmas break. Sorority sisters, their house mother and boyfriends are getting ready to head home or wherever. Except for the heavy-drinking Barb [Kidder] who’s been ditched by her family. Most of the other girls are in good spirits, save for Jess [Hussey] who is dealing with some personal issues. As they engage in their pre-Christmas events and parties, the sorority sisters are troubled by strange anonymous phone calls.
The calls are coming from someone named “Billy,” who we never see clearly. Nor do we ever find out what his deal is. We do know he’s insane and murderous. He’s killed a high-school girl off stage and now he’s getting to work on the sorority house.
His first victim is a girl whose father is picking her up for the holidays. She’s not his last victim, but this movie’s body count is surprisingly low for a slasher film. None of the killer’s murders are particularly inventive. But, with the gore kept to a minimum, they add to the mounting suspense.
During the frantic search for the missing teenager and the missing sorority sister - the first is in the woods, the second is in the sorority house attic - Jess’s problems are also playing out. She’s pregnant, but planning to have an abortion. Her perpetually on the verge of a breakdown boyfriend David [Dullea] has just flunked his concert piano playing midterm. He wants to leave school, marry Jess and raise their child. Jess? Not so much. In fact, not at all. Her goals don’t include a husband, a kid or for that matter, continuing her relationship with David.
Given the slain teen - whose body has been found - and the missing college girl, Lt. Ken Fuller [Saxon] is taking the anonymous phone calls seriously. However, tracing a phone call in 1974 was far from easy. By the time the police figure out the calls are coming from a second phone inside the sorority house, Jess is all alone fending off a killer.
David has been the prime suspect since he made a drunken phone call to Jess earlier that evening and since the police discovered he had smashed up a piano at the rehearsal hall. Jess is hiding in the basement with a fireplace poker when David breaks a basement window to come looking for her. Thinking he’s the killer, Jess beats him to the death. When the cops find her, she’s in shock.
Up to this point, I had been loving this movie. That’s when it all went south due to terrible police work.
The police don’t clear the house, so they don’t find the murdered sorority sister or the house mother in the attic. They would have found “Billy” there as well.
When the dead girl’s father collapses with a heart attack, they all leave the house to get him to a hospital. Let me put this another way...
They leave a heavily-medicated Jess lying on her bed in the house. Because they won’t be able to question her for several hours and, hey, what could possibly go wrong?
Yes, they think the killer is dead. But what about making sure the heavily-medicated young woman in shock is not left alone to awaken in the same place where she saw her friends slaughtered and where she killed her boyfriend?
Billy leaves the attic and the credits roll. I think we can assume Jess never wakes up
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
I mostly love this movie. It doesn’t need buckets of blood to keep the suspense and tension high. Hussey and Dullea are not very good in their roles, but Kidder, Martin and Saxon all shine. There are some good supporting players as well.
Steve Martin, the actor and not the newspaper reporter who almost got killed by Godzilla, told Hussey that Black Christmas was one of his favorite movies and that he had seen it over two dozen times. The movie was also an inspiration for John Carpenter’s Halloween. Not too shabby.
Black Christmas deserves respect. I enjoyed the movie enough that I’ll watch it again. You should watch it again. Just make sure you are watching the original and not 2006 remake. The remake adds background details for the killer, thus spoiling a major element of the original. Bad move that.
Remember how I wrote about how much I enjoyed Silent Night, Deadly Night [1984]? That’s how much I dislike Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 [1987], the cheap-ass sequel that lifts almost half of its 88-minute running time from the first movie.
The movie is directed by Lee Harry, his first as a director. Most of his work was as an editor and he would only direct one more film and one short. It’s written by Harry and three other people, none of whom were involved in the first film. Here’s the IMDb synopsis:
The now-adult Ricky talks to a psychiatrist about how he became a murderer after his brother, Billy, died, which leads back to Mother Superior.
Mother Superior was the abusive nun who ignored Billy’s childhood trauma and added to his mental instability. But we’ll get back to her after I post the usual warnings...
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
In fairness to Harry, the producers of the “sequel” wanted him to simply re-cut the original movie and add a couple scenes with the adult Ricky. The idea was that the original movie was nothing more than the ravings of a lunatic. Harry insisted on doing more, even though he had a tiny budget and just ten days to shoot this movie.
The adult Ricky is played by Eric Freeman, one of the worst actors of all time. He has 11 credits to his name, mostly for appearances in TV shows. He also changed the spelling of his first name several times. Go figure.
Freeman is the only memorable cast member. His wild-eyed rages are actually comical. When he shoots a suburbanite carrying trash cans to the curb, he yells “Garbage Day!” with such crazy intensity that the scene has become an Internet meme.
Once we get through the footage from the first film, Ricky talks to the asylum psychiatrist about the other killings that brought the young man to his incarceration. The indication is that Ricky will be facing death if he’s not found insane.
This movie does boast three interesting killings. Ricky shoves an umbrella clean through a loan shark’s leg breaker and opens it up. He kills an arrogant young man by sticking jumper cables into the
jerk’s mouth and turning up the juice. Then he uses the vehicle’s antenna to strangle a witness.
Ricky breaks out of the asylum, chalking up a few more kills as he does so. He kills a Salvation Army worker for his Santa suit, and then goes after Mother Superior. She’s retired after a stroke that put her in a wheelchair.
Mother Superior is defiant, but she still loses her head. The cops arrive and shoot Ricky full of lead. But, don’t fret. He survives and returns in 1989's Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! Just not played by Eric Freeman.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
Three interesting murders and the over-the-top performance of the lead actor isn’t enough to earn this movie my recommendation. It’s my guess that, if you do some searching on YouTube or other video sites, you’ll find clips of those killings as well as examples of the lead actor’s thespian stylings.
My 2016 War on Christmas continues in a day or two. Among the films awaiting me are the remaining three movies in the Silent Night, Deadly Night series, the remake of the original movie, Saint Nick, Rare Exports and something called Two Front Teeth. It is truly the happiest time of the year.
© 2016 Tony Isabella
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
In fairness to Harry, the producers of the “sequel” wanted him to simply re-cut the original movie and add a couple scenes with the adult Ricky. The idea was that the original movie was nothing more than the ravings of a lunatic. Harry insisted on doing more, even though he had a tiny budget and just ten days to shoot this movie.
The adult Ricky is played by Eric Freeman, one of the worst actors of all time. He has 11 credits to his name, mostly for appearances in TV shows. He also changed the spelling of his first name several times. Go figure.
Freeman is the only memorable cast member. His wild-eyed rages are actually comical. When he shoots a suburbanite carrying trash cans to the curb, he yells “Garbage Day!” with such crazy intensity that the scene has become an Internet meme.
Once we get through the footage from the first film, Ricky talks to the asylum psychiatrist about the other killings that brought the young man to his incarceration. The indication is that Ricky will be facing death if he’s not found insane.
This movie does boast three interesting killings. Ricky shoves an umbrella clean through a loan shark’s leg breaker and opens it up. He kills an arrogant young man by sticking jumper cables into the
jerk’s mouth and turning up the juice. Then he uses the vehicle’s antenna to strangle a witness.
Ricky breaks out of the asylum, chalking up a few more kills as he does so. He kills a Salvation Army worker for his Santa suit, and then goes after Mother Superior. She’s retired after a stroke that put her in a wheelchair.
Mother Superior is defiant, but she still loses her head. The cops arrive and shoot Ricky full of lead. But, don’t fret. He survives and returns in 1989's Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! Just not played by Eric Freeman.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
Three interesting murders and the over-the-top performance of the lead actor isn’t enough to earn this movie my recommendation. It’s my guess that, if you do some searching on YouTube or other video sites, you’ll find clips of those killings as well as examples of the lead actor’s thespian stylings.
My 2016 War on Christmas continues in a day or two. Among the films awaiting me are the remaining three movies in the Silent Night, Deadly Night series, the remake of the original movie, Saint Nick, Rare Exports and something called Two Front Teeth. It is truly the happiest time of the year.
© 2016 Tony Isabella
What, no "Santa's Slay"?!
ReplyDeleteI reviewed that movie in January: http://tonyisabella.blogspot.com/2015/01/terror-times-three-santas-slay.html
ReplyDeleteExcellent! I love this goofy movie.
ReplyDelete