Black Christmas: See the Original Before the Remake

I always feel the same way around Christmas. My heart swells with love, I cherish in telling my relatives how much I appreciate them, and I develop an urge to see sorority girls being murdered while in a state of undress. 'Tis the season. You may think that Black Christmas is just another ditzy slasher, but you would be gravely mistaken. Some claim that the film is responsible for the spate of mindless "dead teenager" flicks that would soon follow. In a sense, it is responsible for those films, but it should never be grouped with them. Black Christmas is a classy, suspenseful horror yarn that goes about its business with panache and systematic propriety.

A remake of Black Christmas will hit theaters on the 25^th. My lungs are collapsing in anticipation. How director Bob Clark could approve of such an inadvertence is anyone's guess. Speaking of Clark, what happened to the guy? How does one go from helming poised horror classics to helming Baby Geniuses and Baby Geniuses 2? His long-hidden talents are on full display in Black Christmas. The camera angles are crafty, the imagery is handsomely silken, and the slow pace never flatlines. I'm sure that many goregoers find the film's midsection to be trying, but I have an enrooted taste for aged cinema. Not to sound snobby, but...well, I am snobby. Nevermind.

Oh, the plot? A deranged nutbag hides in the attic of a sorority house and makes obscene (really obscene) phone calls to the pretties downstairs. Of course, he proceeds to kill a few of them. The fact that the psychopath is salted away in the attic is supposed to be a shock of some sort, but we see the unhinged fellow creep into the house in the opening frames. That's one of the very few mottlings that smudge the surface of this holiday horrorshow. It tries to be a whodunit, but again, we already know who the culprit is. It's a random nobody. Perhaps the impending revamp has a divergent plot device up its sleeve.

The cast is exemplary. Olivia Hussey headlines the troupe of sorority sisters as Jess. The ageless Hussey is simply foxy here, and although she fumbles every odd line (she doesn't know how to answer a phone), her performance is mostly believable. John Saxon plays a cop. Imagine that! He is anchored as usual, somehow rendering a three-dimensional character with modest screen time. Margot Kidder steals the scenery as the sloshed, invidious Barb. She supplies the film's comic relief with charged gameness. Keir Dullea is serviceable as Jess's damaged boyfriend. He is funny, tragic, and unbalanced all at once. I adore the scene where he destroys his piano in a fit of rage.

Black Christmas is thick with suspense. Admittedly, some of the tension wears off with repeated viewings, but the scares are very effective if you aren't familiar with them. The phone calls that our resident dingbat makes are genuinely disturbing. They were recorded by splicing different voices together. This was one of the first "creepy phone call" genre gems. It predates the original When a Stranger Calls by 5 years. It predates the "groundbreaking" Scream by 21 years. Younger fright fans may not get the film's significance in the annals of horror history. Black Christmas has heavily influenced every slasher since its germination, and that includes the iconic Halloween.

Here is a list of other Christmas-themed terror tales. None of them are as good as Black Christmas, but they're worth checking out if you're a serious horror buff/geek.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (and its four sequels)
Christmas Evil
Elves
Silent Night, Bloody Night
Jack Frost
Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman
Psycho Santa
Santa's Slay
Christmas Season Massacre
Santa Claws
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
One Hell of a Christmas
Don't Open 'Til Christmas
Satan Claus