Entry Fourteen: Black Christmas (1974)

Black Christmas (1974)

Dir: Bob Clark

"If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl...IT'S ON TOO TIGHT!"

The late Bob Clark had an interesting cinematic career; not only did he direct this film and future Basement of Sleaze entrants Shock Waves, Deathdream and Porky's, he was also responsible for A Christmas Story (yes, the one that TBS plays on continuous loop through December) and, um...Baby Geniuses.  Next time you're family forces you to watch little Ralphie worry about receiving a Red Ryder BB Gun for the umpteenth time, remember that the same director made this holiday movie, in which an obscene phone caller talks about Margot Kidder's "fat cunt" and implores her to "suck my juicy cock."

It's Christmas break at the sorority house, and the sisters are dealing with obscene phone calls by "the moaner." while also trying to cope with their own, individual issues.  Chain-smoking, hard-drinking leader Barb (Kidder, The Amittyville Horror, Superman I-III) is having family problems, new pledge Jess (Olivia Hussey, Romeo and Juliet, Turkey Shoot) is pregnant and wants an abortion against the wishes of her musician boyfriend, Peter (Keir Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Clare (Lynn Griffin, Strange Brew) is a rotting corpse, having been suffocated with plastic wrap by an unseen assailant and hidden away in her room.  While the missing Clare is searched for by her father and sorority sisters, police Lieutenant Fuller (motherfucking John Saxon) searches for a missing 13 year-old girl.  When evidence is discovered that links the two cases, Saxon orders a wire tap placed on the sorority house, leading to a tense scene in which it's discovered that the obscene phone calls are, of course, coming from within the sorority house.  Eventually, Barb, Jess and Phyl (Andrea Martin from SCTV) are stalked through the house and dispatched one-by-one by the mysterious killer.

Black Christmas is often credited as the first true "slasher" movie, and while it does introduce some of the soon-to-be-cliche hallmarks of that genre (young, female victims, POV stalking scenes, a "final girl") and was certainly a big influence on John  Carpenter's Halloween, Clark's stylish use of shadow and light and the jarring, violent setpiece murders remind me more of the giallo thrillers of Dario Argento.  This movie also introduced the now-tired "the caller is inside the house!" five years before the far more famous When a Stranger Calls.  The whole cast is good, but Kidder and Dullea are standouts as the bitchy sorority queen and volatile, artsy boyfriend, respectively.  The "twist" ending (which I won't spoil) is totally out-of-left-field.  This is a good one, folks; pop it in instead of watching White Christmas for the umpteenth time again this year.