Black Christmas

Review

This movie is a piece of horror history, being the first great modern slasher. Yea the movie is basic in plot and it has a lot of the horror tropes that are mocked relentlessly these days but this movie truly was the foundation of an entire genre that hinged on the formula it built with tropes that it established.

The movie is about a sorority who is getting ready to head out for Christmas vacation, they keep receiving disturbing and perverted phone calls from an unknown person and finally on the day of Christmas break one of the girls goes missing. The movie follows Jess who is trying to figure out what happened to her missing friend while also fighting with her boyfriend about getting an abortion. The movie concludes with a final girl circuit throughout the house after they realize that the killer has been inside the house this whole time. During this chase, Jess’ boyfriend enters the house and Jess assumes that he is the unknown killer and finishes him off herself. The ending reveals that the killer wasn’t her boyfriend and is still inside the house calling out for ‘Agnes’.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to like this movie this much, as much as I enjoy slashers these days its more of the iconography or the gore that I find interest in. This is due to the lack of story that most slashers have, just being ‘Group of teens in this location gets picked off one by one by a likely unknown killer only for there to be one girl left who runs in fear until she wins or dies’. This movie though has a really interesting story and a really cool disturbing atmosphere that supports it.

There’s no build-up to Billy’s presence, he’s there from the start and clearly has been a problem since even before this movie started. This lets the atmosphere be tense from the beginning instead of having the awkward build-up that most slashers, even ones I really like, have while we wait for the killer to actually start killing.

Even before he kills, the phone calls he leaves are very disturbing and really set me on edge listening to this insane man masturbate and rant on the phone. I really like the use of phones in this movie, from the beginning the sound of a phone ringing sets you on edge as you wonder whether it’s another call from Billy or if it’s someone else.

The fact that he’s in the house from the beginning is so cool and so creepy and watching his POV as he stalks the girls throughout the house is so horrifying but effective.

I love his creepy fucking murder den that simultaneously gives you insight into his psyche and yet still leaves you with more questions about his motives. I think this movie gives just enough explanation for the audience to feel satisfied but keeps enough hidden for us to not be able to find any sort of ‘justification’ or real closure as to why he did it.

I liked that the police weren’t completely inept and that the Sargent actually listened when the sorority girls came to them even when other officers didn’t give them the time of day, it was quite refreshing for a horror movie.

Honestly, the biggest shocker of the movie was how it handled the abortion plot-line and honestly Jess in general. I really liked the fact that she was so strong-willed about getting the abortion even when her boyfriend tried every single manipulative tactic to try and prevent her from getting it. Part of me expected her to eventually cave to him, especially considering it’s a movie from the 70s and a plot-line like this would still be controversial to this day. The fact that she kept to her wants and even asserted that it was her choice to make and not his was surprising and I really appreciated it.

Another thing I appreciated about this plot point was the fact that the character that wanted an abortion is the one who lives through the whole tragedy. A lot of horror falls victim to purity culture, asserting that the only way to be safe from peril is to be celibate, to the point that this trope has been made fun of since all the way back in the 90s. This movie despite being one of the first doesn’t play into this, with the final girl not only being sexually active but also pregnant and considering an abortion. This is a large amount of ‘sins’ for a character to commit and to still get away in the end, even to modern slasher standards. I think it really makes for a compelling message saying that the value of a woman’s life isn’t equal to her purity but instead should just be treasured as any human life would. This is a message that’s very contrary to the movies that follow it and yet it’s executed exceptionally well.

As for Jess as a character, I really liked her. She seemed so realistic with how scared she was and even when she was helping the police she didn’t immediately randomly become this ‘badass girlboss’ she remained a scared sorority girl which I think made her more compelling. She made stupid decisions because this is the 70s and serials killers were barely a thing in the US, the first one being in 1961. She wasn’t overly smart about her horror movie choices nor was she brave, but that was okay because if she was either of those things she wouldn’t still be the character of the scared sorority girl whose probably never heard of a murder happening near her. I think it makes her ending decision of killing her boyfriend more impactful and more understandable because she’s just desperate to survive knowing that all her friends have been killed and it’s the first time she’s ever considered being in a kill or be killed situation with her choice cementing her as a strong female lead if you hadn’t gotten that from her abortion story-line.

I think this movie is surprisingly progressive being the first slasher movie ever and even before that, a movie from the 70s. You can see where other slashers took inspiration from this movie but honestly I wish they took a bit more because this movie is so excellent. This movie understands horror to it’s core, it’s creepy, it’s disturbing, it has a good amount of blood considering censorship at the time and it had me feeling super unsettled the whole way through. Not only is the movie a good horror though, it’s actually surprisingly funny, there’s a lot of sex and alcohol jokes in it and a good amount of them land, including the running gag of the Sorority Mother hiding alcohol in literally every spot possible, which is objectively hilarious. I would definitely say that this is a must watch for anyone who cares about horror at all, it’s literally so good.